Slavoj Zizek — What Everyone Gets Wrong About Psychoanalysis

[00:00:00]As someone who is nonetheless influenced by psychoanalysis etc. I think that in order to really use productively psychoanalysis today in order to understand ideological phenomena, one has to get rid of many many stupid cliches about psychoanalysis.

[00:00:22]The main are two. One, and I rely here on uh I don't like him otherwise, but Adam Phillips to be a male chauvinist, the ex-boyfriend of Jacqueline Rose if this gives you some coordinates.

[00:00:36]In some journal, I think it's the Paris Review or whatever, recently it appeared a long interview of him by done by Paul Holdengräber, the New York Public Library guy. And there nonetheless Adam Phillips says something wonderful about psychoanalytic practice.

[00:00:57]He said there [snorts] are two cliches about psychoanalysis which should be dropped. One is psychoanalysis is a form of self-knowledge, that it's the radical version of this ancient Greek [ __ ] know yourself, and so on.

[00:01:15]And second point that the aim of psychoanalysis is to ease, diminish your suffering.

[00:01:24]I mean, this seems absolutely obvious.

[00:01:27]You suffer, trauma, symptoms, whatever, psychoanalysis gives you a deeper understanding of yourself, and once you understand the causes as Freud put it, at least if there still is suffering, it's just simple banal suffering, not suffering caused by ignorance and so on and so on.

[00:01:52]>> [snorts] >> Uh Adam Phillips in a wonderful way, I think that's my dream that Adorno would have loved this.

[00:01:59]Uh reject both. He said, "No."

[00:02:04]This obsessive desire to know yourself is in itself a pathology. But, wait a minute. He's not a new ager. His point is not this pseudo Buddhist [ __ ] like, you know, don't think, just do it spontaneously, and so on. No. For him, the opposition of knowing yourself is not just act intuitively. It's something different. His point is instead of probing into yourself, dedicate yourself to an external cause.

[00:02:37]You are not cured when you are satisfied, oh my god, now I can tell a complete story about myself, I know it.

[00:02:45]But, when you simply you don't matter to yourself, you fight for something. It can be progressive politics, you are a fanatical artist, scientist, politician, inventor, lover, whatever you want. But, this is the point that the goal of psychoanalysis is precisely to bring you to the point where you can finally forget about that piece of [ __ ] that is yourself or myself, and finally work for a cause.

[00:03:18]And second thing, here Adam Phillips Phillips is even more refined.

[00:03:23]>> [snorts] >> Uh he says a wonderful thing. My god, that's Hegelian spirit. He says that, because he's also uh practicing analyst. And he says that when uh a when he sees that after a session, 50 minutes, he's not this Lacanian tweeter, but the traditional one, no?

[00:03:44]That, although I must say, I understand Lacan. I never could even imagine myself being an analyst, but I would certainly be for short sessions and you can imagine why.

[00:03:55]Can you even imagine me listening in patience to another person for more than 1 minute or 2? You already suffered me, you know. Okay, but let's go on. So, his point is that when a patient obviously feels better relaxed that he, as analyst Adam Phillips, gets into total panic. Oh my god, what did I do wrong and so on. I think and then but no, it's not just the patient should suffer, but he provides a wonderfully correct formulation, Adam Phillips, when he says and it's basically a restatement of that previous point about dedicating yourself to some cause.

[00:04:35]He says that the point is not to ease your suffering. The point is that a good analytic treatment should enable you to simply move out of these categories. Do I suffer? Do I have pleasures? Am I enjoying life? And to discover that there are things, noble things, quite naively, like I don't know, great scientific work, love, whatever, which are much more important than your suffering or pleasure, you know. And I think this is the correct reading of psychoanalysis. It's absolutely not this spiritual self-examination, which is why I hate life.

[00:05:24]>> [laughter] >> I'm sorry. I will turn it off. I wanted to blame somebody else, but you know, I have to blame the other in me, the foreigner in me. Okay, okay. So, let's go on.

[00:05:35]This is why now comes the last dirty part, but don't be afraid. It's I am the butt of the joke. Uh my my mother and my grandfather, maternal yes grandfather all died of colonoscopies cancer so I have to do that miss fortunate thing of every 3 4 years to do colonoscopy to blah blah okay the point is this one I will not go don't be afraid I will not show you some clips or but that will be my point because I was so shocked probably it happens here the same this is called the modern medicine at the end the doctor gave me you know small DVD like you know and I ask why is he giving this to me does he think that I will invite friends forget about a nice blockbuster why don't we look the inside of my ass or whatever you know that's what's wrong about it I don't want to know the inside of myself I don't want to know it psychologically and bodily even less and it's wonderful when you spoke about disgust disgust is basically that moment when inside and you know when the disgust is not radical otherness disgust is when this thin skin [snorts] or whatever line of separation breaks down and the inside comes >> [snorts] >> outside that's the moment of disgust