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Submitted by PatientsEngage on 10 October 2019
A person lying on a sofa and talking to a counsellor

On the occasion of World Mental Health Day (October 10), Psychoanalysts Arunava Banerjee and Arka Chattopadhyay talk to Ganesh Anantharaman about what psychoanalysis is, and what it offers to those seeking help for their mental health issues.

Described as the ‘talking cure’, psychoanalysis is a method of treatment that is based on the premise that the roots of our mental or emotional distress are the result of an ongoing conflict between our conscious intentions and our unconscious desires. Uncovering, accepting, and coming to terms with our unconscious drives and desires is the work of psychoanalysis. This is easier said than done, as attempts to become consciously aware of what is in our unconscious provokes resistance in various forms, as it often goes against our conscious image of ourselves. In psychoanalysis, the analyst assists the client in allowing the unconscious to emerge through speech in the sessions: by creating a container (safe space) for the client to access and articulate repressed memories; explore meanings one has unconsciously attributed to significant life events; and thus learn to take responsibility for one’s experiencing of current reality.

When I started my own analysis eight months ago to manage the emotional turmoil that I encountered after my mom’s demise after a period of illness, I had not anticipated that it would be a turning point in my understanding about my own unconscious needs and desires, and their ongoing impact on my current relationships. My personal experience of undergoing analysis, and my discoveries about the meaning I have ascribed to events from my early childhood and how they have inhibited me from doing what I want to do today, have impelled me to write this article. My intent is not to evangelize psychoanalysis, but rather to elucidate its possibilities as a distinct method of coming to terms with why one relates to the world the way one does, and the impact of that journey of discovery on one’s current mental or emotional health.

The format I have chosen is that of interviewing two practicing Indian psychoanalysts: Arunava Banerjee (AB) and Arka Chattopadhyay (AC), both personally known to me. One is my analyst; the other a colleague in a study group reading the works of French psychoanalyst Jacque Lacan. Together, and yet in their distinct ways, they articulate what psychoanalysis is; what it does; how it works; and what can it offer to those looking for help in navigating their distinctive mental and emotional worlds:

Q1 : How can one understand Psychoanalysis as a method of treatment for mental health? What distinguishes it from other methodologies such as counselling or psychotherapy?

AB: Psychoanalysis, described as ‘the talking cure’, is distinct from the other methodologies that you’ve named, because it works on the premise that there’s something called the unconscious in us that we’ve not acknowledged or paid attention to. Psychoanalysis helps us find a way to accommodate our unconscious in our lives; to give it its due place, so to speak. This we do through speaking about it in analysis. To the best of my knowledge, other methodologies of mental health do not focus on working with the unconscious.

AC: The attempt in many other methodologies is to uncover and work with patterns in behaviour, which is still at the conscious level. Freud himself began with a cognitive theory of the mind, but in the process of working with his patients, discovered something called the unconscious, when he realized that there are gaps in what we’re able to retain, recall, or reuse in our conscious mind. These gaps in our conscious thinking, according to Freud, could only be understood if we surmise the presence of the unconscious. Freud believed that speech is the gateway to our unconscious, hence ‘the talking cure’.

AB: There is another significant departure that psychoanalysis makes from all other methodologies of mental health. Non-psychoanalytic approaches tend to work towards normalizing what is considered as erratic behaviour. They therefore end up operating on a paradigm of mainstreaming people around a notion of what is considered ‘normal’. Psychoanalysis addresses that which is singular to us. The goal of analysis is to help any individual work functionally with their uniqueness, without letting it become problematic.

AC: Yes, in that sense, psychoanalysis moves away from the binary of ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’, since we’re unlikely to meet people who are completely ‘normal’ without any behaviour that is symptomatic of their uniqueness. Even within the mental health field, most methodologies operate on a paradigm that can be categorized into two clusters: ‘I suffer’ and ‘I do not suffer’; the goal of treatment being to move us from the first category to the second. Psychoanalysis believes that in our quest to end suffering, we may end up denying suffering. Helping a person come to terms with his own unique suffering, without a quick disowning of it, would be a valid goal in analysis.

