Psychoanalysis: The Magic and The Lie - Diary of A Five Day A Week Analysis

I can provide many examples of censorship within psychoanalytic communities, as I'm sure you can provide examples of censorship issues that occur in learning communities you are involved in. I was most deprived of my identity when my own analyst who had told me we were not to be in the same out-of-office space together, turned up, as a discussion leader for the entire year. When I confronted him with this contradiction, he waved me off. There was no contradiction from his side, only mine. People in the business call this mind fucking. He refused to acknowledge that his presence in the learning environment was prohibiting me from developing on my own, without the presence of a transference figure whose chief means of dealing with me was through censorship.

We all have a historical relationship to censorship and to the intimidation that accompanies it. As writers and poets, we must bear witness to the events surrounding censorship as we experience it. We need to ask ourselves: What happens to us as individuals when we are censored? How do the results of censorship and intimidation, which often include personal humiliation, self-censorship and economic repercussions, impact the work we do, the writing we complete and the writing we do not complete?

In order to develop our best writing selves we need to learn what our capabilities are, not just in terms of craft and style, but also with respect to those who would censor us, to those who would keep our tongues still. Censorship affects us on many different levels. It attacks our minds, our skin and it infects our writer's blood like a bad drug. This may be because the shame we often feel when censored, comes from an earlier time, from our first meetings with Censorship inside our families, our neighborhoods, social-political organizations, and religious institutions.

When the heat is on for poets and writers, the time is more than ripe to look, not just at our right to dissent but also, at our ability to dissent and where that ability comes from. How deeply is our ability to dissent to write and to speak in spite of censorship and intimidation lodged inside our psyches, inside our emotional compositions and drives? Dissent is action. A writer may wish to dissent but not know how. He or she may be sympathetic, even passionate, about an issue, but not have the courage to bring forth public expression. Dissenting, however, is part of the writer's job. It is our work, and we need to learn how to do it well.

Let us now take the writer's "I," the first person singular. How do world events affect this "I?" How does the immediate world around you affect your "I," your first person singular? And isn't your "I" your true writing self, the self that mirrors your nation, the self that writes in blood, the self you must perfect so that you can tell the truth of your story as it reflects, but absolutely, how you feel inside? You go out into the world; you encounter and interact with other human beings. Are you to put your poet self, your writer's self, the one influenced by the delicacy of early childhood, aside? In everyday life, in order for the true self not to be harmed, to use the writer Susan Sontag's idea, one needs to live through the carrier self, that protective self that helps the inner self stay strong and viable so that when the writer needs it, it will be accessible and available to function at top quality.

We writers and poets have been fortunate these last few weeks when a collective carrier self, in the form of Poets Against the War, emerged to help us express and protect our inner writing selves. But collective carrier selves are not always present to us. Most of the time we fend alone speaking into our private journals or writing with small groups of friends. We learn on our own and often the hard way how to survive censorship that rips so many of us from our moorings. Poets Against the War has shown us that a public display of togetherness provides us with energy to move beyond our fears; such a collective carrier self as Poets Against the War boosts our morale so we can direct our voices outward.

My job as a writer is to get as close to the truth of my subject as possible, given my academic skill and psychological ability at the time of writing. But getting to the truth of my subject, and my self in relation to my subject, has not always been easy. Not until recent years have I been able to develop strong carrier selves to carry me along so that my writing self could have freer reign to create. Censorship and intimidation often stood in my way so that I could not accomplish my work.

For instance, in 1991, I enrolled in a program on psychoanalytic theory. I was the only writer among a 100 therapists. In addition to objecting to the way mothers and women seemed to be blamed for all of society's wrongs, I objected to the way patient data was handled. For example, in presenting a case study, one analyst read a local poet's work to illustrate a problem she was having. I was mortified at the breach in confidentiality-- to use material in a case study that a client gave the analyst in the privacy of a therapy room, where there are no carrier selves, only raw self! I vocalized my opinion and was immediately censored, as I was for numerous other incidents particularly those I wrote articles on. Finally, I was ostracized and labeled a dissident. This incident within a psychoanalytic learning community hurt me personally and professionally; it has also provided me with material that is critical for my writing on psychoanalysis and for my writing, in general.

A second illustration of my relationship to censorship and how it injured my writing self concerns a writing group I once belonged to. Writing groups and programs can be notorious for ripping writers, and sometimes teachers, apart. In the early 90s, not too long after the psychoanalytic- course debacle, I was part of a women's writing group that was dreadfully wrong for me. I left each meeting devastated, sobbing for hours. Obviously, I was not compatible with the three other members of the group and they were not compatible with me and, perhaps, not with each other. But my carrier selves were not sufficiently developed to give me the protection I needed. I did not realize that the group was not only interfering with my writing it was reinforcing every piece of hierarchical and class-based negativity I received from life experiences--in my family, in sexist America, in academia. I was at the time writing a doctoral dissertation which I had to complete by June of that year. I knew if I stayed in the group I would never complete it.

My decision to leave came down to this: Do I address my needs or the group's and I was never sure what the group's needs were. Do I remain tied to women with whom I may be experiencing a reenactment of past hurts and ambivalences or do I put my writing self first? I chose to quit. Had I remained in the group, with the censorship that was occurring there, including attacks on my writing style, I would not have completed my doctoral dissertation. I left the group in January and completed the thesis in May, receiving my Ph.D. that June.

With these experiences and others under my belt I have, for the most part, been able to weather literary and academic storms that might have devastated me in the way they did years earlier. As the coordinator of Seattle's It's About Time Writers Reading Series, for instance, I have come under criticism (which is hardly censorship) particularly in the last year and a half. Since September 11th, I began viewing It's About Time as an anti-war venue, even more so when Bush declared a preemptive war on Iraq. I felt I needed to take the reading series out of its isolation and into the public arena where writers are part of a wider conversation.

A few people who were on the email list for years told me to take them off, especially when I began forwarding anti-war messages. One poet told me he felt censored because It's About Time was no longer a venue that was open enough for him, that it no longer gave vent to a variety of expressions. Another wrote: "Your motive in the one-way downloading of articles dear to far-leftist views is still a mystery to me. Do you ever discuss your ideas with people who disagree, or do you just sadly react to those who disagree as hostile, angry individuals with an axe to grind? Thank you for letting me know that you have no interest in interaction."

At another time in my life these comments might have unglued me, kept me from writing and doing the work I am meant to do. Now they spur me on and demonstrate that I am not a spectator in my writing life. I am part of the story and need to tell it, need to bear witness to the events that unfold around me, no matter how mundane. I need to do this without shame and humiliation or the fear of being labeled a dissident. When we, as writers and poets, record instances of censorship, we bear witness to the history of censorship in our communities. This is difficult to do but there are times when we have to use our voices even when we don't want to. That time is now and tomorrow and next week. It is next month, next year. It's as long as we have stories to tell, as long are we are alive.

SEATTLE--PEN-Washington, the state chapter of PEN USA (www.penwa.org), and Richard Hugo House, presents a panel discussion addressing the additional pressures, responsibilities, and restrictions felt by authors, journalists, playwrights and poets as America begins THE WAR ON IRAQ: Tuesday, April 15, 2002 at 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. at Richard Hugo House, 1634 Eleventh Avenue, Seattle.

"Journalists, Writers and even Poets are dealing with a whole new set of rules as a result of 9-1-1 and the War in Iraq, and Homeland Security issues," said Christopher J Jarmick, President, PEN Washington. "Is there a disturbing trend toward restriction of our free press and increased censorship? Is public information being restricted? We've put together a panel to discuss The Patriot Act; Cancelled White House Poetry Gatherings; Censored Editorials; and how to deal with the challenges, pressures and changes we face as writers in tumultuous times.

On the third Tuesdays of the month (except July and December) PEN- Washington and co-sponsor Richard Hugo House (http://www.hugohouse.org/events/ ), hosts events, talks, and workshops of interest to writers and open to the public. www.penwa.org

PEN-WA is a nonprofit organization of writers, which was formed (in June 2002) to provide support; encourage and recognize creative literary excellence. As part of PEN-USA and PEN INTERNATIONAL, PEN-WA works to protect writers' freedom of expression throughout the state, country and world. PEN Washington, the state chapter of PEN USA, is part of an international organization of professional writers founded in 1921 by Catherine Amy Dawson Scott. Early members included: D.H. Lawrence, Joseph Conrad, H.G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw. Today, PEN is composed of 130 centers in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Americas with a total membership of approximately 15,000.



