As we tumble into the 21st century, the psychoanalyst in the United States is consigned in the public perception to the role of therapist for the few. The eminence, the bright sun of Sigmund Freud has dimmed. Yet psychoanalysis has the experience of having been a momentous and powerful cultural force. Freud not only created the innovative one-to-one psychotherapeutic relationship but, through his understanding of childhood sexuality, the unconscious, transference, dreams, the structured subjective life, helped lock into place the stage set of Modernism on which a social and historical era played out. Freud wrote extensively on issues of sociology, group behavior, and religion; and in this Freud was influenced by his time. Totem and Taboo could not have been written without the developing discipline of anthropological fieldwork; The Future of an Illusion and Moses and Monotheism existed in the weltanschauung of Modernism, which sought to replace faith and religion with reason and science. Beyond the Pleasure Principle grappled with the carnage of World War I. Can psychoanalysts once again use that wide-angle lens? And, can psychoanalysts speak and be listened to on the issues of public debate? I think we must.
So I inquired of four authors to turn about the crystal of public intellectual in the light of psychoanalysis. Eli Zaretsky brings the historical perspective. Stating that, “I would define psychoanalysis…broadly, to include those with a professional sensitivity to unconscious mental forces, and especially resistance.” Psychoanalysts—narrowly and broadly defined—for decades, engaged with cultural-political issues. Zaretsky offers an answer, at the end of his contribution, to his questions, “Given the role that psychoanalysis played in the 20th century public sphere, how did it come to be marginalized?” And can it regain its influence?
Prudy Gourguechon maintains that every “ordinary analyst” can, if she exercises intellectual and professional discipline, with social media be a public intellectual.
Coming at the problem as action on the world stage, Vamik Volkan discusses his third career, as a political psychoanalyst, in which he “headed an interdisciplinary team…that conducted multi-year unofficial diplomatic dialogues between Americans and Soviets, Russians and Estonians, Croats and Bosnian Muslims…and studied post-revolution or postwar societies….”
Sally Weintrobe discusses her work in England on psychoanalysis and climate change, work that produced a conference resulting in an edited book and a lecture hall packed with scientists eager to learn about “the importance of a psychoanalytic perspective on communicating about climate change.”
As public intellectuals, we have a history and a future to consider.
Michael Slevin, M.A., M.S.W., a former TAP editor, graduated as academic associate from the Baltimore Washington Institute for Psychoanalysis, where he trained in the Adult Psychotherapy Training Program. He works at Jewish Community Services and has a private practice.