Ever since Socrates, philosophers have struggled to find the right beginning to their exploration of the meaning of life. They believed that if they started at the right place with the right question, their inquiry would unfold naturally.
On an early Wednesday morning in May during the week of the spring meetings, I was part of a group of current and past members of a BOPS committee who met like philosophers embarking on an immensely complex challenge. We had been invited to spend two hours together in a focus group sponsored by the Strategic Marketing Subcommittee of the Public Information Committee to help define psychoanalysis for the public.
The Strategic Marketing Subcommittee organized six focus groups representing different constituencies within the membership of the American: the Board (our group), Council, Foundation, affiliates, psychotherapy associates, and child analysts. The focus groups were aimed at finding the right beginning and the right question about psychoanalysis that would show which were its essential qualities to be communicated to the public. A statement was needed that would carry a powerful meaning of what psychoanalysts do and who psychoanalysts are.
Glenn Good, chair of the Strategic Marketing Subcommittee, asked us several questions that were prepared with the assistance of marketing consultants. We were asked to give spontaneous responses. We were prepared to begin and eager to see where we ended up in two hours.
Glenn began with two questions: “When you think of psychoanalysis, what comes to mind?” and “What comes to mind when you think of psychoanalysis? — except this time answer as a member of the general public, not as an analyst.” As each of us spoke, we thought, listened, and interacted with each other. Glenn wrote phrases from our responses on a large pad of paper resting on an easel.
Glenn asked us another question. “You get a call from a reporter who tells you that psychoanalysis just died and asks if you would say a few words about psychoanalysis.” He also asked us to draw a picture of a person and create a story of that person speaking to an acquaintance at a party about how psychoanalysis helped him or her. He asked us to create another story of that person telling a friend who is in some kind of therapy about the value of psychoanalysis.
Some of the themes in our responses that Glenn wrote: satisfied patients, a therapy that changes people lives, the influence of psychoanalysis on child rearing, understanding the mind, misconceptions of psychoanalysis, and a painful lengthy process. The themes were familiar ones.
Photo by Michael Colman
After an hour, I felt that a group process had developed as we were interacting and thinking, but we were not getting where we needed to be. We were not describing the qualities within psychoanalysis that would reflect why we have devoted our lives to this field.
Then George Moraitis, a member of the focus group, made a few comments that helped bring things together and enabled us to develop some ideas that were far larger than the sum of the individual themes. He said, “To be honest, I don't hold much stock in the marketing of psychoanalysis. In fact I am annoyed by it. It is an effort directed toward superficiality and palatability that does a disservice to psychoanalysis.”
George's comments served as a catalyst to help me clarify some of my thoughts. I said that we were participating in developing a mass communication effort that appears impersonal about psychoanalysis, which is deeply personal. If this effort is to succeed, the paradox requires clarification.
As the discussion continued, we moved toward consensus. The challenge of a marketing effort is communicating that psychoanalysis deals with the depth and complexity of human experience. The meaning of psychoanalysis is the antithesis of superficiality and palatability. Psychoanalysis reflects the complexity of human experience, with emphasis on growth and change. Psychoanalysis demonstrates that given the opportunity, human beings can transform pain and suffering into creativity and joyous living. Psychoanalysts work as part of a process that embellishes hope and courage. Values of honesty and the dignity of human beings guide the work of psychoanalysts.
Psychoanalysts are trained to understand the profundity of human experience, the transformational power of understanding another person, and the presence of an evolving process in every moment of living. This knowledge influences psychoanalysts in every area of life. The continual involvement of psychoanalysts, not simply in their clinical work but also in their communities, is vital for their growth as psychoanalysts.
I believe that we cannot communicate what psychoanalysis is and what psychoanalysts do simply in objective positivistic terms. We need metaphors and a bit of poetry to describe this body of scientific knowledge.
I left with the impression that the members of the focus group clarified their thinking on the problem of communicating about psychoanalysis. The marketing project is necessary to help and challenge us to come up with some metaphors and poetry that will powerfully convey to the public and ourselves what we do and who we are.
Glenn Good reported that all of the groups felt that we need to learn to talk about psychoanalysis as our patients would, in concrete terms of its benefits. Good quoted one member of the associates' group, who said, “I want everyone to understand how energetic, forward thinking, down to earth, accessible, and relevant psychoanalytic thought and practice are to everyday life experience, such as sexuality, child rearing, romance, violence, hatred, creativity, the work place, and local and world events, and just how much it can free you and change you.”
The findings of the internal focus groups will be tested in external focus groups that will be selected based on the findings of the membership survey.
Melvin Bornstein, M.D., is an APsaA councilor-at-large and a training and supervising analyst at the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute, of which he is past president.