Psychoanalysis and Novels/Short Stories

Jonathan Lethem: GUN, WITH OCCASIONAL MUSIC (1994): Freudians are the equivalent of Jehovah's Witnesses.

PKD, The Simulacra

That looks wonderful! Will buy today if I can find it. Was PKD big into psychoanalysis in general? From the synopsis of this, it sounds quite Winnicottian. I've only read Do Androids...

Was PKD big into psychoanalysis in general

the short answer is sort of

he was certainly interested in psychology and that's reflected in the work. And while characters are always psychoanalyzing each other, I can't think of a single appearance of an actual professional psychoanalyst, and it's p clear that he generally distrusted it as a sham, or a racket to be manipulated.

Haha ah. I guess that’d fit with the whole anti-psychiatry movement of around that time.

There are way fewer positive depictions. Regeneration (as mentioned above) is quite an anomaly in that regard.

the whole anti-psychiatry movement of around that time

in sf, this obviously intersects with John W. Campbell/L. Ron Hubbard/Scientology

If I remember right, Dr. Egon Superb is depicted sympathetically.

Menaker, The Treatment

(^ first half)

the authority figures in some of anna kavan's fiction seem to be informed by her dealings with psychiatry etc... she also collaborated with one on a piece of fiction, though haven't read that. actually found my copy of asylum piece in the psychology section of a bookshop (maybe the only work where she deals explicitly with this?)

I bought the first book in this thread because it was the only one of these that the bookshop stocked, and the preface amused me and answered the questions I had reading the blurb (What psychoanalyst would ever recommend writing a diary?). I'm excited to start reading fiction and not pure psychoanalysis in two days' time when my course ends.

Not a novel, but https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18888853-a-young-girl-s-diary is very interesting: a diary of a young Viennese woman published under Freud's auspices

It seems that the comic form is more frequently exploring the therapeutic encounter than other types of fiction, perhaps because of the unparalleled way it can depict multiple levels of internal and external communication. It's a fairly difficult discipline to capture...