Often, when I meet someone I don’t know and I tell them that I’m a psychiatrist, they say something like ‘Oh, so are you psychoanalysing me?’ I don’t exactly known what they mean, but I have a feeling it’s something like ‘are you looking into the deep recesses of my soul, and seeing things about myself that I don’t even know?’
Which would be a neat trick.
I used to think that this was a relatively silly question, which shows a lack of understanding of both psychotherapy and psychiatrists. For a start it assumes that all psychiatrists are psychotherapists, which is not the case; this misunderstanding is fairly universal within the media, so is understandable. It also treats all psychotherapy as if it were one single approach (this being Freudian) and there are many many different psychotherapeutic methods.
What people are actually saying is, if you are a psychiatrist you must be a psychoanalyst and if you are an analyst you must be a Freudian psychoanalyst. It does, however, give an idea of the strange and mysterious powers that people might consider a psychiatrist to possess.
Here’s a definition of psychoanalysis:
Psychoanalysis n. a school of psychology and a method of treating mental disorders based upon the teachings of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). Psychoanalysis employs the technique of free association in the course of intensive psychotherapy in order to being repressed fears and conflicts to the conscious mind where they can be dealt with. (Oxford Concise Medical Dictionary)
So, if we’re being picky, psychoanalysis involves a element of treatment and just dissecting someone’s personality apart when you meet them is not psychoanalysis, it’s being nosey.
Lastly an important part of psychodynamic psychotherapy is in the therapeutic alliance formed between analyst and patient – this is unlikely to be formed during a ten minute conversation at a party. Even the briefest of analyst-patient contacts involve sessions over multiple weeks.
Recently, I have in a way begun to see what people mean. We have a case discussion group at the hospital in which I work where one of our number presents the case of a patient, who for whatever reason sticks in their mind. When I presented a history it became evident that there was a question that I hadn’t asked. My position on this was that I had simply forgotten; the psychoanalytical view was that my forgetting had significance (perhaps I was subconsciously afraid to ask the patient?), as would my reaction to being challenged on my oversight. The point is, that something relatively innocuous had provided information about me which others could now see but of which I previously had no knowledge.
I now sometimes find myself being careful what I say lest it be interpreted in some way. For example I hesitate to make a joke in case it betrays a discomfort with subject matter. Is this what people mean? As psychiatrists, and doctors in general, we’re observers of behaviour. A neurologist is trained to spot a posture consistent with a neurological disease, an orthopaedic surgeon, a limp. With psychiatrists it’s a little less concrete, but we’re all trying to spot signs that tell us that someone might need our help. If that’s psychoanalysis, then yes, I suppose I am.
Interestingly, several of my close friends are doctors, and they have developed over time a way of noticing and observing things that others just wouldn’t notice.
As a lawyer, people often say to me, ‘ well I’d better not break the law in your company’ but of course, in social settings, I am never consciously observing people with a view to seeing whether they are breaking the law… which is not to say I wouldn’t notice it were it to happen!!!
So maybe if the people that you have met in company has displayed behaviours that merited psychoanalysing, then perhaps you would find yourself doing it?
My trainee clinpsy colleagues are always at it. I do it a little bit as well, although if I catch myself I feel slightly disappointed and, in quiet desperation, I might murmer something like “what have I become?”
We all analyse each other now. Instead of getting angry we mentally construct a psychological formulation of the person’s difficult behaviour, ultimately drawing forth a sense of compassion (and perhaps a little smugness?)
I prefer it now if people just call me a w**ker. At least they’re not assuming they’ve got me all figured out.