Must Psychoanalysis Be Complicated?

Lacan was famous for saying “Gardez-vous de comprende (trop vite)” which translates to “Beware of understanding (too quickly)”. He believed (as many currently living analysts still believe) that psychoanalytic writing must, by design, be so difficult to understand that in the attempt to understand it one will begin to see and experience how complicated and complex the psyche truly is. He believed that it was in the effort of being confused and overwhelmed by the theory and then beginning to gain clarity that one would truly begin to comprehend the nuanced work of the analyst and also experience the true nature of the psyche. That just as one might be transported to a feeling in literature by the way in which words were put on the page, one might be transported to the feeling of the psyche by reading Lacan’s brilliant words.

When I recently shared this sentiment of Lacan’s in a training, one participant aptly responded “Oh, so he needed to be a very special baby!” I must admit to the same sentiment. Especially given what we know about his literal physical abuse of patients at the end of his career. I am sympathetic to the spirit of Lacan’s words, though. We live in a world where people are often too quick to believe that they understand. These days we can read a headline and have an opinion. We have swung too far. We know it. We are addicted to it.

Possibly that was his fear. (Although it seems to me— correct me dear Lacanians— that Lacan spoke little of his fear and much of his desire.)

A perpendicular view may be found in another intellectual. Einstein was often referenced as authoring the statement “If you cannot explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough”. While to my knowledge there is no concrete evidence that he uttered these words, most agree to their echo of his sentiments. One (I) might ask, “If Lacan understood Freud better than any other theorist, why he was so determined to make it more complicated?”.

As we speak, I believe we are smothering the organic life of psychoanalysis. The simple truth is that, just like parenting, it needn’t be very complicated at all. It is just very hard.

And nuanced.

And playful.

And loving.

Objects relations theorists such as Harry Stack Sullivan and Donald Winnicott believed that mothers were best left to trust themselves. They believed that the anxious mother was far more likely to do harm in their attempt to be perfect. That in their attempt to be perfect they would never achieve “good enough”. It is interesting that, even when the mothers likely did not receive the mothering they needed, these clinicians still believed they were better off without a mommy blog. To this day I believe that mothers believe parenting to be complicated because the blogs make it so. These theorists believed that the main way to help mothers in mothering was to provide them with the relational repair so that they could pass that new love onto their children. Not parenting advice or attachment research.

Sullivan believed that the mother who was causing the anxiety could not soothe the baby. One could imagine this is true for every human relationship. Analyst and analysand not excluded.

Why do we think complicated will relieve anxiety? I was first trained as an educator. I completed a Bachelor’s Degree in Experiential Education from an incredible Liberal Arts school for the environment. One thing I came to understand was that the learning must be just difficult enough to challenge the student and just accessible enough to provide room for excitement. Or shall we say desire? Can we agree that desire and motivation are intricately entwined? Is this not true in learning?

Anything?

Even Psychoanalysis?

I fear that our institutes will all die. And possibly I hope that they will. Not because I have any desire to take a place in this mess. I like to hide over here on this couch with my pug.

But I loathe dogma. And I love Psychoanalytic thought.

On what are we foreclosing when we live only in our mind? What are we avoiding when we wish for this therapeutic relationship to become second fiddle? First violinist— THE INTELLECT!

It makes sense that so many psychoanalytic texts rely so heavily on the intellect. This was an art that was under pressure to be a science. An art meant to be a science during WWII. Freud and his fellow analysts had plenty good reason to get lost in their minds and avoid their hearts. In fact, prior to these two world wars it was widely believed that peace would reign forever now that humans had mastered philosophy and intellect. Man had gained control of nature and their own animal nature. The intellect and the ability to make what was unconscious conscious seemed a savior to our animalistic suffering.

But this focus on intellectualism is creating very bad therapists. Therapists who are unable to notice or contain or metabolize the feelings in the room. Therapists so preoccupied with theory that they fail to attune. Therapists who don’t trust themselves. When my supervisees start feeling confused about a case or confused about what they’re up to I often tell them it is time to stop reading their psychoanalytic texts and start feeling what is happening in the room. Read some literature, for goodness sake! My father once told me that his first psychology teacher said something to the effect of “If you are here to learn about the human psyche, you’re in the wrong class. Go sign up for the literature course instead.”

I refuse to believe that this beautiful art cannot be taught in manageable doses. In tiny adjustments. It can be explained in simple terms and metaphors. It can be taught in bits of excitement that build to a desire to read it all. Every word of every complicated theorist. Every word of Melanie Klein.

I believe we can start from simplified theory and wind up so excited that we wish to read even the most complicated psychoanalytic texts even though it causes us pain to do so (Jouissance?). And that if no one is brave enough to teach this way we will lose talented clinicians to over simplified theories that fail to address each psyche with nuance.

Must I know how Melanie Klein came to each of her elaborate interpretations in order to sit with a person who is suffering and provide them with relational relief? I think not.

I don’t write much that I publish because I know that if my patients find my writing they will see themselves in my words. They matter too much for me to be careless in that way. So I will simply say that I know that my relational interventions have done far more good for my patients than the intellectualized interpretations. Every one of them will agree.

I wonder; what is the desire that wants your mind to be more valuable than your love? Or is it instead a defense?

I have been asked what school of though this project identifies with. I so refuse that line of thought. But it is also true that I fully reject the idea that psychoanalysis must be so complicated that only a handful of people will attempt it and fewer still be able to apply it. It is, indeed, hard. But it is often not all that complicated.

Because loving people is not actually all that complicated. We know what is needed theoretically. It is just hard. Hard is different than complicated. And complicated is not synonymous with rigor.

The fact that it is so hard is the reason not many of us become “good enough” therapists.

When I asked a training group to free associate on the phrase “good enough”… You will not be surprised that many of the associations were negative. Settling. That is the one that most of my students and clients say. And yet Winnicott believed that “good enough” was better than perfect. By far. Still, it was somehow not enough.

When I was growing up with a father who was a Social Worker at a state run Psychiatric facility I often heard, “Good enough for state work!”. When I met my husband, he said it too… just differently. He said “Good enough for who it’s for!”. I can remember when “good enough” became a relief and a path to the life I wished for. (no, it is not an accident that I use Lacan’s wish and desire language to argue against him). Oh, how I wish to grant that relief to my people.

This brings me to my second rejected idea. Not only do I reject that this must be complicated and obtuse and arrogant and distancing, but I also reject that psychoanalysis is primarily about laying on a couch 3-5 times a week, spending many thousands of dollars a month on therapy all while unearthing your unconscious.

It is about repair.

I cannot see it another way.

I believe that the only way we save psychoanalysis (as we take the torch) is to remember Winnicott. And Spotnitz. I often tell my supervisees to “meet not move”. It is my simple way of explaining joining a la Spotnitz. I believe that if we don’t meet our learners where they are, we will not ever move our field forward. I believe that if we do not make this learning exciting we will die. But maybe that is best. Possibly it was destined to die and be re-born.

Just as the bible, these psychoanalytic texts will always exist. We can interpret them anew at any time in any world. With or without the institutes. And we can choose to merge the science with the theory to make a new and better psychoanalysis.

I, for one, hope it begins with love.