I'd like to make a point here.  I think that what a good
psychoanalyst does, far more importantly than making a
"medical diagnosis" (i.e., yer a paranoid schitzo, and
that's that) is to slowly and patiently elucidate a
person's patterns of behavior over time--so that the
patient is then motivated to change those (negative)
patterns.  The specific "medical" skill required [to change
behavior] is really more an art, a gift of communication skill,
very much like the gift of an effective teacher, and
that gift can not be learned at school or attested to
by a sheepskin.
 
If a psychoanalyst and literary critic are given the same
"texts," i.e., the life and works of a (dead) writer, with which
to analyze said writer, the diplomas each practitioner
holds don't matter squat.  The critic and analyst are both
faced with the same problem: from a welter of data to
sort out patterns of repeated behavior.  Neither of them
can perform anything "medical" on a text (and that is what
a deceased writer is reduced to, isn't he?), so that the
playing field is level for each.  I think therefore that
if Torrey, or Redman, or I, or whoever--can find interesting
patterns throughout the supertext of EP's life and work,
we are acting as good *literary* analysts and not as
medical diagnosticians (since the medical is not called
for).  It should be clear that Freud's analyses of dead people
are analyses of texts, not of people, and should be regarded
as literary achievements comparable to those of the great
art historians, even though each sees different patterns in
virtually the same material.
 
In any case, let no one presume to do "medical" autopsying
of such supertexts as a deceased Pound.  You're doing a
literary analysis, period.  And if you've got a fine mind,
you'll give us all insights we didn't have before.  And I
won't give a damn what medical school you went to at night.
 
==Dan P
 
 
 
At 10:20 AM 10/25/98 -0800, you wrote:
>Dear Mr. Read: I don't think I replied to your reply about "amateur
>psychotherapy." I do think, as you suspect, that you have me wrong. I
>certainly have no objections to "psychotherapy" -- far from it, as an
>old-fashioned Freudian. The key word is "amateur." One of our
>correspondents completely missed the irony of that, and thought I was
>referring to some recognized or established practice. Anyhow,the point of
>my posting was to suggest that those of us who are planted in literary
>study ought to avoid making medical diagnoses such as Mr. Redman proposes
>to perform on Pound unless they are properly qualified.I fail to see the
>"arrogance" of that.
>                                        With best wishes,
>                                        Jacob Korg
>
Dan Pearlman                    Office: Department of English
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