Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession

I had the good fortune to discover this book a full seven years after I terminated my rather long term psychotherapy which culminated in a classical analysis of at least several years. My analyst shared offices with Dr. Brenner, who features as a central figure in this book, and having read this, I can only interpret my experience with him as thousands of hours of evidence that he was a true and worthy disciple of the cheerful yet austere doctor whom Malcolm refers to as the "intransigent purist." Joseph Adelson in The New York Times Review of Books goes a bit over the line in paraphrasing: "Dr. Brenner takes the hardest of lines. Psychoanalysis is based upon inducing and interpreting the transference reaction. Anything that interferes with or distracts from it must be eschewed. Strictly. The analyst must maintain the most stringent incognito. Under no circumstances can he make known to the patient his opinions, values, interest or foibles, nor can he offer advice, criticism, reassurance or sympathy. If the analyst is late to a session, he must neither apologize nor explain why. He must attend - and make the patient attend - only to the thoughts, fantasies and feelings produced by his lateness. If the patient's child is gravely ill, the analyst should not express concern or sympathy. His task is limited to evoking and understanding the patient's reactions." He goes on to say that "this is a grim doctrine." On the contrary, I found it kind and accepting, or at least I found that my analyst was able to practice it that way. Frustrating, of course. But ultimately freeing in a way that a less austere approach might not be, leading to a clarity that might otherwise have been compromised. I suspect that much of the sense of grimness that analysts attribute to this purist perspective refers to grim abstinence on the part of the analyst. Certainly, it would be easier -- I would imagine -- to just act naturally, as one might at a party, to explain and indulge oneself and to engage in polite courtesies. This would certainly take a load off of the analyst -- it would be a lot less like work. Maintaining an accepting and encouraging attitude without recourse to these potential diversions is an exacting art. I came to appreciate the discipline most of all. Was my analysis a success? My symptoms are long since relieved. I'm happy with my life. How much of this do I attribute to analysis and how much to my own efforts (and good luck) away from the analyst's couch? I do not think I am supposed to be able to know that, but I find it hard to imagine how I could have worked through all I did and flowered in quite the way I have without that office and couch as workshop. And I find it hard not to admire and appreciate the way my analyst actively helped me in all of that hard work while keeping himself (mostly) out of it. This book was written over thirty years ago. Not knowing what has been going on inside the world of psychoanalysis since then, I could not say what has changed. There are other fascinating characters besides Brenner and his disciple Green (not his real name). I found the pioneering researcher of psychoanalysis and his drive to (tape) record sessions to be fascinating and admirable. I have read that findings from just this sort of research may have poured oil on the disputations as to therapeutic style, while identifying factors in the patient's or client's style and presentation which seem to have greater predictive value as to outcome. For various reasons, it has been said almost since this book was written that the golden age of psychoanalysis is long since over. The world does not have patience or money for long conversations where medications and brief interventions will suffice. If my experience has been an expensive anachronism, I consider it a gift and a luxury worth the time and price many times over. When I read this book, I find a window into something that can be that compelling a journey. Well done, Janet Malcolm.

Malcolm is one of the greatest literary journalists of the 20th century; the sober, magisterial yin to the Gonzo yang of Wolf and Thompson, she captures psychoanalysis from within as no one has before. An engrossing, impeccably crafted work.

An easy-to-read, fun, and insightful bit of writing about the psychoanalytic profession. Malcolm's writing is very clear and approachable. Her insights are largely told through a back-and-forth with another analyst—"Aaron"—who talks about being an analyst from training to professional, dealing with difficult and easy patients, successes and failures, stresses and accomplishments. Malcolm cites many traditional sources in her text—Freud, Ferenczi, Kohut, and others. She weighs the traditional, orthodox, stoic psychoanalytic approach with the nouveau, warmer, supportive forms without making a value judgment on which is superior. There are several case studies, historical and contemporary, raised to support the discussion. The book is very easy to read but may not be accessible to those without a background in psychoanalysis. She's not interested in defining the fundamentals. This book is aimed at understanding the the challenges of analysis for analysts in a sort of lighthearted but interesting way. Many people today are turned off by the profession and its assumptions and I think this makes it clearer what analysts are aiming to do to "help" their patients. Some more depth could have been interesting—particularly around the case of the analysts who were dismissed for "traducing" professional mores and the controversy that surrounded that. Overall, a very good read and I recommend to those interested in the field.

It is quite unique and the author gives a succinct understanding of psychoanalytic thought and practices from an outsider that is not available anywhere else. And an entertaining read.

Incredible book!! Very insightful for those in psychoanalysis

Though Janet Malcolm is not a psychoanalyst (she was a very good journalist) she has probably written the best book (for the layman) about what psychoanalysis is about and the experience of psychoanalysis. A shorter version of this book was initially published in the New Yorker and the book is a very good expanded version of that article. AB

The mind is a powerful tool and can do amazing feats and amazing damage. To get a view of what it s like on the psychoanalysts perspective was fascinating and at time disturbing. A truly worthwhile read.

The author seems to have an underlying and (in my view) childish reverence for Freud and analysis, and this harmed the book, in my opinion.

To be read by people of the psychoanalysis profession. The language is lingo-laced, and gets boring after a while. Like studying a text book Plus the style of writing relies on quotes, making it sound not original at all

Very interesting, talks a lot about how Freud got into his psychoanalytic theories and who he got them off + criticism.

This is one of the better critical appraisals of psycho-analysis that I have read, to be honest I really wish that I had begun with this book when I first discovered the topic as I have a sense that it covers A LOT of what I have read over almost ten years. It is also, importantly, very readable without being "dumbed down" as I feel some more recent books on the topic can feel. It comes as no surprise that the author has tackled some other great literary sources in other writing, such as classics of Russian literature, which even feature in a final conversation with her single, major source/interviewee here. The author in a very readable and able fashion summarizes much of Freudian psychoanalysis, a little of the object-relations school, Kleinian psychoanalysis (which if its possible appears even more dubious than some of Freud's extrapolations), Winnecott, but, I felt, most of the differences in "schools of thought" were presented as resembling the core differences between Freud and one of his earliest detractors, essentially the role of the therapist in pro-actively pursuing care and cure. These themes are familiar to me reading a lot of alternatives to Freud, from psycho-analysis' inception to the emergence of post-Freudians, non-Freudians, even, arguably, anti-Freudian therapists and life coaches, like Carl Rogers. I liked this book as its of its time, in has a narrow focus upon Freud, Orthodoxy at that time, and sometimes it is hard to find that in contemporary sources, which, no matter how "Freudian" have actually absorbed or been permeated by much of what alternative schools of thought have produced. A lot of this can be, and is, regularly dismissed as "the narcissism of small differences" but I find it really interesting, I think this book has aged really, really well. The summaries of the theory, citations and sources, are all good, and scaffold the central interviews between the author and an orthodox Freudian therapist, Aaron Green, who elaborates on their experience, their cases, successes, perceived failures, beginnings to endings in therapy. Is it an impossible profession? I think the author does a good job of presenting a variety of views without exhibiting a clear bias or cajoling the reader, pretty important if you dislike some of the more angry appraisals of the profession.

Janet Malcom, as usual, held the fine line between challenging the hubris and cult-like elements of Psychoanalysis, whilst remaining curious and respectful at the same time. I learnt a lot, smiled a lot and felt challenged whilst reading this book.

Very well written. useful brief summary of Freud. Many interesting stories of mid C20th American psychoanalysis.