She's quoting her subject psychoanalyst (was he named in the book): "'I remember a seminar I once attended that was led by a brilliant and flamboyant Hungarian analyst named Robert Bak. The issue under debate was the nature of transference, and I raised my hand and asked rhetorically, "What would you call an interpersonal relationship where infantile wishes, and defenses against those wishes, get expressed in such a way that the persons within that relationship don't see each other for what they...

It really is a different perspective. Most of the forays into Freud, Freudianism, and pyschoanalysis (or at least the dozens that I have encountered) focus primarily on drilling into the psychology, fleshing out the various theories of the psycho-social stages, applying Freudian insights to the broader society and culture, or a combination of the three. This was uniquely, among other focuses, on the dynamics of analysis.As Malcolm accurately depicts, psychoanalysis and the surrounding literature...

When I read reviews of this book years ago, I came away with the idea that Malcolm debunked the effectiveness of psychoanalysis. That is far from the case. Yes, the book, and the interviews with 'Aaron Green,' make very clear that psychoanalysis is not about helping or curing people or making them happier, but about bringing about a relationship between the conscious and unconscious mind. No one is necessarily going to be happier about this and may, at first, feel miserable. On the other hand it...

This is how much I love Janet Malcolm: I finished rereading this, my least favourite of her books, but the cats had just settled on my lap so I turned back to the first page and immediately, happily started reading it again. Kind of like the time me and Keg watched Honey twice in a row. Don't have anything insightful to say about this book, obviously.

“At the end of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ the human characters wake up and rub their eyes and aren’t sure what has happened to them. They have the feeling that a great deal has occurred—that things have somehow changed for the better, but they don’t know what caused the change. Analysis is like that for many patients.”

Mostly about transference, the erotic feelings that the patient may have for the psychoanalyst, and other weird features of the psychoanalyst/patient relationship. Grounded in Freud.

Psychoanalysis must be one of the strangest professions, and even though the classical Freudian analysis has been in decline since the 1960s, I am still fascinated by it. Imagine a life where you listen to the same two dozen or so patients for an hour at a time, several times a week. Where you have to keep your distance and be neutral, but where you have to be constantly attentive to anything your patients might say that could indicate a past trauma or defense mechanism. And that's just your dai...

Be wary of this book. It will have you hunting down papers and buying more books as Malcolm weaves tantalising references throughout her tale of Freudian psychoanalysis. Malcolm intersperses her own reading/research with her interview of "Aaron Green" a graduate of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. The interview offers fascinating glimpses into the world of Freudian psychoanalysis in an oftentimes gossipy fashion and not all flattering to psychoanalysts. A thoroughly enjoyable read.

I read this book in the 80s, remembered how much I'd enjoyed it, and then read it twice in July, the readings spaced a few weeks apart. I had it in mind at the time to write a detailed review of the book, and I wanted to get all the details right. To Malcolm's credit, the book easily bore the second reading and was just as fascinating. The profession of psychoanalysis, as represented by the profiled analyst "Aaron Green", is perversely difficult, and it makes many of its practitioners fussily ne...

A strangely compelling read. It seemed to flesh out half remembered conversations about the history of psychoanalysis; particularly the historical split between the British School (Klein etc.) and American Freudians. Plus, the discussions around Ferenczi were educative.The fleshing out of the analytic situation through the image of surgery also was a useful theme in terms of the relationship with medical model/psychopathology and attempting to gain establishment legitimacy as a ‘science’ from Fr...

I heard Janet Malcolm endorsed by Stephen Metcalf in the Slate Culture Gabfest ( http://www.slate.com/id/2287042/ ) and it sounded like it might be an interesting read. Sure enough, this is a gripping account of the analytic relationship and what it means for the analyst and the patient. The sense of Freudianism as part science, part religious cult is ever-present, and the descriptions of the bureaucracy and office-politics within the psychiatric institutions is something I hadn't come across be...

If you're looking to self-diagnose your neurosis, you won't find much help here. Janet Malcolm pulls back the curtains to give a glimpse of the challenging job of psychoanalysing, amidst various theories and schools of thought on how to approach the field and its patients. Deceptively informative for a book that is only 163 pages thick.

