A colleague was telling me how she liked this psychoanalyst author’s articles and books             There is something neat and packaged about his case studies. The person being analysed seems disguised but real. The problem disguised but real. There is no solution – but miraculously the analysis is so effective, has a huge impact on people’s lives.
They get better. Prosper. Find relief.

In a way it’s marketing. A brief episode in the analysis. An illumination in the analysis. Everyone is fascinated by how people ‘tick’ because we are desperate to discover how we tick. The case studies mimic the groups of people the Guardian reader might frequent or aspire to. The politics of priviledge and the expense of psychoanalysis unmentioned.

What is noticeable is that thinking or reflection comes from priviledge. The education of the mind to conceptualise, symbolise, and critique is learnt through the opportunity of education. Sometimes it is an innate natural gift. But a demand or love of learning/reading runs through people who seek psychoananlysis. It is a rarified profession.

But even psychoanalysis cannot escape reality. Lest we forget: the person’s time and energy of the tedious hours, weeks, years of the repetition compulsion to defend against better mental health. We have come to a time where marketing is greater than the marketed. An inevitable distortion occurs.
We live in a painful time of demanding no pain.

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