Book: Review and Author Interview
by Leide Porcu, Ph.D.

From Both Sides of the Couch: Reflections of a psychoanalyst, daughter, tennis player, and other selves . . . by Fern W. Cohen (Booksurge, North Charleston, SC, 2007).

When I was asked to talk to Fern Cohen about her memoir From Both Sides of the Couch, I was intrigued: could a Freudian analyst write a memoir? I thought the venture was very complicated and potentially fraught with conflict. Although the traditional idea of the analyst as a "blank screen" may be outdated, most analysts do still believe that sharing intimate information about themselves compromises the freedom of the patient to fantasize about the analyst and complicates the transference. The analyst who writes a deeply personal memoir may also have to confront a critical professional community, some of whom might consider writing a memoir taboo. The weight of such considerations could leave the most accomplished writer with a serious case of "writer's block." At the same time, the public is eager to learn about psychotherapists, witness the popularity of TV's Tony Soprano's therapist Dr. Melfi, a temptation for any analyst with a story to tell.

And there is no doubt that analysts have stories to tell. Having devoted years to self-observation and the narration of their own lives in their analyses, psychoanalysts are intimately aware of their own life-experience which, in turn, may both equip and inspire them to write memoirs. However, as the practice of psychoanalysis necessitates a measure of anonymity, not to mention the judicious disguise of any references to patients, personal narratives are normally left untold while clinical material is traditionally presented in papers and presentations addressed to professional groups, in disguised form. An analyst's memoir is thus, in some ways, a transgression, situated somewhere between the courageous, the self-indulgent, and possibly self-sabotaging.

Fern Cohen seemed relaxed and not terribly concerned with these issues when we met for an interview. Sitting in her sunny and welcoming office in the Upper West Side, she said that her desire to tell a story and reach a wider community transcended her concerns about personal exposure and professional reactions to her book, although she does feel some anxiety as well. Recounting the history of her book, this is what she had to say:

"I never consciously planned to write. In my fifties however, I was back in analysis and I had this experience of bursting to write which took me by surprise - a journal, an article, autobiographical essays. Although I could write well-enough, except for letters and the like, I only wrote when I had to, but during my analysis, a sentence would float up, I'd write it down, and before I knew it, I had a paragraph and then an essay. The first was about the sense of loss I experienced when my youngest child went off to college, and the ways he remained connected to me by bringing his laundry home - a transitional link. Next came an essay about the connections between my father, me, and tennis, which an agent, to whom I showed my work, suggested I turn into a book. Encouraged by the positive feedback, I immediately set about to do it, never thinking about self-disclosure or publication, let alone that it would become an odyssey with many versions and edits - well over fifteen years' worth."

It was inspiring to listen to Fern describe her experience, to see how the process of psychoanalysis helped her "bloom" as a writer later in life especially since aging is often associated with decline and deficit. Clearly, the aging process can be an asset for a psychoanalyst.

I asked Fern about the trajectory of her professional career. "Although a crisis in college precipitated an analysis when I was in my late teens, I had no thoughts about becoming an analyst at that time even though it was very helpful to me. Instead, I became a teacher, worked as a therapeutic tutor, and went back to school for my PhD in my late thirties. I then worked as a School Psychologist while I began a small private practice during which I continued to have supervision. Even then I didn't think about analytic training until I worked with Shelly Bach and it became apparent that I needed to do some work on myself. So when I found myself immersed in analysis again, I decided (was compelled) to do training at the same time. Since my analyses have book-ended more than thirty years, I have been most fortunate to have experienced some of the theoretical and clinical changes in the field first hand. My first analysis, which went on into my twenties, was a very classical one, and while it introduced me to the universe of the unconscious, my recent analysis was much more profound and deeply engaging. In fact, the feelings and ideas engendered by it were so intense that, in the early years of the treatment, I began pouring them into a journal even thinking at first to publish it as the history of an analysis; over time, my need to write in it diminished and with it came the recognition that it would be too personal to publish.

At the same time, the burst of writing fueled my longstanding urge to reach people outside of the field - to share my love for psychoanalysis, to illustrate its therapeutic power whether by describing my own patients or telling people about my personal experience. Also, I've always hated the fact that so many people have such misconceptions about psychoanalysis and dismiss it so readily in favor of the quick fix therapies, not to mention what I consider to be the drastic over-reliance on and use of medications. So as my book began to evolve, I wanted to make a contribution to this debate in a personal way that would really reach and move people. Before that, I had never felt competent enough to believe that people would listen to what I had to say or think that it was of value, but my analysis gave me a voice and the ability to share a message that is important to me."

Fern's perspective helped me to see the value of such an intimate memoir and the novelty of humbly articulating one's feelings and experiences of psychoanalysis. I asked her what else came out of the experience of writing: "I always wanted my father to know who I was, but he was distant and typically in his own world. Initially, if there was an unconscious motivation driving me, I know that the original impetus for the essay was because I wanted him to know who I was and what I did. Then when I began to turn the essay into a book and over the years edited it and worked on the structure, a big change occurred: the material is still the same, but there has been a shift in my voice as I became more confident about myself and could write as the analyst that I was becoming and have become. Of course, I still would want my father to read and understand the book, even more, to be proud of me. But now I also feel very gratified that I have been able to convey what psychoanalysis is about to the general public and to the larger professional community as well."

