217
TO BE OR NOT TO BE—THAT IS THE QUESTION TO BE YOURSELF OR NOT TO BE YOURSELF
by JOSHUA BIERER M.D., F.R.C.PSYCH., D.ECON. & SOC.SC. (VIENNA), DIP.INDIV.PSYCH. attend international meetings so that other participants may them rather than to papers themselves. The majority, of course, do attend with the intention of meeting people to exchange views with professionals who have published articles or read papers on subjects in which one is interested or on subjects one has expressed views on oneself. Something different happened, however, when I attended an international congress this year. While I was queuing up to register, a man about 15 years my junior smiled at me in a friendly manner from the other side of the staircase. For a moment I was puzzled, but suddenly I remembered who he was, returned his smile and went towards him to shake hands. &dquo;How are you, Dr. Bierer?&dquo; he said. &dquo;Thank you, very well,&dquo; I said. &dquo;It is rather a surprise to see you here after so many years. What are you doing these days, Cicero ?&dquo; &dquo;I am one of the leaders of the psychoanalytic movement in the U.S.A. and I am doing well. I have a very nice wife, who is a doctor, too, and we have several children.&dquo; He had not changed very much since I last saw him and in a flash I remembered an incident of long ago, as though it had happened yesterday. When I was stationed abroad during the Second World War, a young American officer asked to see me. He looked very depressed and was hesitant in divulging his secrets, but after some hesitation he &dquo;had to get it off his chest&dquo;. &dquo;I can’t stand it any longer, I’m going to kill myself! I’m completely impotent, and with the hundreds of beautiful nurses around me it’s more than I can bear!&dquo; &dquo;As you know,&dquo; I interrupted him, &dquo;impotence isn’t incurable and you stand a very good chance to be cured, but I must have your story first. Are your parents alive?&dquo; &dquo;Alive ?-Yes.&dquo; &dquo;Were they born in the U.S.A.?&dquo; &dquo;No.&dquo; &dquo;Where were they born?&dquo; &dquo;In Salonika, Greece, but I and my two brothers were brought up in the U.S.A.&dquo; &dquo;What was your parents’ religion?&dquo; &dquo;They didn’t have any.&dquo; This sounded unusual, as people coming from that part of the world are either Greek Orthodox or Jewish, but there are, of course, exceptions to the rule. From his looks he could have been Greek or Jewish, or, for that matter, anything else, but an immediate doubt arose in my mind, which I felt had to be cleared up as soon as
ANY
M listen psychiatrists to
possible. Downloaded from isp.sagepub.com at University of Sydney on March 14, 2015
218 &dquo;What is your father doing?&dquo; &dquo;He’s a big businessman.&dquo; &dquo;What’s the atmosphere at home?&dquo; &dquo;Rather tense!&dquo; &dquo;What are your two brothers doing?&dquo; &dquo;One is a famous actor and the other a noted scientist.&dquo; By coincidence, I saw a film a few days later in which an actor appeared with the same name as that of my patient. I asked my patient whether this was, in fact, his brother and he said &dquo;Yes&dquo;. My doubts were immediately confirmed; his brother was
markedly Jewish-looking. I confronted the patient with
my impression. He grew very uneasy and begged mention this to any member of his family! The word &dquo;Jew&dquo; was taboo in his home and no Jew had ever been invited there. I omitted to mention an important and an unusual symptom of this patient. Whenever he travelled by car from one town to another he had to stop his car in front of a church, go inside, kneel down and-masturbate ! When questioned further, he volunteered the following: His father had told him that the family had no religion and forbade him to go to any religious service. When he and one of his brothers were in school together his brother complied with the father’s orders-but he did not. He went to church on Sunday, but he was ridden with guilt, because he had to keep the fact from his brother. The other thing he had to keep from his brother was his compulsive masturbation! Church visits and masturbation were subconsciously united in his guilt feelings! I arranged to see members of the family individually, whenever they flew over from the U.S.A. They looked Jewish-and to pretend not to be what is obvious to most others is a burden difficult to bear indefinitely! I’m afraid I explored this game of make-believe, which earned me the family’s undying enmity; but this scarcely mattered; for with the pretence removed my patient promptly recovered his potency. He abandoned all thought of suicide and instead he became a famous psychoanalyst! Indeed, he relinquished his former prejudices to such an extent that he actually married a Jewess. He must have undergone some further analysis to be admitted as a full member of the Psychoanalytic Institute. I hope that this may help him to get rid of his inhibitions to the point where in time he will publish the further details of his case, for the enlightenment of psychiatry. The inner life of a psychoanalyst and a psychotherapist, in my opinion, belongs to the public, as does the life of anyone in the public eye. The psychotherapist cannot allow himself the luxury of &dquo;preaching water and drinking wine&dquo;. Psychoanalysts cannot ask their patients &dquo;not to have inhibitions and to disclose their inner secrets&dquo;and at the same time refuse to do the same. Prejudice is the curse of humanity, but the prejudice towards oneself by not being able to be oneselfis the greatest curse that can befall a person. me
not to
Downloaded from isp.sagepub.com at University of Sydney on March 14, 2015
