"Doctor I Need Help!" A Freudian Analyzes Freudism
Ferment Editorial
April 28,2004
I could not have been more than 16 when my high school biology teacher put a copy of Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams" into my hands, with the ringing words: "Herein lie all the secrets of the life of the mind!"
From this kindly and timely gift I went on to become an avid reader of everything published under the name of Sigmund Freud, as well as numerous works by his colleagues, assistants, rivals and challengers. I have therefore had many occasions to confirm the wise words of my biology teacher. Now in my 30th year, I rank Freud as the equal of Socrates, Mohammed, Marx, Christ, and all of the other great teachers of mankind.
Therefore, when, a few weeks ago reasons presented themselves which led me to conclude that there was danger of my falling into some serious condition of psychopathology, I rang up a psycho-analyst of my acquaintance , a woman with a distinguished international reputation, and made an appointment. Surely you have all heard of Doctor H. ? My analysis consisted of only one session: this is a transcription of our dialogue:
"Mr. ...ah? ..."
"K, if you don't mind."
" Mr. K! Why don't you come in. Sit over there. I don't use a couch; this easy chair works can also make you drowsy in a short time. It's a real asset to free association. Well - what can I do for you?"
" Doctor H. : A few days ago I murdered my father and raped my mother. Am I mentally ill?" Doctor H. paused before making her reply:
" Not necessarily. Tell me more."
"That's about it. What should I do? Would you advise me to give myself up to the police?"
" I want to ask you something, K. : doesn't it frighten you to think that you may be locked up for life? You might even be afraid you might be executed! Capital punishment was reintroduced in this state less than a year ago. "
I radiated happiness: " That's actually something I'm looking forward to. Since my childhood I've been blessed with a robust Death Instinct."
"So, why come to me? You've actualized the deepest urges of your Oedipus Complex, and you're about to gratify your Death Instinct. That doesn't sound like mental illness. Man alive , you're healthier than I am!" H. consulted her notes, wrote down something and commented:
" Now, if you had told me that you'd killed your mother and raped your father, you'd be a very sick man! Worse than that, sir, you'd be a homosexual!"
"As far as it's given to me to understand it, if I were a woman who did those things, I might be considered normal."
"Why, yes. The Oedipus Complex so affects the structure of the Unconscious , that the psyche of a woman actually has a different shape from that of a man. More like a doughnut, you know, while a man's resembles a Möbius strip. That's not Freud by the way: that's Laçan."
I gazed up at her with confusion and wonderment: "Doctor H.: I don't care what you call it, but I'm terribly mixed up. I'd assumed that it was obvious that my acts were symptomatic of some sort of mental illness."
" Not at all! K. .... K. my boy! Let me remind you of something you may have missed in your extensive study of the Master . All mental illness is caused by Civilization. Animals can't have neuroses because they don't internalize civilizing constraints. Civilization represses the natural, healthy, viral animal instincts of Man deep into the Unconscious. According to the latest research, the Unconscious is actually a place in the brain, somewhere in the hippocampus just under the amygdala. We know that Freud had an inkling we would find it there because of some pictures that he drew:
" However, you can no more keep a beast holed up in the hippocampus, than you can keep an amoeba from dividing: it seeps out in the form of neuroses and psychoses.You, K., on the other hand are directly gratifying your primitive bestial drives. Ergo: you're healthy! That leaves me with one question: why do you imagine you're sick?"
"Being something of an expert myself on what Freud wrote, I've diagnosed myself as a paranoid-schizophrenic. "
"Hmm. Curious. What makes you think that?"
"I've been saddled with what amounts to a near-perfect clinical specimen of an iceberg mother. You know the type, doc:she's colder than a witch's tit! (At least I think she's still my mom. She was alive when I left her. ) That's the schizophrenia part. In addition to which I've detected a strong streak of repressed homosexuality in me, which I assume makes me paranoid."
" You may be correct, K., in the overall sense; yet your diagnoses are disputable. Every one of them I'm afraid . No-one who's really insane thinks of himself as insane. Do you imagine that Hitler thought he was mad? Freud? Jung? Not a one among them thought he was nuts.
"Why do you say Freud was nuts?"
"Did you look at the pictures I just showed you?"
"No ...hey, you're right!"
