WHO, REALLY, IS DR. E.?
Over the course of the last few years, I have publicized a number of interviews I have conducted with the aging psychiatrist, Dr. E. Many people have asked me to identify him more specifically, but he has always insisted on maintaining complete anonymity. The reasons for this he never really provided, and so I decided to talk to him further about the whole issue of his identity. This is a transcript of our short conversation on this matter
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G. A. Good morning old friend. Today I want to talk about you, and not just your thoughts on this topic and that one, but rather about who you are and why it has been so important to preserve your anonymity.
Dr. E. I will never allow you to tell anyone who I really am, G.A., and you have promised to respect my wishes.
G.A. But why is this so important to you? Some people have even suggested that you are not even a real person. They are saying that I have made you up.
Dr. E. I don’t want to give away who I am, G.A., because I am then free to speak my mind without fear of repercussions. I have a suggestion for you in handling the doubters as to my existence. Tell them that I am an imaginary friend or an alternate personality of yours. Say that I am your fantasy of the psychiatrist you would have become had your original training been medical rather than purely psychological. I will certainly never contradict you. Isn’t it the case anyway that you did originally intend to be a psychiatrist? Why did you not fulfill that first ambition?
G.A. My love for psychology was very strong, and I could not justify deferring my studies in it for the years that would have been required to complete medical training. I have wondered though what sort of psychiatrist I would have turned out to be. You are in some respects the clinician and thinker I hope I could have become, so if I tell the world you are an imagined endpoint of a pathway not taken, there would be a certain truth expressed. Of course I would not want to have become as crabby as you are.
A problem here though is that if I say I have imagined you, the repercussions you are so intent on avoiding become directed at me. I am not sure I am up for that.
Dr. E. Tough tacos, mi amigo. You were the one suggesting these conversations in the first place and you agreed to the terms. Now you will just have to live with it.
G.A. In one of our other talks, Dr. E., I asked you about your own experience of psychotherapy, not as a practitioner but as a patient. I want to bring that topic up again, and maybe you can find a way to tell of your own journey of healing without betraying who you are. A lot of readers of our transcripts are very, very interested in knowing even a little bit more about you.
Dr. E. I will only say this much: I am a believer in the idea that every psychotherapist should experience the process as a patient; but unlike Freud and Jung, who first proposed this as a requirement for analysts in training, I have not exempted myself from the obligation. That is all you need to know.
G.A. In spite of our earlier agreement, Dr. E., I would point out to you that your keeping yourself a secret creates an odd tension in how you then are presenting yourself. On the one hand you stress truth as the goal of psychotherapy; on the other hand, you hide who you are.
Dr. E. I am not hiding anything of the truth, G.A.. I am just too old to become swept up in public arguments with anyone. I thought it a good idea nevertheless to share a few of the stories we have gone over, in case young people might find something of interest in them. They can live without knowing a lot of details about my history and personal situations – those details in any case are really rather boring.
Did you ever hear what Martin Heidegger said, when asked about the relationship between the life and the thought of Aristotle? He said: “Aristotle was born, he worked, and he died.” Let it be said of Dr. E. as well: he was born, worked, and died. That is all there is and all there needs to be.
G.A. You really don’t care if I tell the world I made you up? If I were to do that, you would receive no credit even in anyone’s imagination of who you might be. Does it really matter to you so little that you can do without even a trace of personal acknowledgment?
Dr. E. I care not at all about being acknowledged. I do care a little about the few things I have learned along the way being passed on to the young. It is such a great thing when we can help them go beyond what their forebears have had to struggle with. It makes a person feel good about having lived.
G.A. But Dr. E., please give me something more of what you have felt, of what you have personally struggled with. I want the world to know who you are, old man!
Dr. E. I am who I am. The world needs nothing more than I have already provided, my friend. What would be achieved by my reciting my traumas? What would be gained from my giving of the juicy details of my love life? Does anyone really need to hear about my father and my mother and my siblings and my friends? About my marriages, if I had any? It is implicit in any case, and anyone seriously interested in the personal background of my clinical philosophy can discern the most important themes and their probable sources.
G.A. So I am to say I invented you?
Dr. E. You can say I am a colleague who wishes to share a few of his experiences but also to protect his privacy. Or you can say you invented me. I don’t really care what you do, G.A., except please do not tell anyone my address. The last thing in the world I need is to have people pounding on my door.
G.A. I am very uneasy about saying I made you up, Dr. E. Would that mean that all your clinical stories were themselves also made up? Wouldn’t it then be said that our interviews are just fiction, and probably bad fiction at that?
Dr. E. I have an idea. Why don’t you tell people who are interested that the clinical stories are true, but that you did create me, as a composite figure blending the best aspects of the best people who have contributed to our field? This would not be an entirely false characterization, and if people accepted it, I could relax and know that I can walk my dogs in the morning without fear of being accosted because of what I have said.
G.A. Now you have gone and revealed something about your personal life, Dr. E.! You walk dogs in the morning!
