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...

A real insight into the conventions (?) of psychoanalytic treatment that have persisted and sometimes been modified since Freud, but enticingly wrapped in a long interview with a particularly jaded sounding therapist. Malcolm is so good at making herself disappear, while asking the very pointed questions we want answers to - it really is a feat and I wish more contemporary non-fiction writers would adopt this style. More importantly, it is just *wild* how therapists did whatever they wanted at t...

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.

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.

just fantastic... on one level, this is a great primer on psychoanalysis, covering all its main themes and debates in a concise manner. on another level, it's a great primer on the art of the interview. not only has malcolm chosen a funny, intriguing, articulate candidate for her main interview subject (a new york psychoanalyst under the pseudonym "aaron green"), but she also shows her skills as a subtle and attentive interviewer. her questions give a sense of momentum to the book and elicit ext...

“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.

Janet Malcolm wrote an incredibly readable and frightfully well-researched piece on psychoanalysis, its fraught narcissism of small differences, the uncertainty of its benefits, and the ways in which even those who analyze for a living sometimes have even less insight than those analysands who step into their offices. A great read; it came to me by way of Anna Khachiyan of Red Scare and has certainly been the most breezy read I’ve picked up from that podcast’s recommendations thus far.

Janet Malcom’s book on psychoanalysis, aptly titled, Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession, is a highly readable account why it is impossible. Here she traces the evolution of Freud’s thought and practice and extends it to the thought and practice of an analyst in New York to whom she gives the name Aaron Green, M.D. In a sense this is a book similar to “Inside the Masons,” or something like that, because it seeks to penetrate a kind of cult or with a special code of symbols and rituals, a m...

"Soon after the Big Bang of Freud's major discoveries--around the time of the Clark lectures--the historian of psychoanalysis notes a fork in the road. One path leads outward into the general culture, widening to become the grand boulevard of psychoanalytic influence--the multilane superhighway of psychoanalytic thought's incursions into psychiatry, social philosophy, anthropology, law, literature, education, and child-rearing. The other is the narrow, inward-turning path of psychoanalytic thera...

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.

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

This is a highly absorbing intro to psychoanalysis, with an emphasis on transference and the role of the analyst. I…have so many thoughts about some of the ideas presented by the therapists. Malcolm is a brilliant writer, and I laughed several times at her very dry humor relating to some of her observations.

This book was exactly what I was looking for. Malcolm begins with an overview of orthodox psychoanalytic theory, intersperses interviews with pseudonymous psychoanalyst "Aaron Green" with studies and new concepts, then finishes with an examination of the tension between liberal psychoanalytic theory and orthodox theory. She does so in accessible yet complex way. I feel as if this was a perfect entry point for my interest in psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis is discomfiting. It relies on the assumpt...

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...

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...

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...

R.I.P. Janet Malcolm, truly brilliant writer. The blend of narrative and factual reporting is so impressive, effortlessly weaving her interviews with analysts and the history of psychoanalytic theory together. Her depiction of the sectarian world of psychoanalysis is also fascinating, almost as though Hilary Mantel wrote a novel about it. I want to undergo psychoanalysis so badly, it's unreal.

A short book and a library book at that, so I have made myself read it over just a couple of days. Also, I had, during a recent course of reading the New Yorker pieces of Janet Malcolm, read the article that underlay this book, which expands on it significantly, so I was somewhat familiar with sections of it. I love Malcolm's writing, and even made a trip to the Argosy Bookshop in the happy summer of 2021, post-vax, pre-Delta, because I loved the piece she wrote about it so much.I found myself w...

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.

it's really fascinating to get a look back into how people used to do therapy and what used to be accepted as appropriate. Malcolm has written this in a curious way, where she introduces herself into the narrative and will at times describe her interactions with "Aaron Green," psychoanalyst, and then shifts the narrative to a wide-ranging discourse on the development of psychoanalysis with critical remarks and bits of information about other clinical/therapeutic practices and prominent figures h...

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...

In about 160 pages, Malcolm is able to provide a good overview of Freudian theory, a bit of information on later analytic theorists, as well as a fascinating profile of a (then) present-day analyst. The book is dated, but that doesn't make it less compelling. Upon its release in 1981, traditional psychoanalysis was still extremely popular (at least in New York City), and a very large percentage of analysts were medical doctors. Contrary to popular thought, Freudian psychoanalysis still exists, e...

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.