International Psychoanalysis

A teenage leader of a criminal gang steals a car that has a baby in the back seat. In caring for the baby, he develops compassion and comes to terms with his traumatic childhood. That is the basic plotline for Tsotsi, the South African film, based on an Athol Fugard novel, that won the Oscar for best foreign language film in 2005. It sounds like a simple story of learned empathy, but it is much more complex. Read the rest of this entry »

Click here to read about Eugene Mahon

Freud 1939

                                        “Talking about the past is like a cat’s trying            
                                         to explain climbing down a ladder”
                                         Robert Lowell  letter 3.15.58

 With half a mouth
In his final years,
           Wholeheartedly,
           Sun and retina
           Aligned with tilted
           Manuscript,
           Lightning and silent
           Thunder of thoughts
           Flashing within,
           Pen on paper
           Correcting,
           Revising,
           Bearing witness
           As jack-boots
           Clacked
           On the cobbles
           And history
           Held words by the throat,
           The voice poured
           Out of the cracked vessel
           Like a prophet’s curse:
           “Death is not inside you
           ‘til you stare it down.
            The dream is only yours
            When you awaken.”
            Eugene Mahon  Sept. 2005  
  Read the rest of this entry »