I have wanted to do a piece on psychoanalysis for a long time.
Psychoanalysts are that rare breed of therapist that have been trained an additional four years in order to understand the working of the unconscious as first described by Freud.
The unconscious is that part of the mind which contains the experiences of the past which are too painful to remember but also too painful to forget. Like Sisyphus and his rock people then spend their entire lives blindly repeating whatever childhood trauma they are trying to forget. So I scheduled an interview with one of Long Island’s best analysts in order to explore these issues in some depth.
I called upon Dr. James Zaikowski who practices in Great Neck and teaches at the Derner Institute at Adelphi University.
When I travel out of the country and need a psychoanalyst to cover my practice Dr. Zaikowski is the only guy I entrust my patients to.
My plan was to explore his thoughts on the value of analysis, what patients hope to gain in analysis and what are the underlying values offered in psychoanalysis. We had a wide ranging discussion of these topics in Bee-Organic Café in down town Great Neck.
The first thing I asked was how patients come to learn about the process of psychoanalysis.
He remarked that patients sometimes have had psychotherapy in the past and already know the rules of free association. He also mentioned that films often introduce basic concepts like the unconscious and the connections between past and present.
The Antonioni masterpiece “Blow Up” was about the director’s efforts to explore his own unconscious.
Films like this help the culture to learn about the existence of the unconscious and its importance.
I then asked if he thought the process of psychotherapy was difficult. He said “The art of psychotherapy is difficult but it is also exhilarating. Patients wind up making changes at work, at home or in their friendships and the process of discovery is exciting to take part in both for patient and for doctor”.
We talked about the pleasure of practicing psychotherapy as a career.
Psychotherapy is like fishing. The analyst drops the line and patiently waits for something to emerge from the patients unconscious.
And if we are quiet enough and attentive enough something will always jump out of the water and right into the boat. Dr. Zaikowski mentioned Erich Fromm who said that psychoanalysts spend their days listening for the ‘red thread’ to appear in the tapestry of the patients associations.
I also asked Dr. Zaikowski about the use of about humor and laughter in our practice.
He told me that when jokes emerge in the session it can be a sign that there is trust between patient and therapist. It reminded me of the classic comedy film ‘Analyze This’ starring Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal.
De Niro played a mobster who was having panic attacks and Billy Crystal played his analyst.
Each time Billy Crystal made an interpretation De Niro would look at him, wave his finger and say “You, you, you’re good…you!”
I then asked him about the question of the values that are inherent in the analytic process.
All the way back in the mid-19th century Alexis De Tocqueville described Americans as tireless, over active, status seeking , commercial minded and not terribly literate.
De Tocqueville’s description of Americans remains central in political theory and this character description is referred to as “American Exceptionalism.”
It is obvious that on American’s do seek money, tend to be commercial minded and seek after status.
But this attitude may not bring joy and meaning to a life and that’s why psychoanalysts are so very busy treating sad patients.
He remarked that “analysis has been established to help patients find meaning in their life.”
But man’s quest for meaning is no easy matter. Many an existential writer has found nothing but despair in their efforts to find meaning in life.
This includes Albert Camus in the Myth of Sisyphus and Samuel Beckett in Waiting for Godot. Hope may spring eternal but meaning is no easy thing to find and hold.
Dr. Zaikowski and I both meet new patients each day.
They come for treatment in order to obtain symptom relief. They suffer with either anxiety or guilt or depression or shame.
But what they all must learn is that their unconscious is dictating their behavior and pain.
In due time the symptoms disappear but two far more difficult tasks remain.
The patient must learn that they are no different than Sisyphus and have spent their entire life pushing a rock up a mountain only to see it roll back down again.
Every patient must learn why they are so blindly compulsive. And as Dr. Zaikowski mentioned they must then figure out what is the true meaning and purpose of their life.
In the Fellini masterpiece “8 ½” the main character is seen as a child repeating the phrase ‘asa nisi masa’ as he flaps his arms up and down. Fellini was in Jungian analysis at the time he was making this film and ‘asa nisi masa’ is pig Latin for the Jungian word anima referring to the power of the feminine.
The film itself is all about the power of women and how enthralled and mesmerized Fellini was by them.
We can take a lesson from Fellini. He used both psychoanalysis and film making to confront, understand and resolve his neurosis.
FerBut most do not have the chance to make a film about their past so all that remains is to find yourself a good and thoroughly trained analyst and tell the story of your life to him. And that’s just where Dr. James Zaikowski comes in.
