What's The Lamella, Again?

A (rather small) set of studies has recently shown that the "talking cure"--traditional psychoanalysis--can help with some mental health problems. This seems...unsurprising. I underwent old-school analysis in Berkeley and it was very helpful. I used to have horrible, vivid nightmares almost every night, so awful that they would leave me feeling strange all day. I had it as a goal for my analysis to stop having nightmares, and I did. I have the occasional one nowadays, but only a few times a year, and I haven't had a real, hiding-from-serial-killers, squeezing-shards-of-glass-out-of-pustules, or raped-by-zombies nightmare in ages. I went three times a week and lay on a couch, just like in a New Yorker cartoon. My analyst was not they type who never said anything, though. She knew a tremendous amount about me and would offer advice where needed.

As with many therapy issues, I think the philosophical underpinnings of the thing may matter less than the skills of the individual; there are some people who would make a hash of simple cognitive therapy and others who could channel Lacan into something useful. This has limits, obviously, and the fact that some people were helpful as phrenologists (for surely some of them must have been) doesn't validate phrenology. I guess I am somewhat undecided about the merits of Freudianism per se: on the one hand, it worked for me; on the other, the proferred justifications seem very weak. And it's not as though I didn't end up in some serious mental trouble after analysis had been completed. Still there is something compelling about the process, and the requirement that the analyst have undergone the same wooly procedure. If it weren't so expensive I would reccommend it to everyone (thanks, Grandma!).

Comments

[ozma]

Love the 'thanks Grandma!'

I know a lot of people who've been helped by psychoanalysis. I suspect that it really depends on what your problem is in the first place, but have no evidence for this. The deeply crazy do not seem to benefit while the mildly disturbed often do. But I'm mostly talking about former roommates so this is not a good sample.

Anyway, I stopped by to offer you this gem. It seems right up your alley:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Y2U5YTJiMzhjNDNhZTcwZGYyZjcyMzQyZWNmNjJjN2E=

[belle waring]

ooh, that's some quality Derbyshire there, thanks.