An interview with Janet Malcolm, author of the two-part article on psychoanalysis published in the New Yorker magazine of November 24 and December 1, 1980
Newsletter: Your article was written as a “profile”—but profile of what? A certain analyst (Aaron Green)? A certain profession (the “impossible profession” of psychoanalysis) ? Or a certain professional organization (a psychoanalytic institute) ?
Malcolm: Journalism gets at the general by attending to the particular. In writing about one particular analyst and his institute, I hoped to shed some light on the profession of psychoanalysis in general. The man I call Aaron Green is obviously not a typical analyst. I doubt if any analyst is typical, but Aaron Green may be less typical than most because of his extreme orthodoxy—his pursuit of the ideal of pure analysis that Charles Brenner personifies.
Newsletter: I am not going to ask you to identify Aaron Green, but tell me—some of my colleagues got the impression that he is not a real person, that he is, rather, a composite of several. Is it true?
Malcolm: Aaron Green is a real person who has been disguised to safeguard his analytic incognito, and to spare him unwanted publicity in professional circles.
Newsletter: Did you interview or try to reach any of the analysts whose work or influence Aaron emphasized, such as Kernberg, Kohut, or Brenner? Except for mentioning Kohut, you give the impression that psychoanalysis exists only or mainly in New York. Nothing about the Midwest, for example—Chicago, Topeka. Is this your impression, too?
Malcolm: Rumors periodically reach us here in New York of things happening in other parts of the country, but we have great difficulty believing them. My piece, naturally, reflects the local grandiosity. No, I did not interview Kernberg, Kohut, or Brenner.
Newsletter: Have you had any reaction from your readers? Analysts? Others? I hear Karl Menninger wrote you a complimentary letter. How do you feel about the reaction to your article in general?
Malcolm: I have received a great many letters and telephone calls from analysts, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, clergymen, analyst's widows and ex-wives, analytic patients and former analytic patients, mothers of people in analysis, professors, lawyers, medical doctors, actors, publishers, and writers. They wrote to say that they liked the piece, which pleased me very much, of course. Along with Dr. Menninger's wonderful letter, I was honored by letters from such distinguished members of your association as Paul Dewald, John Gedo, Paul Ornstein, Daryl de Bell, James Grotstein, and Samuel Lipton. The magazine tells me that there have been a number of requests for permission to use the article for teaching purposes. In time, I imagine, the negative views of the article will be expressed as well.
Newsletter: If you wrote it again, would you change it in any way, and why?
Malcolm: Knopf is bringing out a book version of the article next fall, and this has given me the “second chance” that every writer wishes he had, to correct factual errors, make stylistic changes, and add new material. The new material in the book includes a discussion of termination and a chapter on some of the quandaries of therapy that analysts have pondered since the early days of psychoanalysis, with special reference to the writings of Ferenczi, Balint, Winnicott, and Kohut. Another change involves a controversial sentence in the article. It is the last line of the piece, which says that on parting from Aaron Green for the last time I had tears in my eyes. While some readers wrote to say that they found this ending moving and satisfying, others wrote to say that they were at a loss to understand how such a piece of mawkish banality had got into a serious and scholarly article? I have written a new ending for the book which I hope will satisfy everyone. I am satisfied with it myself. One further feature of the book is a Preface that explores some of my personal motives in writing the article.
Newsletter: How did you really come upon the idea of writing about psychoanalysis? Did your experience with creating Minuchin's Profile and that of family therapy have something to do with it?
Malcolm: The idea for an article about psychoanalysis grew out of a dinner party where I had the good fortune to meet Daniel Schwartz, who had just become the new head of the Austen Riggs Center. He had read my piece on Minuchin and egged me on to try writing about psychoanalysis. He made it sound so eminently plausible that I simply went ahead and did it.
Newsletter: Are you planning to follow up those two with other people or areas from the mental-health field? What would you like to write about next?
Malcolm: I was recently in San Francisco becoming acquainted with Selma Fraiberg's infant-parent program. I am fascinated by the whole field of “attachment.” My next article may be on this subject, but I'm still not sure how to go about it.
Newsletter: Your grasp and formulation of psychoanalytic literature, particularly Freud and his theory, is impressive. Have you had any previous experience, personal or educational, with psychoanalysis?
Malcolm: You are asking me, Have I been in analysis? And, of course, I have—for eight years, with the gifted New York analyst Theodore Jacobs.
Newsletter: How long did it take you to write the article? To collect your data?
Malcolm: If you count in the years of my analysis, as you should, the answer is ten years; and if you want to look at it from the Kleinian point of view, the answer is forty-six years.