A Man Looking at A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women, A Review — Part 9
9. Hustvedt on Freud and my counter-arguments. The concept of adaptive grandiosity in female artists and writers. The example of poet Emily Dickinson.
Hustvedt talks about a client of Freud’s who underwent therapy: “Together they created a change inside her, which she took away from the analysis,” and then says, “there is no way to reduce it to a coherent narrative, to a technique or theory,” (Hustvedt, p. 129). Again, I question Hustvedt’s statements about an inability to do something, where she clearly underestimates her skills as well as those of her readers to either be able to draft a narrative because the client’s text is “Oblique and the twists and turns of the analytic work are not obvious” (Hustvedt, p. 129). All, we need to have if not an assertion as to how it was done, certainly a transcript of the conversation would reveal enough information from which we could derive techniques or draft a theory about what went down as written accounting.
When the client says that Freud is always right, this blusters Hustvedt. She questions the idea that someone, anyone, could always be correct. “The analyst is not god, except when the patient makes him or her into one,” which is temporary. “Subjectivity and suggestion”…is where the magic is, Hustvedt said, (Hustvedt, p. 129).
I think an analyst can be correct in the sense that they may present an interpretation of events that is true because it addresses motivations, which can be surmised through analysis. There are general principles that can be applied. Sure, when you delve into absolutes one may encounter incorrect interpretation, but what I think the client is talking about is a general thrust of interpretation that is enlightening. It is another view of the facts, and as I would assume, an eloquent one given the stature of Freud. We forget that genius is highly persuasive, especially the kind of genius that Freud was ushering in. I did hear from a Jungian professor that Freud was later to tell Jung that there were things that they just couldn’t engage in that Jung later capitalized on.
Hustvedt said, “Every artist needs adaptive grandiosity (artist’s exhilarating conviction of this potential for greatness, the extremely high value he places on the uniqueness of his own feelings, perceptions, sensations, memories, thoughts and experiences,”) to face rejection, criticism, misunderstanding, and the many forms of unhappiness of life of making art brings,” (Hustvedt, p. 131).
But, then Hustvedt mentions that for women and girls, they need a strong dose of grandiosity to avoid the harmful effects of sexism, that comes as patronage, condescension, fear, and prejudice. There is a perverse belief that urgency, a need to work hard, and so forth are worth it, (Hustvedt, p. 131).
Emily Dickinson’s poetry is radical, brilliant that burns Hustvedt’s consciousness, (Hustvedt, p. 131). I will have to read them to see if this is the case. She said the Dickinson sent copies of her work to a man who did not understand her and he sought to question whether she was ready to be published and deemed she was not. Hustvedt said that Dickinson reinvented the English language and that he did not recognize her music. Dickinson ignored his suggestions. She said that without adaptive grandiosity Dickinson could not have gone on writing, (Hustvedt, p. 131).
Pombo i Sallés responded to the above paragraph, “I do not know enough about Dickinson’s life, nor about her process as a writer, nor about what sort of man reviewed her work and found no music or whatsoever to write a coherent and valid opinion at this point of your paper. The only thing I know is that women too often find it much harder than men to be famous, to be acknowledged as literary, artistic or scientific geniuses. Sadly enough, we live in a globalized Capitalist patriarchy which is a creator of all sorts of inequalities and inequities, among all those, discrimination against women.”
I believe that language provides a metaphor of the self. It aligns with it and reflects the self back. An example of this is when I read a great book, while I am entranced by the environment and words; they evoke an equitable spirit, Tolstoy’s mood or emotion that aligns with the aesthetic consciousness. To be a writer is to recognize the inspiration of other words of like mind. True writers harness or tap into an ever-flowing brood of consciousness. It is like the truth that is there, a natural spring, mind you, and thus language does not alienate.
