In a 1995 interview, imagined by the psychoanalyst Bennett Simon, Freud is asked to reflect on what, from the perspective of one hundred years of psychoanalysis, the well-analyzed person should be able to do? Freud responds: “To Love, to Work, and to Vote.” Dr. Simon goes on to consider the dilemmas of citizenship in the analyst’s role and its generally neglected or hidden place in the patient’s emotional life.
Beyond the consulting room, citizenship represents a developmental challenge for all of us: toward discovering our point of view, declaring it publicly, listening to the points of view of others and learning more, surrendering, or standing our ground. It faces us with problems of difference, conflict and compromise, with moments of decision which both join and separate us from others, and with the requirement to re-join, after the battle so to speak, in order to carry on something larger than the self, namely, communal life.
In today’s America, the common good so often seems casualty to what, from a psychodynamic point of view, is the defense of splitting, and perhaps also to the splitting inherent in the confusion of capitalism with democracy. Erik Erikson’s words of many years ago seem apposite: “Where the human being despairs of an essential wholeness, he re-structures himself and the world by taking refuge in totalism….an absolute boundary is emphasized...nothing that belongs inside must be left outside; nothing that must be outside should be tolerated inside."
One senses a longing for wholeness in contemporary America as hints of a generational shift may foreshadow a paradigm shift. In this rapidly evolving, charged context, how do we think about citizenship dynamically? How does a person’s vote reflect an interaction of psychological and social forces? How do cherished and disavowed identifications shape, consciously and unconsciously, the political landscape?
In this interdisciplinary conference, we will consider citizenship today from a range of perspectives, including that of psychoanalysis. Through presentations and discussions, scholars and clinicians will examine the nature, status and dynamics of citizenship toward the goal of understanding how, why and whether we exercise our authority as voters in today’s context.
Location: Austen Riggs Center
Contact Information
Nadine Reddy
413-931-5236
erikson@austenriggs.net
