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May 15, 1972. THE PURSUIT OF THE IDEAL PSYCHOANALYTIC EXPERIENCE OR FACTORS THAT PRECLUDE AN IDEAL PSYCHOANALYTIC EXPERIENCE. (Freud Anniversary Lecture.) Sylvan Keiser, M.D.
The author compares the ideal psychoanalyst to the physicist who searches for infinity: the fact that he knows infinity is unattainable does not hinder him from approaching it with keen curiosity. If the harmony that develops in analysis between the internal and external worlds could be maintained, an ideal psychoanalytic experience might be achieved.
Resistance to the acceptance of the unconscious is found in the attitudes of psychiatrists, psychoanalytic students, and in patients undergoing re-analysis. This attitude is also seen in popular literature with its simplistic solutions to complex psychological problems. Nonacceptance of the unconscious may be caused by its identification with the idea of death. Dr. Keiser wonders if the wish fulfilment of the unconscious means unrestricted hedonism with eventual self-destruction, and if acceptance of an id in our unconscious negates all controls observed by the ego and superego, thus leading to self-destruction.
In considering cultural and socioeconomic patterns, the analyst should not forget that specific individual unconscious determinants are always present. Dr. Keiser contrasted the maturational differences between children from wealthy and poor families as they pass through the psychosexual phases of development. Anal and urethral fantasies emerge in both cases. In a large home, a child can more easily deny awareness of the primal scene; by contrast the poor child may be repeatedly exposed to the primal scene, which