Lying on the Couch (21 page)

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"Of course, they are my own words. Is plagiarism also a charge on the docket?" Seth picked up the letter from the ad hoc committee and mockingly pretended to pore over it: "Plagiarism, plagiarism—oh, so many other capital offenses, so many other varieties of capital wickedness, but no plagiarism. Of that at least I have been spared. Yes, of course, my own words. And I stand by them. Does there exist a more intimate bond than that between analyst and analysand?"

Marshal listened expectantly. Good for you, Morris, he thought. Perfect goading. First intelligent thing I've ever seen you do! Seth's rockets were smoking; he was about to blast off into self-destruct orbit.

"Yes," Seth continued, his one lung laboring, his voice growing hoarse. "I stand by my words that my patients are my closest friends. And that is true for all of you. You too, Morris. My patients and I spend four hours a week in the most intimate possible discussion. Tell me, which of you spends that much intimate time with a friend? I'll answer for you: not one of you —certainly not you, Morris. We all know about American male friendship patterns. Perhaps some, a few, of you have a weekly lunch with a friend and, between ordering and chewing, spend thirty minutes in intimate congress.

"Will you deny," Seth's voice filled the room, "that the therapy hour is designed to be a temple of honesty? If your patients are your most intimate connections, then have the courage to drop the hypocrisy and tell them! And what difference does it make if they know the details of your personal life? Not once has my self-disclosure interfered with the analytic procedure. On the contrary, it speeds up the process. Perhaps, due to my cancer, speed has become important to me. My only regret is that I waited so long to discover this. My new analysands sitting in this room can attest to the speed with which we work. Ask them! I am now convinced that no training analysis need exceed three years. Go ahead, let them speak!"

Marshal stood up. "I object! It is improper and incontinent"— that word again, his favorite word!—to involve your analysands in any way whatsoever in this deplorable discussion. It is a sign of poor judgment even to consider it. Their viewpoint is doubly encumbered: by transference and by self-interest. You ask them about speed, about a quick and dirty analysis— of course they will agree. Of course they will be enticed by the idea of a brief, three-year training analysis. What candidate wouldn't be? But aren't we avoiding

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the real issue: your illness and the impact it has upon your views and your work. As you yourself suggest, Seth, your illness has imbued you with an urgency to finish patients quickly. None among us fails to understand and to be sympathetic with that. Your illness changes your perspective in many ways, perfectly understandable ways, given the situation.

"But that does not mean," Marshal continued with a growing confidence, "that your new perspective, born out of personal urgency, should be presented to students as psychoanalytic doctrine. I'm sorry, Seth, but I must agree with the Education Committee that it is right and timely to raise the question of your training status and your ability to serve further in that status. A psychoanalytic organization can ill afford to neglect the issue of succession. If analysts cannot do it, how can we expect other organizations who seek our help—corporations, governments—to attend to the process of the transfer of responsibility and power from the old and powerful to the next generation?"

"Nor," Seth roared, "can we afford to ignore a raw grasping for power by those too mediocre to merit it!"

"Order!" John Weldon pounded his gavel. "Let us return to substance. The ad hoc committee has brought our attention to your public and published comments attacking and derisively dismissing some of the central pillars of psychoanalytic theory. For example, in your recent interview in Vanity Fair you ridicule the oedipal complex and dismiss it as a 'Jewish error'—and then you go on to say it is one of many in the fundamental canons of psychoanalysis. ..."

"Of course," Seth shot back, all attempts at banter or humor gone, ''of course it's a Jewish error. The error of elevating the little Viennese Jewish family triangle to universal familyhood and then attempting to solve for the world what guilt-ridden Jews cannot solve for themselves!"

By now the hall was buzzing, and several analysts tried to speak at once. "Anti-Semitic," said one. Many other comments could be heard: "massaging patients," "sex with patients," "self-aggrandizement," "not analysis—let him do any damn thing he wants, but don't call it analysis."