Psychoanalysis: The Magic and The Lie Diary of a Five Day A Week Analysis by Esther Altshul Helfgott, Ph.D.
			home table of contents


	April 15, 2003 - writing and censorship I deleted this paragraph from the talk on writing and censorship (below) that I gave for a PEN Washington panel: I can provide many examples of censorship within psychoanalytic communities, as I'm sure you can provide examples of censorship issues that occur in learning communities you are involved in. I was most deprived of my identity when my own analyst who had told me we were not to be in the same out-of-office space together, turned up, as a discussion leader for the entire year. When I confronted him with this contradiction, he waved me off. There was no contradiction from his side, only mine. People in the business call this mind fucking. He refused to acknowledge that his presence in the learning environment was prohibiting me from developing on my own, without the presence of a transference figure whose chief means of dealing with me was through censorship. PEN Washington panel: Censorship and the Right to Dissent or The Heat Is On: Writing, Politics, and Civil Liberties Post 9-11: Poets, Essayists, Novelists, journalists and editors under fire. April 15, 2003 CENSORSHIP AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF A WRITING SELF by Esther Altshul Helfgott We all have a historical relationship to censorship and to the intimidation that accompanies it. As writers and poets, we must bear witness to the events surrounding censorship as we experience it. We need to ask ourselves: What happens to us as individuals when we are censored? How do the results of censorship and intimidation, which often include personal humiliation, self-censorship and economic repercussions, impact the work we do, the writing we complete and the writing we do not complete? In order to develop our best writing selves we need to learn what our capabilities are, not just in terms of craft and style, but also with respect to those who would censor us, to those who would keep our tongues still. Censorship affects us on many different levels. It attacks our minds, our skin and it infects our writer's blood like a bad drug. This may be because the shame we often feel when censored, comes from an earlier time, from our first meetings with Censorship inside our families, our neighborhoods, social-political organizations, and religious institutions. When the heat is on for poets and writers, the time is more than ripe to look, not just at our right to dissent but also, at our ability to dissent and where that ability comes from. How deeply is our ability to dissent to write and to speak in spite of censorship and intimidation lodged inside our psyches, inside our emotional compositions and drives? Dissent is action. A writer may wish to dissent but not know how. He or she may be sympathetic, even passionate, about an issue, but not have the courage to bring forth public expression. Dissenting, however, is part of the writer's job. It is our work, and we need to learn how to do it well. Let us now take the writer's "I," the first person singular. How do world events affect this "I?" How does the immediate world around you affect your "I," your first person singular? And isn't your "I" your true writing self, the self that mirrors your nation, the self that writes in blood, the self you must perfect so that you can tell the truth of your story as it reflects, but absolutely, how you feel inside? You go out into the world; you encounter and interact with other human beings. Are you to put your poet self, your writer's self, the one influenced by the delicacy of early childhood, aside? In everyday life, in order for the true self not to be harmed, to use the writer Susan Sontag's idea, one needs to live through the carrier self, that protective self that helps the inner self stay strong and viable so that when the writer needs it, it will be accessible and available to function at top quality. We writers and poets have been fortunate these last few weeks when a collective carrier self, in the form of Poets Against the War, emerged to help us express and protect our inner writing selves. But collective carrier selves are not always present to us. Most of the time we fend alone speaking into our private journals or writing with small groups of friends. We learn on our own and often the hard way how to survive censorship that rips so many of us from our moorings. Poets Against the War has shown us that a public display of togetherness provides us with energy to move beyond our fears; such a collective carrier self as Poets Against the War boosts our morale so we can direct our voices outward. My job as a writer is to get as close to the truth of my subject as possible, given my academic skill and psychological ability at the time of writing. But getting to the truth of my subject, and my self in relation to my subject, has not always been easy. Not until recent years have I been able to develop strong carrier selves to carry me along so that my writing self could have freer reign to create. Censorship and intimidation often stood in my way so that I could not accomplish my work. For instance, in 1991, I enrolled in a program on psychoanalytic theory. I was the only writer among a 100 therapists. In addition to objecting to the way mothers and women seemed to be blamed for all of society's wrongs, I objected to the way patient data was handled. For example, in presenting a case study, one analyst read a local poet's work to illustrate a problem she was having. I was mortified at the breach in confidentiality-- to use material in a case study that a client gave the analyst in the privacy of a therapy room, where there are no carrier selves, only raw self! I vocalized my opinion and was immediately censored, as I was for numerous other incidents particularly those I wrote articles on. Finally, I was ostracized and labeled a dissident. This incident within a psychoanalytic learning community hurt me personally and professionally; it has also provided