I asked Fern how she felt now that the book is published. "I do feel proud and satisfied with my accomplishment, at the same time that I now have some concerns about the reaction of my colleagues although when I was writing, I pushed those concerns aside. As for my patients, my fantasy was that they would never come across the book, so I wouldn't have to deal with their reactions," Fern said with a laugh, "and so far only one patient has discovered it. He decided that he didn't want to read it, and we've been exploring why as well as the many fantasies about me that the discovery spurred. He's in the field, and found out that I had written a book through a flyer announcing a colloquium sponsored by NYU PostDoc on the subject of analysts who write memoirs in which I will be one of four analysts on the panel. Actually, I am somewhat conflicted: if I stuck to my ideal of what an analyst should and shouldn't do, I would not have published because of the self-disclosure entailed - but there is no way that I could imagine not publishing."

I asked Fern to talk about her decision to divide the book into three parts: mostly about my father, mostly about psychoanalysis, mostly about omissions and consolidations, and a short epilogue: "The book has a kind of analytic structure in so far as it is associative rather than chronological although the actual division into three parts evolved rather late in the editing process. At some point I actually had an image of a 'figure eight on its side' with a first and last part that were personal and psychoanalysis at the intersection. It was a very organizing moment for me and then I knew I was in the home stretch. The first section is about my father and my childhood, the last, about my growing up and learning to find a man who was not distant like him. The center of the book is about psychoanalysis, what it is, and where I use illustrations from my own life and from my work as an analyst. I should add, that many people have asked, where is your mother? She's there, but the fact that I write about her more toward the end of the book has to do with early omissions and a reflection of the degree to which her emotional absence sealed the degree to which my father's presence dominated the family, and my emotional life. With all the rewriting, the big change as I've said, is that in my original essay, I am his daughter, telling my father who I was and what I did; in the final version, I am an analyst, describing my experiences in self-discovery and professional development. Writing the book also allowed me to use a voice and format that tends to be more lyrical and personal than clinical. Although I've written a number of articles for journals, my writing is always driven by the clinical moments between my patients and me and not about theory. Only afterwards do I think about the theoretical scaffolding, and so my papers don't fit the format of most articles published in traditional professional journals. Since my first analysis introduced me to the world of the unconscious, I've wanted to convey to people what a remarkable process it is and how it works and to help people think of it as an available resource. Writing about myself allows me to express this fully at the same time that it bypasses the issues of confidentiality that confront us when we write about our patients. People who are not in the field who have read the book have said that I clarified the process for them, which was my primary goal."

Indeed, Fern is right: a lay reader interested in understanding what psychoanalysis is will find it both enjoyable and informative, especially as it contains a number of theoretical summaries, accounts of historical changes in the field, and some intriguing comments about current issues in psychoanalysis. This sets her memoir apart from the memoirs that have been written by patients who are not in the field. As I am not an avid reader of memoirs, I have only two examples in mind: Marie Cardinal's The Words to Say It and Caroline Knapp's Appetites:What Women Want. Both memoirs illuminate the subjective experience of mental illness. Marie Cardinal's book is a detailed history of her therapy, recovery, and personal transformation, while Caroline Knapp's book weaves together the experience of anorexia with its socio-cultural underpinnings, but includes only brief descriptions of her treatment.

Psychoanalysts are not immune to psychological conflicts and suffering, and indeed, many analysts are attracted to the field because of the emotional conflicts that shaped their childhoods, and as Fern describes in her memoir, the transformative developments of their own treatments. The intimate description of an analyst's life, including the narrative of his or her experience as a patient in analysis is, to be sure, a precious gift that an analyst writing a memoir passes on to those who are in need of help. This gift has unique value because of the psychological sophistication and analytic expertise of the author. At the same time, the intimate revelations of an analyst, especially one who is still seeing patients, is inexorably problematic. It is a major emotional challenge for anyone to write of his or her own psychic pain in an honest and non self-indulgent way. The character of this challenge is immeasurably magnified and complicated when the author is a practicing psychoanalyst who is revealing her journey from one side of the couch to the other. As a reader of her book, I could sense Fern struggling with this challenge. I noted that I sometimes felt her fading from the scene, her ambivalence about exposure playing out in her writing. At the outset of her narrative, her descriptions of painful events, such as her experience of anorexia, left me wanting to know more, wanting to know her better. As she progresses, however, her voice becomes real, more fully expressive, and Fern as a person becomes more recognizable and endearing. She lets the reader enter her world and allows a genuine connection with her life. The book ends leaving the reader hungry for more.

You can learn more about Fern Cohen and Leide Porcu by visiting their websites at www.fernwcohen.org and www.leideporcu.com.