Seth spoke right over them. "Of course, John, I said and wrote these things. And I stand by those comments, too. Everyone, deep down, knows I am right. Freud's little Jewish ghetto family represents a tiny minority of mankind. Take my own culture, for exam-

pie. For every Jewish family left on earth, there are thousands of Muslim families. Analysis knows nothing about these families and these patients. Knows nothing about the different and overweening role of the father, about the deep unconscious desire for the father, for a return to the comfort and safety of the father, for merger with the father,"

"Yes," Morris said and opened up a journal, "here it is in a letter to the editor in Contemporary Psychoanalysis. You discuss your interpretation to a young bisexual of his craving, and I quote, 'which was a universal craving to return to the ultimate world sinecure— the womb-rectum of the father.' You refer to that with your usual modesty as," here Morris read further, "'a transforming seminal interpretation which has been entirely obscured by the racial bias of psychoanalysis.'"

"Exactly! But that article, published only a couple of years ago, was written six years ago. It doesn't go far enough. It's a universal interpretation; I make it central now in my work with all my patients. Psychoanalysis is no Jewish provincial endeavor. It must recognize and embrace the truths of East as well as West. Each of you has a great deal to learn, and I have grave doubts about both your desire and your ability to absorb new ideas."

It was Louise Saint Clare, a silver-haired, gentle analyst of great integrity, who made the first decisive challenge. She spoke directly to the chair. "I think I've heard enough, Mr. President, to convince me that Dr. Pande has moved too far away from the corpus of psychoanalytic teachings to be responsible for the training of young analysts. I move that he be removed from his status as training analyst!"

Marshal raised his hand: "I second that motion."

Seth stood menacingly and glowered at the members. "You remove me} I expected no less from the Jewish analytic Mafia."

"Jewish Mafia?" questioned Louise Saint Clare. "My parish priest will be astonished to hear this."

"Jew, Christian, no difference—a Jew-Christian Mafia. And you think you can remove me. Well, I shall remove you. I made this institute. I am this institute. And where I go—and believe me, I am leaving— there shall be the institute." With that Seth shoved his chair aside, seized his hat and coat, and noisily strode out.

Rick Chapton broke the silence after Seth Pande left. Naturally Rick, as one of Seth's ex-analysands, would feel the effects of Seth's removal particularly keenly. Even though his training was entirely

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finished and he was a full institute member, Rick, like most, continued to take pride in the status of his training analyst.

"I wish to speak in defense of Seth," said Rick. "I have some grave misgivings about the spirit and the propriety of this evening's proceedings. Nor do I think that Seth's last several statements are germane. They prove nothing. He is a sick and a proud man and we all know that when he is pressed, and one might suspect he was pressed intentionally tonight, he has been known to respond in a defensive and arrogant manner."

Rick stopped for a moment to consult a three-by-five-inch card and then continued: "I'd like to offer an interpretation about the process of this evening's proceedings. I see a lot of you whipping yourselves up into a frenzy of self-righteousness about Seth's theoretical stand. But I wonder if it is truly the content of Dr. Pande's interpretations that is the issue, and not his style and his visibility! Is it possible that many of you are threatened by his brilliance, by his contributions to our field, by his literary ability, and above all by his ambition? Is the membership not envious of Seth's frequent appearance in magazines and newspapers and on TV? Can we tolerate a maverick? Can we tolerate someone who challenges orthodoxy in much the same way that Sandor Ferenczi challenged analytic doctrine seventy-five years ago? I suggest that the controversy tonight is not directed toward the content of Seth Pande's analytic interpretations. The discussion of his father-focused theory is a red herring, a classic example of displacement. No, this is a vendetta, a personal attack—and an unworthy one at that. I submit that the real motives at play here are envy, defense of orthodoxy, fear of the father, and fear of change."

Marshal responded. He knew Rick well, having supervised one of his analytic cases for three years. "Rick, I respect your courage, your loyalty, and your willingness to speak your mind, but I must disagree with you. Seth Pande's interpretive content is very much my issue here. He has moved so far from analytic theory that it is our responsibility to differentiate ourselves from him. Examine the content of his interpretations: the drive to merge with the father, to return to the father's womb-rectum. Indeed!"

