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May 23, 2010
psychoanalysis is a way of seeing
I think that psychoanalysis is a way of seeing. Freud is telling us that there is an infant in every one of us. An emotional infant, which is another way of saying an emotional cripple, because an infant isn't really suited to live an adult life. Many of us are two-year-olds trying to deal with the responsibilities of thirty- and forthy - and fifty - and sixty-year-olds, which is a terrible way to go through life. I think Freud tried, as Marx tried, to make his discoveries a closed system of ideas. I don't believe in closed systems of ideas, but that is not to say that one cannot learn from Marx or Freud. When psychoanalysis works, it becomes something that doesn't end when you leave the therapy. It becomes something you do for yourself.
Hilary Putnam
Posted by amin at May 23, 2010 10:51 AM