Abby, Patrick, and Dan kick off Ordinary Unhappiness’s Summer of Narcissism series! In this first episode of many, the three reckon with how talk of “narcissism” and “narcissists” is ubiquitous in contemporary culture, from therapy sessions to self-help-books to popular media to op-eds to the dating scene and beyond. Yet as Abby, Patrick, and Dan explore, “narcissism” in practice seems to mean radically different things to different people, gets invoked for wildly different purposes, and is hotly debated, with plentiful disagreements, even among specialists in any given field, let alone across disciplines. At the same time, the idea of narcissism speaks powerfully to people as they navigate personal relationships and struggle to make sense of group behaviors. Narcissism, in other words, is a quintessentially overdetermined concept, with simultaneously clinical, theoretical, and all-too-personal implications, and one that raises philosophical, political, and painfully practical questions about the relationship between normality and pathology, the individual and the collective, the clinical and the polemical, and more besides. It’s both the beginning of a deep dive into the meanings, history, and stakes of a much used – and much-abused – buzzword and also a great (re)introduction to the Ordinary Unhappiness project and what it means to think psychoanalytically in general. Next week in Part 2: Narcissus in myth and imagination!

Have you noticed that Freud is back? Got questions about psychoanalysis? Or maybe you’ve traversed the fantasy and lived to tell the tale? Leave us a voicemail! (646) 450-0847

A podcast about psychoanalysis, politics, pop culture, and the ways we suffer now. New episodes on Saturdays. Find us online:

http://www.ordinaryunhappiness.com
X: @UnhappinessPod
Instagram: @OrdinaryUnhappiness
Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness

Theme song:
Formal Chicken - Gnossienne No. 1
https://open.spotify.com/album/2MIIYnbyLqriV3vrpUTxxO
Provided by Fruits Music

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Abby and Patrick wrap up their reading of the Elisabeth von R case study. First, they tackle the Discussion section of Freud’s paper. As they discover, this section goes beyond Elisabeth’s story: it contains yet more case vignettes of still other patients, as well as a meditation on the strangeness of an approach to scientific inquiry and practical treatment where stories are the primary source of data. Second, they observe Freud’s beginning to explore a set of questions that will recur throughout his subsequent work – involving, above all, the relationships between embodied experiences, bodily metaphors, and the unconscious. Finally, Abby and Patrick go beyond the text to reflect on the biography of the woman who was Elisabeth von R – Ilona Weiss – and what it means for an analytic treatment to be successful.

Have you noticed that Freud is back? Got questions about psychoanalysis? Or maybe you’ve traversed the fantasy and lived to tell the tale? Leave us a voicemail! (646) 450-0847

A podcast about psychoanalysis, politics, pop culture, and the ways we suffer now. New episodes on Saturdays. Find us online:

http://www.ordinaryunhappiness.com
X: @UnhappinessPod
Instagram: @OrdinaryUnhappiness
Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness

Theme song:
Formal Chicken - Gnossienne No. 1
https://open.spotify.com/album/2MIIYnbyLqriV3vrpUTxxO
Provided by Fruits Music

Subscribe to get access to the full episode, the episode reading list, and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness

Abby, Patrick, and Dan close out their reading of Winnicott’s paper, “Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena,” focusing specifically on Winnicott’s two case studies. The first is the story of a distressed little boy who has developed an idiosyncratic relationship to string; the second is an adult woman struggling with feelings of loss, memories of her dislocated childhood, and a fantasy about a beautiful white horse. Along the way, Abby, Patrick, and Dan put Winnicott in conversation with other analytical concepts – from Freud’s notion of mourning to Lacan’s idea of the signifying chain – and work through some challenging implications for thinking about drug addiction, intergenerational traumas, and more.

Have you noticed that Freud is back? Got questions about psychoanalysis? Or maybe you’ve traversed the fantasy and lived to tell the tale? Leave us a voicemail! (646) 450-0847

A podcast about psychoanalysis, politics, pop culture, and the ways we suffer now. New episodes on Saturdays. Find us online:

http://www.ordinaryunhappiness.com
X: @UnhappinessPod
Instagram: @OrdinaryUnhappiness
Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness

Theme song:
Formal Chicken - Gnossienne No. 1
https://open.spotify.com/album/2MIIYnbyLqriV3vrpUTxxO
Provided by Fruits Music