SONYA RUDIKOFF
25
compared with the h ard-scra bble life of the early days. Freud's wife
never got her snake bracelet, but her sisters of the present time are
certainl y strangers to su ch au sterity, and indeed the domestication of
psychoanalysis in America, its widespread acceptance, its diffu sion
through the culture, is itself an American success story. Like pota toes
introduced into Russia under Ca therine the Great, psychotherapy has
become a staple of the American di et and it's hard to remember wha t
people did without it.
Psychoan alysis now has become a therapy among thera pies how–
ever, and if it is to be defended, the tone employed will no longer be one
of acrimonious denunciation but something more subtle, ironi c,
affectiona te. Current practices of a few unusual therapies mi ght be far
more threatening to psychoanalysis than Reich 's orgone box or Karen
Horney's di ssent, and yet the psychoanalytic profession and its adher–
ents would never mass against them as it did on those earlier occasions.
There is instead a way of being very witty about all these varia ti ons of
care and cure, with a special wit reserved for those which come from
California, mother of cults. Thus, Dr. Joel Kovel, a Freudia n psycho–
analys t, who h as wrillen a survey o f the new therap ies
(a complete
guide to th erap y,
From Psychoana lysis to Behavior Modifi ca ti on , New
York, Pantheon Books.) compa res the new therapeuti c approach es to
"a co llectio n o f hi gh- school bands milling no isil y about the pa rade
grounds. Wha t, if an ything, is each of them playing?"
It
is a geni al
query, addressed from a di stance in accents of curi os ity and condescen–
sion. A reader mi ght wonder wh y thi s psychoanalys t is reminded of
high-school
bands ra ther than , say, the marching bands of co ll eges or
universiti es or o f pro fess iona l groups. And why not o f orches tras, with
inspired conductors?
Parade grounds
sketch es in a di sorder ly ambi–
ance, vivid with uniforms, absurd self-importance, a fa t boy pl ay in g
the tuba, drum majorelles in their white boots. A revea ling image with
its instant di smi ssa l o f a ltern a tives! T hi s Freudian psychoanalyst does
not quite say " Yonder peasant, who is he?" but there is no mistaking
the pos iti on of comfo rtable serenity from whi ch he surveys the new
therapies, nor th e implied orthodoxy, almost as if he were Ma tthew
Arnold being willy about Dissenters.
Freudi an therapy is g iven a very lucid and intelli gent summa ry in
Dr. Kovel's survey; it is clearl y no t one of the high-school bands,
although Dr. Kovel thinks it has become somewha t fetishized and
rigid, and his final defense of it is qualified . Perhaps none o f the o lder
analytic therapies would be classed with the high-school bands either.
Clearl y it is the newer therapies whi ch depart most from the original
