By Prudence L. Gourguechon on 9/11/2009 11:30 AM
I have long held on to the perhaps arrogant idea that that we psychoanalysts have something useful and important to say about just about any human affair—de coeur, or any other kind. Because we have the capacity to look beneath the surface—and the interest—I am pretty confident that we can find a different and intriguing angle in any discussion. This fantasy of mine has held true in numerous settings. As President of APsaA, I am lucky to often be tapped as a spokesperson for a psychoanalytic perspective, and have had a chance to make offer opinions about everything from touching in the workplace during an economic recession to the relationship between Irish culture and psychoanalysis.
I am convinced that positioning ourselves as commentators on pretty much everything human (as long as we don’t make wild potshots at individuals psyches) is good for us and good for the broader community. For our profession, it brings public notice and drives who we are and what we stand for deeper in the cultural conversation.
For psychoanalysts, wandering outside our consulting rooms and offering informed but not silly opinions on all sorts of matter will broaden our practices and improve our reputation. Out from behind the couch and into—who knows where. I was recently delighted when my brother in law and another friend, who had recently started a business to offer management services to homeowners associations, asked if I wanted to be listed as one of their expert consultants. I jumped at the chance as I have long thought that condo and co-op boards are some of the most intense microcosms of conflictual group relations (nursery school boards come a close second). The business is just beginning and I have yet to get a gig, but I am proud to have psychoanalysis represented on a real estate management firm’s website
I understand some of my colleagues would feel this sullies or debases our profession, but I strongly disagree.
So, the Fishboil. For those of you who haven’t spent much time around the Great Lakes, this is a rather thrilling meal held in a celebratory manner not far from one of the great lakes (where fish used to roam abundantly). Whitefish, potatoes and onions are boiled in an enormous pot outdoors over a huge wooden fire. At just the right moment, when the greasy liquid is bubbling right at the top of the pot, some designated heroic individual throws a jug of full of kerosene on the fire. A fiery conflagration ensues, everyone screams and once the flames settle down everyone tucks in to a delicious dinner. See incredible picture of The Moment.
Upper Midwestern Fishboil. Photo by Elise Jones.
So this is how I spent one night of the Labor Day weekend, along with some family and friends and strangers. I decided to challenge myself, my arrogant pose. So, smarty, can you say something “psychoanalytic” about a Fishboil? Commenting on the sexual energy released is cheating. Besides, we psychoanalysts don’t talk that way much anymore. I considered saying “there is nothing psychoanalytic to say about a Fishboil”. It is the exception that proves the rule. But then I started thinking about the reliance humans have on ritual and rhythm, our need for community, the eagerness with which we establish community, even with strangers, even with the meager organizer of the Fishboil, and the equal eagerness we seem to apply to destroying community--the strife within our own organization, which often seems to defeat our best efforts to create, the difficulty this country is having finding a way to provide affordable health are for all our citizens. So that gets us back to psychoanalysis, via the Fishboil, doesn’t it? Creation and coming together, followed by the death instinct and disintegration and back around again. I told you so. And thanks for the pic, Elise. |