"Marshal," Rick countered, "you're taking one interpretation entirely out of context. How many of you have made some idiosyncratic interpretation that, out of context, would seem foolish or indefensible?"

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"That may be. But that's not the situation with Seth, He's often lectured and written for the profession and for the general public that he considers this motif a key dynamic in the analysis of every male. He's made it clear tonight that this was not some single interpretive occasion. A 'universal interpretation,' he called it. He boasted that he has made this same dangerous interpretation to all his male patients!"

"Hear, hear." Marshal was supported by a chorus of voices.

"'Dangerous,' Marshal?" Rick chided. "Aren't we overreacting?"

"Underreacting, if anything." Marshal's voice grew stronger. He had now clearly emerged as a powerful spokesman of the institute. "Do you question the paramount role or the power of interpretation? Do you have any idea how much damage this interpretation may have caused? Every adult male who has some craving for a regressive sojourn, some temporary return to a tender, caring resting place, receives the interpretation that he desires to crawl through the father's anus back into the womb-rectum. Think of the iatrogenic guilt and anxiety of homosexual regression."

"I agree completely," added John Weldon. "The Education Committee was unanimous in their recommendation that Seth Pande be relieved of his status as training analyst. It was only Seth Pande's severe illness and his previous contributions to this institute that prompted them not to expel him from membership entirely. The general membership must vote on their acceptance of the Education Committee's recommendation."

"I call for the question," said Olive Smith.

Marshal seconded, and the vote would have been unanimous but for Rick Chapton's nay vote. Mian Khan, a Pakistani analyst who often collaborated with Seth, and four of Seth's previous analysands, abstained.

The cluster of the three nonvoting, current analysands of Seth whispered together and one said that they needed time to decide their future course, but that they as a group felt great dismay at the tenor of the meeting. Then they left the room.

"I feel more than dismay," said Rick, who noisily gathered his things and proceeded to walk out. "This is scandalous—sheer hypocrisy. As he got to the door, he added, "I believe with Nietzsche that the only real truth is the lived truth!"

"What does that mean in this context?" asked John Weldon, pounding his gavel for silence.

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"Does this organization truly believe with Marshal Streider that Seth Pande has inflicted serious damage to his male patients with his form of father-fusion interpretations?"

"I believe I can speak for the institute," John Weldon replied, "in saying that no responsible analyst would disagree with the view that Seth has inflicted grievous harm to a number of patients."

Rick, standing in the doorway, said, "Then Nietzsche's meaning for you is very simple. If this organization truly and sincerely believes that terrible damage has been done to Seth's patients, and if this organization has any integrity left, then there is only one course open to you—that is, if you desire to act in a morally and legally responsible fashion."

"And that is?" asked Weldon.

"Recall!"

"Recall? What's that?"

"If," responded Rick, "General Motors and Toyota have the integrity, and the balls—excuse me, ladies, there's no politically correct equivalent term—to recall poorly constructed vehicles, vehicles with some glitch that will ultimately cause harm to its owners, then certainly your path is clear."

"You mean ... ?"

"You know exactly what I mean." Rick stomped out and did not hesitate to slam the door behind him.

Three former analysands of Seth's and Mian Khan departed immediately after Rick. At the door Terry Fuller left this warning: "Take this very seriously, gentlemen. There's a real threat of irreversible schism."

John Weldon needed no reminder to take the exodus seriously. The last thing he wanted on his watch was a schism and the formation of a splinter psychoanalytic institute. It had happened many times in other cities: New York had three institutes after splitting by the followers of Karen Horney and later by Sullivanian interperson-alists. It had happened in Chicago, in Los Angeles, in the Washington-Baltimore school. It probably should have happened in London, where, for decades, three gangs, the followers of Melanie Klein, Anna Freud, and the "middle school"—the object relations disciples of Fairbairn and Winnicott—had engaged in relentless warfare.