Response to Marvin Krims's “Correspondence Between an Elizabethan Woman and Her Psychoanalyst: Beatrice on the Couch”

“Beatrice on the Couch” is described as a work of psychoanalytic fiction. Is there any other kind of psychoanalysis? To the extent that the patient “chooses” her memories, which is to say she remembers selectively, she creates her history and, subsequently, her analysis. Or we can view the analysis as co-constructed by patient and analyst. Or the analyst can, as Dr. Krims says and in fact does, “find a way to construct a past for you, not necessarily your actual past, but close enough to help you make some sense of what happened then that affects your present.” We know that often case vignettes are made up, or condensed from a number of incidents, to demonstrate or prove a point the analyst wishes to make. The issue of concealing the patient's identity in presenting a case material has famously led to interesting distortions and “variations” of fact.

Dr. Krims takes on the formidable job of creating his epistolary psychoanalysis from zero, in the sense that there exists neither a single actual session nor, in fact, a full history/biography of his putative patient. (Beatrice does not remember her childhood or her parents.) Furthermore, there is an enormous cultural gap, made deceptively small by the fact that both he and his patient speak English and are both part of, participants in, classical Western culture. He knows his own mind and knows his patient's as well. There is much affection for her and there must be even more hidden connection, for him to immerse himself so deeply in this particular Beatrice and present her to us in such a fully imagined way.