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Re: Delusions and Luna moths
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Re: [NABOKV-L] Delusions and Luna mothsDear Carolyn ( and List),
You didn't "demote" me when you referred to me as a psychologist and not as a psychoanalyst. I cannot understand why you thought it might require apologies ( I'm a psychologist, too).
If I remember correctly Freud never wrote about "multiple personality disorder".
These are new developments, but there might have been an extensive bibliography about it at the time VN wrote "Pale Fire", mainly by American psychiatrists.
Freud also didn't use the word "supression" ( even the authorized translation into English by James Strachey is not very precise using the word "repression" for Freud's German word "Verdrängung" ).
Freud started his work by using hypnosis ( that's why the couch was initially employed by psychoanalysts ). He was not opposed to it, as you surmises, but he found out that its therapeutic effects were of short duration and went on to create the psychoanalytic method, something quite distinct from hypnosis.
His articles, for example, "The Splitting of the Ego in the Process of Defense", do not call to my mind the "mpd".
Melanie Klein has written extensively about "splitting" and for those who are interested I strongly recommend her article based on a novel by Julien Green ( I cannot now recall the title of Green's novel. By translating into English from the translation in Portuguese we'd have "If I were you" - but the French text has a different name). Melanie Klein's article ( again I must now quote from memory since my books are not at home) is "On Identification" ( probably written in 1946, I'm not sure).
I doubt that, should we follow any "psychiatric manual" to understand Shade and Kinbote, we'd improve our understanding of "Pale Fire".
I'm sorry to be imprecise at this moment but I fear I might miss the incoming messages discussing similar issues if I wait until tomorrow to add dates and bibliography. The sudden "psychiatric" flurry, as you may have noticed, seems often to veer away from literary VN.
.Jansy
----- Original Message -----
From: Carolyn Kunin
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2006 2:19 AM
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] Delusions and Luna moths
Dear Jansy,
Please first accept my public apology for demoting you from psychoanalyst to psychologist.
I think the Greek word you are thinking of meaning "eater" is phage.
As to Freud;s original theories of hysteria in relation to "split personality," I am not familiar enough with Freud to attempt an answer. But it is interesting that Freud rejected the use of hypnosis in psychoanalysis, while hypnosis was the primary tool used by French psychiatrists Janet and Charcot to analyze and treat patients who exhibited multiple or split personalities.
I don't recall any references to Freud in Pale Fire (do you?) but there are references to hypnosis. Can this be without significance?
Carolyn
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You didn't "demote" me when you referred to me as a psychologist and not as a psychoanalyst. I cannot understand why you thought it might require apologies ( I'm a psychologist, too).
If I remember correctly Freud never wrote about "multiple personality disorder".
These are new developments, but there might have been an extensive bibliography about it at the time VN wrote "Pale Fire", mainly by American psychiatrists.
Freud also didn't use the word "supression" ( even the authorized translation into English by James Strachey is not very precise using the word "repression" for Freud's German word "Verdrängung" ).
Freud started his work by using hypnosis ( that's why the couch was initially employed by psychoanalysts ). He was not opposed to it, as you surmises, but he found out that its therapeutic effects were of short duration and went on to create the psychoanalytic method, something quite distinct from hypnosis.
His articles, for example, "The Splitting of the Ego in the Process of Defense", do not call to my mind the "mpd".
Melanie Klein has written extensively about "splitting" and for those who are interested I strongly recommend her article based on a novel by Julien Green ( I cannot now recall the title of Green's novel. By translating into English from the translation in Portuguese we'd have "If I were you" - but the French text has a different name). Melanie Klein's article ( again I must now quote from memory since my books are not at home) is "On Identification" ( probably written in 1946, I'm not sure).
I doubt that, should we follow any "psychiatric manual" to understand Shade and Kinbote, we'd improve our understanding of "Pale Fire".
I'm sorry to be imprecise at this moment but I fear I might miss the incoming messages discussing similar issues if I wait until tomorrow to add dates and bibliography. The sudden "psychiatric" flurry, as you may have noticed, seems often to veer away from literary VN.
.Jansy
----- Original Message -----
From: Carolyn Kunin
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2006 2:19 AM
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] Delusions and Luna moths
Dear Jansy,
Please first accept my public apology for demoting you from psychoanalyst to psychologist.
I think the Greek word you are thinking of meaning "eater" is phage.
As to Freud;s original theories of hysteria in relation to "split personality," I am not familiar enough with Freud to attempt an answer. But it is interesting that Freud rejected the use of hypnosis in psychoanalysis, while hypnosis was the primary tool used by French psychiatrists Janet and Charcot to analyze and treat patients who exhibited multiple or split personalities.
I don't recall any references to Freud in Pale Fire (do you?) but there are references to hypnosis. Can this be without significance?
Carolyn
Search the Nabokv-L archive at UCSB
Contact the Editors
All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.
Visit Zembla
View Nabokv-L Policies
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm