Dr. Emanuel Garcia
There is an old joke that goes something like this:
“Why do Baptists forbid fornication?” “Because it might lead to dancing.”
It came to me after a conversation with an Australian colleague studying psychoanalytic psychotherapy at an institution in the United States. She was appalled and deeply saddened by her experiences within this institution during the period of the Corona War because her instructors – seasoned and long-experienced psychoanalysts – were so ‘captured’ by the pro-pandemic pro- jab pro-mask dictates that they brooked no disagreement.
Bear in mind that psychoanalysis, at its inception during fin de siècle Vienna, when Freud dared to examine dreams in an entirely new way and also to introduce a talking therapy, was a revolutionary discipline. Its early adherents and practitioners and investigators – people like Ferenczi, Abraham, Pfister, Jones and others, preeminent among them being Freud of course – founded their efforts and energies on a quest to unearth what was hidden in the human psyche, to see beyond and below surface appearances, and to employ a method in their therapeutic practice that was as unique as it was breathtaking – and here I am referring to free association.
In essence, psychoanalysis had its foundation in freedom. It is scarcely imaginable even now how powerful the so-called fundamental rule of psychoanalytic technique had been: a person was instructed to say anything and everything that came to mind, regardless of how strange, repugnant, frightening or bizarre. There is not now, nor has there ever been, such an extraordinary situation wherein one human being has complete and utter freedom to speak, within the protected environment of the therapeutic setting.
Naturally, this fundamental rule prescribed an ideal. In practice analytic patients invariably, and consciously, hide ideas and images from their analysts out of embarrassment, anxiety, and mistrust. It takes quite a long while for a greater approximation of the ideal even after years of treatment. One may say, with ample justification, that it is virtually impossible for one person to express everything he or she thinks to another – or even to oneself. Allowing oneself to associate freely – to think whatever comes to mind – is not so very easy even in the privacy of one’s own solitary company. Try it sometime, and discover the roadblocks.
Without delving too technically into aspects of analytic practice and theory, and the large looming role of the unconscious, we may nonetheless rightly call attention to the notion of freedom as quintessential to psychoanalysis. And it is freedom of this kind – freedom to think, articulate, imagine, to play and to create within the mind – that is quintessential to humanity at its best.
That Baptist joke came to me because governments around the world are engulfing us with their plans to fight ‘disinformation’ and ‘misinformation’ as they make war upon freedom of speech. It’s really nothing new and nothing more than an attempt to censor voices they deem to be a threat to their own.
Why?
Because our thinking is itself dependent upon the sharing of ideas and opinions and the engagement with those whose opinions and ideas can differ. Freedom of speech leads to freedom of thought, and freedom of thought may lead to the kinds of actions that politicians and so-called elites find threatening to their monopoly on power.
My psychoanalytic colleague is saddened by the loss of friends who refuse not only to entertain a perspective that may differ from their views about covid, mandates, jab apartheid practices and the like, but even to allow a discussion or exchange of views with another.
The new normal is not to debate or discuss, but to disavow and disallow. When I recently asked a friend whether he would consider a peer-reviewed article in an established journal which gave evidence of jab shortcomings – mind you, to me this was a meek beginning – I was told ‘no’. Plainly and simply, no, there was nothing I could show him that could change his mind and, furthermore, I was told that I was crazy and forbidden to bring the topic up again. He was, it seems, working very hard to remain willfully blind and obtuse.
Speaking of evidence, thanks to the brave efforts of a whistle-blower here in New Zealand some truth is leaking out about the actual consequences of ex-Prime Minister Ardern’s efficient campaign of inoculation: highly disturbing rises in serious medical conditions since the introduction of the jab, including a doubling of heart attacks.
She knew about the dangers of the Pfizer inoculation from the beginning, yet she proceeded to insist upon its so-called safety and efficacy, despite the data she had received and the warnings that she had been given by Medsafe in early 2021.
This ex-Prime Minister now has a new role as a ‘misinformation’ czar whose duty is to protect the citizenry from the dangers posed by wrong-headed souls who assume free speech to be an unalienable right. I guess it’s the perfect gig for someone accustomed to being a ‘single source of truth’.
Dr. Garcia is a Philadelphia-born psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand in 2006. He has authored articles ranging from explorations of psychoanalytic technique, the psychology of creativity in music (Mahler, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Delius), and politics. He is also a poet, novelist and theatrical director. He retired from psychiatric practice in 2021 after working in the public sector in New Zealand. Visit his substack at https://newzealanddoc.substack.com/
She knew about the dangers of the Pfizer inoculation from the beginning, yet she proceeded to insist upon its so-called safety and efficacy, despite ...