Times are tough and the Government is giving us money. We are encouraged to spend it. I can’t help thinking that Rudd’s economic arousal package should come with a health warning – ‘This money is to stimulate the economy, but don’t expect it to make you happy. Money can directly damage every aspect of your […]
A Tribute to Freud
September 26, 2012 By
While it is theorised within an inch of its life, psychoanalysis is a practical business. It abounds in ideas, but can only be known the way Milton knew “every alley” of his “wilde wood”; that is, by walking through it. As Freud insisted, you need to do it. But do what exactly? Talk, of course, […]
Secrets of the Soul
September 21, 2012 By
At the end of his survey of psychoanalysis – a journey that weaves in and out of some of the most exciting ideas of the past 150 years – Eli Zaretsky examines the body of Freud’s offspring and pronounces it ailing but alive. There is no corpse, but after so much battering, abuse and wayward […]
Lifestyle
September 17, 2012 By
Literature and psychoanalysis share an interest in neurosis. Many great novels are a study of neurotic character. From Emma Bovary to Holden Caulfield we are in the world of neurotics, that is, people who, to some extent, misconstrue their surroundings, particularly their relationships. Emma, the Madame Bovary of Flaubert’s novel, sees her 19th century life […]
Our New Dark Ages
September 13, 2012 By
Freud’s masterful paper, Mourning and Melancholia (Freud, 1915), is famous for its revolutionary rethinking of loss. The intuition that melancholia is not just a transitory and necessary withdrawal from the world like mourning, but a tragic attempt to keep alive a lost loved one has reverberated down the decades since Freud wrote it nearly a […]
Finding the words to say it
August 24, 2012 By
The hardest part about writing is making a start. Get the first paragraph right and what follows is likely to be okay. For me, it has something to do with the rhythm of speech, a matter of the sentences sounding right. I did not realize it straight away, but this quality is also an indicator […]