me with material that is critical for my writing on psychoanalysis and for my writing, in general. A second illustration of my relationship to censorship and how it injured my writing self concerns a writing group I once belonged to. Writing groups and programs can be notorious for ripping writers, and sometimes teachers, apart. In the early 90s, not too long after the psychoanalytic- course debacle, I was part of a women's writing group that was dreadfully wrong for me. I left each meeting devastated, sobbing for hours. Obviously, I was not compatible with the three other members of the group and they were not compatible with me and, perhaps, not with each other. But my carrier selves were not sufficiently developed to give me the protection I needed. I did not realize that the group was not only interfering with my writing it was reinforcing every piece of hierarchical and class-based negativity I received from life experiences--in my family, in sexist America, in academia. I was at the time writing a doctoral dissertation which I had to complete by June of that year. I knew if I stayed in the group I would never complete it. My decision to leave came down to this: Do I address my needs or the group's and I was never sure what the group's needs were. Do I remain tied to women with whom I may be experiencing a reenactment of past hurts and ambivalences or do I put my writing self first? I chose to quit. Had I remained in the group, with the censorship that was occurring there, including attacks on my writing style, I would not have completed my doctoral dissertation. I left the group in January and completed the thesis in May, receiving my Ph.D. that June. With these experiences and others under my belt I have, for the most part, been able to weather literary and academic storms that might have devastated me in the way they did years earlier. As the coordinator of Seattle's It's About Time Writers Reading Series, for instance, I have come under criticism (which is hardly censorship) particularly in the last year and a half. Since September 11th, I began viewing It's About Time as an anti-war venue, even more so when Bush declared a preemptive war on Iraq. I felt I needed to take the reading series out of its isolation and into the public arena where writers are part of a wider conversation. A few people who were on the email list for years told me to take them off, especially when I began forwarding anti-war messages. One poet told me he felt censored because It's About Time was no longer a venue that was open enough for him, that it no longer gave vent to a variety of expressions. Another wrote: "Your motive in the one-way downloading of articles dear to far-leftist views is still a mystery to me. Do you ever discuss your ideas with people who disagree, or do you just sadly react to those who disagree as hostile, angry individuals with an axe to grind? Thank you for letting me know that you have no interest in interaction." At another time in my life these comments might have unglued me, kept me from writing and doing the work I am meant to do. Now they spur me on and demonstrate that I am not a spectator in my writing life. I am part of the story and need to tell it, need to bear witness to the events that unfold around me, no matter how mundane. I need to do this without shame and humiliation or the fear of being labeled a dissident. When we, as writers and poets, record instances of censorship, we bear witness to the history of censorship in our communities. This is difficult to do but there are times when we have to use our voices even when we don't want to. That time is now and tomorrow and next week. It is next month, next year. It's as long as we have stories to tell, as long are we are alive. copyright2003,2005Esther Altshul Helfgott Pre-Presentation Publicity PEN Washington Hosts "THE HEAT IS ON : Writing, Politics, and Civil Liberties Post 9/1/01: Poets, Essayists, Novelists, journalists and editors under fire - TUESDAY, APRIL 15 SEATTLE--PEN-Washington, the state chapter of PEN USA (www.penwa.org), and Richard Hugo House, presents a panel discussion addressing the additional pressures, responsibilities, and restrictions felt by authors, journalists, playwrights and poets as America begins THE WAR ON IRAQ: Tuesday, April 15, 2002 at 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. at Richard Hugo House, 1634 Eleventh Avenue, Seattle. Our Panelists include: Duff Wilson, Migael Scherer, Esther Helfgott, Kevin Morrison and Christopher J. Jarmick. "Journalists, Writers and even Poets are dealing with a whole new set of rules as a result of 9-1-1 and the War in Iraq, and Homeland Security issues," said Christopher J Jarmick, President, PEN Washington. "Is there a disturbing trend toward restriction of our free press and increased censorship? Is public information being restricted? We've put together a panel to discuss The Patriot Act; Cancelled White House Poetry Gatherings; Censored Editorials; and how to deal with the challenges, pressures and changes we face as writers in tumultuous times. On the third Tuesdays of the month (except July and December) PEN- Washington and co-sponsor Richard Hugo House (http://www.hugohouse.org/events/ ), hosts events, talks, and workshops of interest to writers and open to the public. www.penwa.org PEN-WA is a nonprofit organization of writers, which was formed (in June 2002) to provide support; encourage and recognize creative literary excellence. As part of PEN-USA and PEN INTERNATIONAL, PEN-WA works to protect writers' freedom of expression throughout the state, country and world. PEN Washington, the state chapter of PEN USA, is part of an international organization of professional writers founded in 1921 by Catherine Amy Dawson Scott. Early members included: D.H. Lawrence, Joseph Conrad, H.G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw. Today, PEN is composed of 130 centers in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Americas with a total membership of approximately 15,000.



		This page was last updated on: July 10, 2005