What can psychoanalysts learn from the development of literary theory?
It is no accident that literary theorists and academicians have become very interested in psychoanalysis. There is a remarkable parallel between the development of literary theory from its origins to the present day and the development of psychoanalysis from the time of Freud to now. The same concerns that have troubled critics of art and literature about how to go about evaluating an artwork are the ones most controversial today in the field of psychoanalysis. The questions, for example, of whether beauty resides in the work of art or in the mind of the audience and its parallel in psychoanalysis, whether the material produced by the patient is essentially from the patient or the product of an interaction between patient and analyst, or even whether it is ever possible to interpret any patient material or artwork all the way down to some basic qualities remain unanswered and polemical today.