" This being the case I've more or less concluded from talking with you, that your delusion that you're a paranoid-schizophrenic is actually a neurosis , not a psychosis. You're definitely neurotic, that's for sure. I could tell it from the way you walked through the door. Years of experience makes one very sensitive to that sort of thing. "
" Do you also know what's wrong with me, Dr. H.?"
" Possibly. Bear with me. K.. Let's start with the iceberg mother bit. Raping your mother is only healthy when she's raped for the right reasons, that is to say, canonical Oedipal motives. If you'd had some sort of sick desire to rape her, you've done the right thing in coming to a doctor. I'm glad you've chosen me. Frankly, I'm one of the best."
" Doctor, thank you everso much: I'm desperate! Tell me what my sick motives were , that led me to beat up my old mother and stick my dick in her? "
" Simple. Your desire for your mother is driven by vagina-envy. "
" Vagina-envy ? Why, I've never even heard of that!"
"Okay. That's because you're only a well-read amateur Freudian, K., not a fully certified professional like myself. Freud stated that young girls envy their fathers because of their penises. He taught us that a woman is a disabled man, like a cripple without a prosthesis. In certain unnatural family settings the situation can be reversed, and one finds a son envying his mother because she doesn't have an ugly, stupid bag of flesh between her legs that would disfigure her natural beauty and turn her into a freak!"
I was thunderstruck. I allowed the thought to sink in before replying:
" Honestly, doctor H.: that's why I raped my mother?"
" More or less. There's some association of ideas in the Unconscious that's still not well understood by modern science, by which invaginating the vagina is the male equivalent of gaining possession of it. Subconsciously speaking , you've made it your property. This isn't based on any observational data; we never bother with that sort of thing. It's based on a reasoned extension of Freud's writings. He was a very smart man and must have known what he was talking about."
" But, doctor H. ... but ... er, 'vagina envy' isn't even mentioned by Freud." I searched my memory, " At least I don't think so"
"That's because it doesn't exist in and of itself. Vagina envy is a rare form of denial of penis envy. The truth of the matter is that you, K., really envy your father's penis because you're a woman ! That simple truth is so unbearable to you that your super-ego has substituted vagina envy for your natural penis envy ! It's the only way you could persist in your insistence that you're a man."
I rose up in indignation: " What right do you have to talk to me that way ! I'm a woman, am I , Doctor H., not a man? What nonsense is this! "
" Take it easy, K. Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately?"
" Of course I have! I'm no damn woman! I couldn't live with myself. How could any woman with a smidgen of dignity be a Freudian? "
" Clever insight, K. It's what's commonly known as over-compensation. Or projection. Or a combination of both."
Doctor H. bent low and whispered in my ear: " No doubt you think I'm a woman too. Right? "
"Why, doctor H., you're obviously a woman! What about those two bumps on your chest? What are those, huh?"
" They're your breasts, you idiot ! You've projected your breasts onto my body. I wouldn't get all upset about it: a transference of that sort is very common in denial."
" And if I deny your interpretation of denial?"
" Aha! I've got you! Denial of denial is proof of denial! Read The Case of Dora . "
So complete was my astonishment that there was little room left over for anger. As I told myself, there's no point in arguing with a shrink; they always win:
" I'm totally perplexed, doctor. Am I really as sick as all that?"
" Not necessarily, I find your Death Instinct refreshingly healthy. If you want, I'll call the police department right now. Don't forget to pay me before they come and drag you away."
" Sure. go ahead. And while we're waiting there's one more thing I want you to explain to me: How does murdering my father fit into all this?"
" All right. There's nothing remarkable to it, really. In fact , since you are actually a woman, what you really did without knowing it was kill your mother and rape your father. Of course, in order to deny your womanhood, you had to imagine you'd done the opposite. I should point out that when a daughter wants to kill her father and rape her mother she's very , very sick. No Greek ever wrote a play with that sort of thing going on!"
I was fed up with Doctor H.'s smug superiority:
" How the hell do you know all these things about me , H. ?" I strode up and jabbed a finger in her face. H. pushed it away and, once again,resorted to whispering:
" I'll let you in on a little secret. I'm actually your father. That's how I know."
" And, if you're my father, who am I?"
"That's easy. You don't exist, K. ! Since I've just proven that anyone who takes Freud's ideas seriously must be crazy, Ergo, I'm crazy! Therefore I'm not the doctor but the patient. And since you don't exist, I don't either......
Now I might as well pay myself and go home. It's 5:30 PM. My wife's making dinner. The children should be well broiled by now."