The Psychoanalyst and The Rain

The Psychoanalyst and the Rain

She stood listening to the rain fall

It was heavy, fast falling and wet

Staring at the curtains of the living room window

Not opening them, as hours of

Gazing at the glistering pavements

And disturbed puddles of grey sky

Would envelop the rest of her evening

The room she stood in was sparse

A curling poster of Paris

One of many leftovers from university

A few photographs of people she sometimes

Lunched with, when there was time

Mostly there are books

Piled high in random spots

Where she had evidently begun working

And now collecting a thin dust

The spines broken and withered

Pages of neatly typed case reports

Spilled from folders, flooding the desk

The sofa and the coffee table

Each individual’s conversations

Dreams wishes and anxieties

Left open to any visitor

Except she had none

So she cared not for discretion

Privacy or tact.

Freud had not been a tactful man

This cold statement written

Upon paper beneath her pillow

As though its words could

Comfort her. Remind her she was

Good. Good only at psychoanalysis

Patient results were good

Better then most young graduates

But nothing in comparison

To her desired figures

Her theoretical essays lay unfinished

She felt on motivation to continue

Listening to the drumming drips

As water escaped the gutters

The joining corner always faulty

Rain was distracting and cleansing

Hearing something so beyond control

Beyond solving or analysing

Rain wasn’t sublimated affected

Traumatised repressed or overtly egotistical

Rain didn’t have an oedipal complex

And it didn’t want her to solve it.

Rain also wasn’t nosy

It didn’t ask for gossip about

Strange patients or if she’d treated a sex addict

She had.

Twice.

But why was that what mattered to people

She learnt more about others insecurities

From what they asked about her patients

This amused her sufficiently

Made tedious hours of wine and cheese

Appear interesting

She sighed, thinking about Lacan

He often crossed her mind

Another post-Freudian doctorate

Except he was there before

Arguing with Laplanche

She would sacrifice her left hand

To argue with Laplanche

And all that she had though

Was theirs

It belonged with their names

On the neat library shelves

Placed under the decimal system

As though this destiny

Was always intended for them

Self doubt was her own issue

She could form a folder

Her name coldly typed upon a report

Where her lack of sisters

Or sufficient attention from

Her parents

Her friends

Her past boyfriends

Teachers, lecturers and counsellors

Left her to un-abandoned self pity

Which as a psychoanalyst

She had no time for

Being impatient with herself

Lead to more hour of staring at the weather

Pondering anxiety made it worse

Solving self esteem relied upon

Other people

She wanted no other people

Knowing that eventually

She would slip, and analyse the unwitting

Presumed perfect attitude of that person

She was better off alone

Rather than driving another away

Lacan would tell her she’d never

Bonded with herself as an ‘I’

Missing the primal stage of

Ego development

Lacan was a fool

Anzieu would suggest the

Lack of affection displayed

By others in her life

Lead to an underdeveloped skin ego

Occurring before Lacan’s

Mirror ego even had a chance

Freud would mumble something

About repression

Then change his mind

Assert her development never

Fully allowed her to understand

Social contracts

Then see her again

And switch back to the trauma theory

Kristeva’s argument would be too

Complex to follow

Making the whole effort pointless

She opened the curtains

Opened the window

Just far enough

To stick her hands into the rain

Childish delight ran across her skin

Regression

: 10 Jun 2010 17:17 |  Comments (2) |  Report a problem