Q2 : If the distinctiveness of psychoanalysis is located in the fact that it works towards giving the unconscious its due place in our personality, it may be useful to say what is the ‘unconscious’ all about?

AC: A good point to start would be to say that often, our conscious mind acts as a block to our unconscious. Unconscious mental processes operate when we do not want to consciously admit or face something; something that goes against our own idea of ourselves, who we’d like to be. Some mental processes happen without our conscious awareness: for example, supposing you are not keen on attending a social occasion, but are also not wanting to take a stand of not going because it may not be socially acceptable, you may find that you have overslept and delayed your going; or completely ‘forgotten’ about it. Unconscious processes must be surmised by paying attention to some of our own behaviour that surprises us – why did I forget that social occasion? - would be a good point to start figuring out our unconscious wish / desire. Why do we choose certain words over others? Why do we sometimes hear what we want to hear, rather than what was said? Why do we like or dislike some people without an apparent reason? All these are questions that can be addressed only through paying attention to our unconscious.

AB: I’d like to add that the unconscious is always about our desire. When we choose certain words over others to express ourselves, for instance, there is a desire that we are conveying, though we may not be consciously aware of it. Same is the case when we hear something different than what was said – that too represents a desire for something.

Q3 : Is the unconscious also about fear? Is what we’re afraid of, or what causes us pain, also lodged in our unconscious?

AB: Fear is usually a symptom of an underlying anxiety, or an inhibition. Even pain, which we consciously are afraid of, is a more complex phenomenon. Often unconsciously we associate pain with a certain kind of comfort, which is why we have such an attachment to what causes us pain.

AC: This point about attachment to pain is worth elaborating. A point that is not recognised, or at least emphasized by other mental health disciplines enough, is that we’re incredibly attached to our suffering! For instance, it is not uncommon that we tell ourselves: ‘I suffer in an unparalleled way; my suffering does not compare with anyone else’s; it is not just more than others, but also different than all others’ suffering’. All of us, when we suffer, ask ourselves the question: ‘why me?’ Psychoanalysis pays serious attention to the suffering of a person and investigates what function that suffering serves for the person. The attempt in analysis is not to answer the ‘why me?’ question, but really to help the person explore why they’re asking themselves that question.

Q4 : Perhaps we’re heading to the next question – is it correct to presume that psychoanalysis treats not just the symptom, but the structure of personality itself?

AB: To say that psychoanalysis does not treat the symptom is not quite appropriate. It is just that we try to understand the function particular symptom serves for a person. Therefore, a general goal such as ‘reducing anxiety’ or ‘removing emotional distress’, for instance, is not considered a valid goal in analysis. The focus is on helping the person understand what specific function that anxiety, or that emotional distress, serves for the person.

Q5 : In your experience, what brings people to psychoanalysis? What kind of issues are they seeking professional help for?

AB: People come to an analyst because they are looking for a response to something that creates a sense of urgency within them to seek help. When people come to an analyst, they may not be clear that they’re choosing analysis as a specific method of treatment. They’re only looking for help; sometimes simply to be relieved of their symptoms. It is after they undergo a few sessions of analysis that they choose analysis as an ongoing method of treatment towards better mental health, because they have a direct experience of what working with the unconscious in analysis offers to them. I would not like to offer a list of ‘issues’, because there’s a risk of generalizing what is usually a very singular urgency that is specific and unique to each individual.

AC: Without generalizing what is unique, I’d take the risk of saying that people tend to look for professional help, even if they are not specifically choosing psychoanalysis, when they encounter an event or circumstance that alters their equilibrium in relationships. It could be caused by the death of a loved one; strain in a relationship with a significant other; break in a relationship; an emotional trauma of any kind etc. At times it could also be that the individual recognizes a change in one’s state of being – perhaps a general sense of having lost interest in most things in life. Through their sessions in analysis they may discover that there are patterns and connections to their responses to events and circumstances, and these are the result of meanings they have attributed to events in their early life; mostly unconsciously.