Dr. E. Yes. Let it be said I was born, worked, walked dogs in the morning, and died. Or, instead, you can say that you created me out of your own imagination.
-------------------------------------.
G. A. Good morning old friend. Today I want to talk about you, and not just your thoughts on this topic and that one, but rather about who you are and why it has been so important to preserve your anonymity.
Dr. E. I will never allow you to tell anyone who I really am, G.A., and you have promised to respect my wishes.
G.A. But why is this so important to you? Some people have even suggested that you are not even a real person. They are saying that I have made you up.
Dr. E. I don’t want to give away who I am, G.A., because I am then free to speak my mind without fear of repercussions. I have a suggestion for you in handling the doubters as to my existence. Tell them that I am an imaginary friend or an alternate personality of yours. Say that I am your fantasy of the psychiatrist you would have become had your original training been medical rather than purely psychological. I will certainly never contradict you. Isn’t it the case anyway that you did originally intend to be a psychiatrist? Why did you not fulfill that first ambition?
G.A. My love for psychology was very strong, and I could not justify deferring my studies in it for the years that would have been required to complete medical training. I have wondered though what sort of psychiatrist I would have turned out to be. You are in some respects the clinician and thinker I hope I could have become, so if I tell the world you are an imagined endpoint of a pathway not taken, there would be a certain truth expressed. Of course I would not want to have become as crabby as you are.
A problem here though is that if I say I have imagined you, the repercussions you are so intent on avoiding become directed at me. I am not sure I am up for that.
Dr. E. Tough tacos, mi amigo. You were the one suggesting these conversations in the first place and you agreed to the terms. Now you will just have to live with it.
G.A. In one of our other talks, Dr. E., I asked you about your own experience of psychotherapy, not as a practitioner but as a patient. I want to bring that topic up again, and maybe you can find a way to tell of your own journey of healing without betraying who you are. A lot of readers of our transcripts are very, very interested in knowing even a little bit more about you.
Dr. E. I will only say this much: I am a believer in the idea that every psychotherapist should experience the process as a patient; but unlike Freud and Jung, who first proposed this as a requirement for analysts in training, I have not exempted myself from the obligation. That is all you need to know.
G.A. In spite of our earlier agreement, Dr. E., I would point out to you that your keeping yourself a secret creates an odd tension in how you then are presenting yourself. On the one hand you stress truth as the goal of psychotherapy; on the other hand, you hide who you are.
Dr. E. I am not hiding anything of the truth, G.A.. I am just too old to become swept up in public arguments with anyone. I thought it a good idea nevertheless to share a few of the stories we have gone over, in case young people might find something of interest in them. They can live without knowing a lot of details about my history and personal situations – those details in any case are really rather boring.
Did you ever hear what Martin Heidegger said, when asked about the relationship between the life and the thought of Aristotle? He said: “Aristotle was born, he worked, and he died.” Let it be said of Dr. E. as well: he was born, worked, and died. That is all there is and all there needs to be.
G.A. You really don’t care if I tell the world I made you up? If I were to do that, you would receive no credit even in anyone’s imagination of who you might be. Does it really matter to you so little that you can do without even a trace of personal acknowledgment?
Dr. E. I care not at all about being acknowledged. I do care a little about the few things I have learned along the way being passed on to the young. It is such a great thing when we can help them go beyond what their forebears have had to struggle with. It makes a person feel good about having lived.
G.A. But Dr. E., please give me something more of what you have felt, of what you have personally struggled with. I want the world to know who you are, old man!
Dr. E. I am who I am. The world needs nothing more than I have already provided, my friend. What would be achieved by my reciting my traumas? What would be gained from my giving of the juicy details of my love life? Does anyone really need to hear about my father and my mother and my siblings and my friends? About my marriages, if I had any? It is implicit in any case, and anyone seriously interested in the personal background of my clinical philosophy can discern the most important themes and their probable sources.
G.A. So I am to say I invented you?
Dr. E. You can say I am a colleague who wishes to share a few of his experiences but also to protect his privacy. Or you can say you invented me. I don’t really care what you do, G.A., except please do not tell anyone my address. The last thing in the world I need is to have people pounding on my door.
G.A. I am very uneasy about saying I made you up, Dr. E. Would that mean that all your clinical stories were themselves also made up? Wouldn’t it then be said that our interviews are just fiction, and probably bad fiction at that?
Dr. E. I have an idea. Why don’t you tell people who are interested that the clinical stories are true, but that you did create me, as a composite figure blending the best aspects of the best people who have contributed to our field? This would not be an entirely false characterization, and if people accepted it, I could relax and know that I can walk my dogs in the morning without fear of being accosted because of what I have said.
G.A. Now you have gone and revealed something about your personal life, Dr. E.! You walk dogs in the morning!
Dr. E. Yes. Let it be said I was born, worked, walked dogs in the morning, and died. Or, instead, you can say that you created me out of your own imagination.