This was a very absorbing read! I am very interested in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis and the pros/cons associated with such methods, so this was a really succinct and ideal little book to dive into. I definitely underlined a few gems and pearls of wisdom here.

two-day beach read. fun/educational ratio of a new yorker essay. a lot of overview of psychoanalytic theory, from freud through kohut, but presented in such a way that it all reads like gossip! a century of delicious gossip! i mean this as the highest compliment.

some quotes to remember from this book, which i liked a lot:[aaron speaking] "[...] The older man saw the succession as the younger generation coming to cut off his member, and the younger man, who wanted the position, saw it in terms of cutting off the older man's member--thus his indecision. So they were very much in sync with each other in this Oedipal drama. Which exists only on a fantasy level. Because the fact is, it's a job. It's just a job! So is being a training analyst at the New York

I have no idea who Janet Malcolm is, but now I want to read all her books. Through her interviews with Aaron Green, a "young" American psychoanalyst, she invites us to build our own understanding of the obscure nature of the life of psychoanalysts, the psychoanalytic process they set as their core driving force -represented in their choice of this profession and the time they dedicate to it-, and the entities that bring those bizarre people together. It is one of these books that make you go "Wo...

Malcolm satisfyingly problematises psychoanalysis in her nuanced and readable way. The book has lots of interesting insights on psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice, as well as the petty bureaucracy of the professional organisation. I guess I just wanted Malcolm to come at her subjects a little harder. The profession comes across as questionable, but I feel like it would be better to read about how the subjects handle more difficult and forceful questions than what Malcolm seems to give t...

Impressive work stitching together texts, events and interviews drawn from a wide breadth of sources. The non-linear book structure resembles the asymmetry of patients and clinicians alike trying to apply and get well through psychoanalytic practice. It also kind of felt like this book was a compilation of the "extra stuff" that didn't make it into Malcome's articles or other book on the same topic. That extra stuff factor didn't make it any less interesting, but showed Malcome's skill in workin...

Janet Malcolm is the perfect writer. In this book she takes the messy world of psychoanalysis to pieces in absolutely perfect sentences while still showing enough respect to the profession to not quite ridicule it. She can glide between deep theory and anecdote from her source with ease. The early section explaining transference that talks about human relations being “at best a truce between seperate infantile fantasies” stuck with me all week.

Beautifully written summary of in-depth discussions with psychoanalyst "Aaron Green" and a useful primer on the key concepts of psychoanalytic theory. Can't fault this if you're looking for a thoughtful intelligent non-fiction read and already have some interest in psychoanalysis.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and could not put it down! Very insightful and well-written, easy to read book, regarding the challenging but powerfully transformative potential of psychoanalysis, both to the analyst and patient.

Discusses the pitfalls and vagueries of the orthodox Freudian psychoanalytic method, especially those associated with 'the transference'.

Very underwhelming after The Journalist and The Murderer, which was great

Yeah, took me over a year to read. Too much history of the profession. And shockingly analysts are obsessed with themselves...

Trying to decide if I should devote my life : my self to psychoanalysis. This book adds to the pro list of my brain tally.

I enjoyed the journalistic and anecdotal way she wove through psychoanalytical theory.

"I do. I think that Brenner's uncompromising -- you might even say fanatically pure -- way of doing analysis permits you to find things out that you would not find out under a less rigorous procedure. It also, paradoxically, gives the patient more freedom than he has under the more relaxed analytic techniques. Ruthless and authoritarian though it seems, strict analytic neutrality is the more libertarian alternative. When you temper the rigors of analysis with judicious doses of kindliness and fr...

Impossible, I suppose, on account of what happens is the analysand pays the analyst an extraordinarily large sum of money to come to his or her office several times a week for several years, lay on a couch, and free associate, until the analyst (heretofore not terribly talkative) offers an interpretation of the analysand's unconscious conflicts and defenses that the analysand will refuse to accept. As my psychoanalysis professor explained, "Some people just can't handle that amount of freedom."

A very quick read, this book gives a history of psychoanalysis. It does not give a particularly in-depth view of the process from the therapist's point-of-view - one of the claims of a reviewer on the back cover. It does show how even within schools of similar thought, there is contradiction and confusion about how much of the client's reactions are attributed to the past as opposed to what is happening in the present. Should therapists repress their thoughts and feelings and try to become a bla...

Great book. Read it when it came out and just read it again because I've been perusing Winnicut, Klein, and Anna Freud and wanted to see what she said about them. The battles between schools continue....reminds me of the wars between the Trotskyites and the other forms of Leftist, back in the fifties....I suppose factionalism is a constant. Wonder if it occurs in the after-life? Malcolm has written an awful big pile of books that I'd love to get to. I'll be saying the same thing soon about Marti...