In recent years, many questions have been raised as to how active psychoanalysts should be in participating in the broadcast media for lay audiences. Naturally the problems and advantages will vary from section to section. The Newsletter felt that the experiences of an individual analyst would be helpful in deciding how to deal with this issue.
For the past several years, Alan Bruce Cooper, M.D., a member of the American Psychoanalytic Association's Committee on Public Information, has been a regular participant on a radio talk show on KTRH, Houston, called, “Ask Ruth.” The Program, inaugurated six years ago, was discontinued in December 1979. “Ask Ruth” lasted from 10:30 to 11:00 AM, had a question and answer format and almost always had medical specialists as guests. “Ruth” was the hostess, Ruth Fred, a psychiatric social worker who was a well known and well respected member of the mental health community and a former director of the Jewish Family Service Center in Houston. Dr. Cooper, once or twice a month, spent the half hour answering telephone questions about mental health problems.
Some of his experiences may be of interest to psychoanalysts either contemplating serving in a similar capacity or wondering about the effect of such a role. Dr. Cooper noted, for instance, that he hardly ever received a referral based upon the broadcasts. This, in general, was the experience of the other program participants. Of particular concern to Dr. Cooper and his colleagues was the question of transference and some parameters which arose in relation to the media activities.
Dr. Cooper felt that the guests' anonymity could be maintained to the degree that they wished. He noted that on a few occasions a patient would listen for the show. On other occasions, Ruth indirectly made a few personal remarks about his family or background and at times they would enter the treatment situation. In one instance, interference occurred in the case of a patient with an intense erotic transference that was being “worked through.” When the patient learned through the program that Dr. Cooper had a wife and children, strong feelings of loss, abandonment, and rage ensued. Dr. Cooper adds, “Ultimately a mourning reaction set in with much withdrawal and isolation and it was quite a few months before she began to reapproach the earlier material. Although some difficulty would have been encountered in the ‘working through,‘ I suspect it would not have been this painful or stormy.” Dr. Cooper noted that two other such revelations have occurred and it made him wonder if more subtle material of a less conspicuous nature might not get into the main stream of the analytic work but nonetheless be a factor in an analysis.
When asked to give his general impressions, Dr. Cooper said, “My overall feeling from these last six years or so of this type of exposure has been that radio is perceived by the listener as a one-to-one exchange. It is a most fitting vehicle for our theoretical position. I believe television is too ”cool“ a medium for a practicing analyst to use in the area in which he practices. I have refused several offers of television interviews and panel type shows for this reason. On a number of occasions I have been asked to give press material on mental health issues. As we have noted in the Committee on Public Information, one tends to be misquoted often, and the newspaper people consistently select from interviews. They are invariably injudicious. One can rarely proofread prior to publication, and corrections and retractions, when provided, are usually printed in an obscure place much later.”