Q6 : Despite its uniqueness and the possibilities that psychoanalysis offers to those seeking assistance in dealing with their mental / emotional distress, why are other methods of treatment (psychiatry, for instance) more popular?

AC: The ascendancy of other ‘scientific’ approaches to mental health can be traced back to the post world war II phenomenon of science, armed with the strength of replicability and generalizability, becoming the benchmark of truth. This has not helped psychoanalysis, as the existence of the unconscious cannot be proven; it can only be inferred and worked with. Secondly, psychoanalysis, with its emphasis on the singularity of the individual’s experience, repudiates the principle of treating similar symptoms as meaning the same for all individuals, which is the basis for many other methodologies of mental health.

AB: The fact is that seeking professional help for mental health issues is still something of a taboo in many cultures and societies. But even when people overcome this barrier and seek professional help, the need in most is to be rid of the symptoms; the need for a solution, which the pharmaceutical industry, and other methods of behaviour modification have capitalized on. Psychoanalysis doesn’t offer a ‘solution’. It reframes the question as why the person is seeing the presence of certain symptoms as a problem. It pushes us to take responsibility for the state of our mental health, through the hard work of making our unconscious desires, needs and anxieties conscious, and decide what do we want to do about them.

Q7 : Which brings me to my next question: is psychoanalysis necessarily a long-term process? Taking years for the person undergoing analysis to see light at the end of the tunnel?

AC: The need to see ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ still seems to come from a place of wanting a solution; or an end to one’s problems or issues. It is because psychoanalysis desists offering solutions that undergoing analysis is long-term. It involves understanding why we see and understand the world the way we do, and coming to terms with our singular experiencing of our reality, without indulging our fantasies.

AB: Since the work in analysis is about finding a way to functionally accommodate our unconscious in our lives instead of denying it, it is an ongoing process. After all, as long as we exist, our unconscious mental processes too exist! However, while there is no ‘The End’ to one’s analysis. there can well be ‘an end’ where a person can decide to take a break, or stop analysis altogether.

Q8 : There is a perception that psychoanalysis is unaffordable for many people, particularly in a poor country such as ours…

AB: Analysis exacts a price for sure; not just in monetary terms, but in terms of one’s effort; commitment; and most importantly, in giving up certain positions and stances that we’re so used to. The non-monetary investments are significant. Yes, it is expensive; and I think monetarily stretching oneself for undergoing analysis is important. But I can speak for myself that I have never turned away someone who’s come to me with a serious intent to pursue analysis because they couldn’t afford it. In my experience, people have stopped analysis at a point not because they couldn’t afford it financially, but because they weren’t willing to give up the comfort of the known.

AC: There’s no denying that the reach of analysis in our country with its vast geographic spread and deep economic disparities is limited. Also, our society emphasises the community and its web of relationships rather than the individual. A large percentage of people in this country find solace from talking to someone they know, rather than to a professional expert. The idea of paying someone else to listen to one’s troubles may seem bizarre. That is one reason why seeking professional help for one’s mental health issues remains something of a taboo, even among the urban affluent, where affordability is not an issue. Finally, each person looking for help has to reach of point of urgency in their own desire to seek professional help. Psychoanalysis can work only when a person is ready to end the attachment to one’s suffering!

End notes by the interviewer: perhaps it’s important to conclude by articulating what being in analysis for 38 sessions over the last eight months has meant for me: a sense of release from my inhibiting notions about myself; an enhanced capacity to enjoy the present without denying any anxiety; and a stance of optimism for what is unfolding as the future.

Arunava Banerjee is a psychoanalyst practicing in New Delhi. 

Arka Chattopadhyay teaches literature, psychoanalysis and philosophy in the department of Humanities and Social Sciences at IIT Gandhinagar. His research is in the field of psychoanalysis and literature and he practices Lacanian analysis. His email is: 

Ganesh Anantharaman is an organization development consultant based out of Chennai, also deeply involved in Group Relations work in India.