TO BE OR NOT TO BE—THAT IS THE QUESTION TO BE YOURSELF OR NOT TO BE YOURSELF
by JOSHUA BIERER M.D., F.R.C.PSYCH., D.ECON. & SOC.SC. (VIENNA), DIP.INDIV.PSYCH. attend international meetings so that other participants may them rather than to papers themselves. The majority, of course, do attend with the intention of meeting people to exchange views with professionals who have published articles or read papers on subjects in which one is interested or on subjects one has expressed views on oneself. Something different happened, however, when I attended an international congress this year. While I was queuing up to register, a man about 15 years my junior smiled at me in a friendly manner from the other side of the staircase. For a moment I was puzzled, but suddenly I remembered who he was, returned his smile and went towards him to shake hands. &dquo;How are you, Dr. Bierer?&dquo; he said. &dquo;Thank you, very well,&dquo; I said. &dquo;It is rather a surprise to see you here after so many years. What are you doing these days, Cicero ?&dquo; &dquo;I am one of the leaders of the psychoanalytic movement in the U.S.A. and I am doing well. I have a very nice wife, who is a doctor, too, and we have several children.&dquo; He had not changed very much since I last saw him and in a flash I remembered an incident of long ago, as though it had happened yesterday. When I was stationed abroad during the Second World War, a young American officer asked to see me. He looked very depressed and was hesitant in divulging his secrets, but after some hesitation he &dquo;had to get it off his chest&dquo;. &dquo;I can’t stand it any longer, I’m going to kill myself! I’m completely impotent, and with the hundreds of beautiful nurses around me it’s more than I can bear!&dquo; &dquo;As you know,&dquo; I interrupted him, &dquo;impotence isn’t incurable and you stand a very good chance to be cured, but I must have your story first. Are your parents alive?&dquo; &dquo;Alive ?-Yes.&dquo; &dquo;Were they born in the U.S.A.?&dquo; &dquo;No.&dquo; &dquo;Where were they born?&dquo; &dquo;In Salonika, Greece, but I and my two brothers were brought up in the U.S.A.&dquo; &dquo;What was your parents’ religion?&dquo; &dquo;They didn’t have any.&dquo; This sounded unusual, as people coming from that part of the world are either Greek Orthodox or Jewish, but there are, of course, exceptions to the rule. From his looks he could have been Greek or Jewish, or, for that matter, anything else, but an immediate doubt arose in my mind, which I felt had to be cleared up as soon as
ANY
M listen psychiatrists to
possible. Downloaded from isp.sagepub.com at University of Sydney on March 14, 2015
218 &dquo;What is your father doing?&dquo; &dquo;He’s a big businessman.&dquo; &dquo;What’s the atmosphere at home?&dquo; &dquo;Rather tense!&dquo; &dquo;What are your two brothers doing?&dquo; &dquo;One is a famous actor and the other a noted scientist.&dquo; By coincidence, I saw a film a few days later in which an actor appeared with the same name as that of my patient. I asked my patient whether this was, in fact, his brother and he said &dquo;Yes&dquo;. My doubts were immediately confirmed; his brother was
markedly Jewish-looking. I confronted the patient with
my impression. He grew very uneasy and begged mention this to any member of his family! The word &dquo;Jew&dquo; was taboo in his home and no Jew had ever been invited there. I omitted to mention an important and an unusual symptom of this patient. Whenever he travelled by car from one town to another he had to stop his car in front of a church, go inside, kneel down and-masturbate ! When questioned further, he volunteered the following: His father had told him that the family had no religion and forbade him to go to any religious service. When he and one of his brothers were in school together his brother complied with the father’s orders-but he did not. He went to church on Sunday, but he was ridden with guilt, because he had to keep the fact from his brother. The other thing he had to keep from his brother was his compulsive masturbation! Church visits and masturbation were subconsciously united in his guilt feelings! I arranged to see members of the family individually, whenever they flew over from the U.S.A. They looked Jewish-and to pretend not to be what is obvious to most others is a burden difficult to bear indefinitely! I’m afraid I explored this game of make-believe, which earned me the family’s undying enmity; but this scarcely mattered; for with the pretence removed my patient promptly recovered his potency. He abandoned all thought of suicide and instead he became a famous psychoanalyst! Indeed, he relinquished his former prejudices to such an extent that he actually married a Jewess. He must have undergone some further analysis to be admitted as a full member of the Psychoanalytic Institute. I hope that this may help him to get rid of his inhibitions to the point where in time he will publish the further details of his case, for the enlightenment of psychiatry. The inner life of a psychoanalyst and a psychotherapist, in my opinion, belongs to the public, as does the life of anyone in the public eye. The psychotherapist cannot allow himself the luxury of &dquo;preaching water and drinking wine&dquo;. Psychoanalysts cannot ask their patients &dquo;not to have inhibitions and to disclose their inner secrets&dquo;and at the same time refuse to do the same. Prejudice is the curse of humanity, but the prejudice towards oneself by not being able to be oneselfis the greatest curse that can befall a person. me
not to
Downloaded from isp.sagepub.com at University of Sydney on March 14, 2015
![[To be or not to be. The eternal question].](/assets/img/hold.png)
