I walked there, I felt rays of hatred emanating from passersby.
Tahir’s place was full of pots and rugs and furniture that had to be polished, paintings that had to be insured and sculpture that had to be plugged in. He was extravagant too. I’d almost expected a quiet guy in a suit and bow tie. But Tahir was something of a show-off, dressed in postwar ethnic gear. He’d wear salwar kameez, a kaftan, hippy trousers, even a fez, and those slippers which curled up at the toe. I’d say, at times, that he looked more like a magician at the end of a pier than a doctor.
Nevertheless, he had the complete exotic-doctor presence and charisma. Dark-skinned, with long, greying hair, he was imperious, handsome, imposing. He must have been aware that he could seem ridiculous. Few would doubt he was arrogant, cruel, alcoholic and more than a little narcissistic. But I guess he reserved the right to be himself, as much himself as he could be. For him, as for the other hip shrinks, it wasn’t the work of analysis to make people respectable conformists but to let them be as mad as they wanted, living out and enjoying their conflicts—even if it meant suffering more—without being self-destructive. I caught on early when he quoted Pascal: “Men are so fundamentally mad that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.”
I fell in love with him, as I was supposed to, perhaps before I met him, and fantasised about his private life. I tried to seduce him, begging him to fuck me on the couch, while convinced that this was not something I really wanted; I took him small presents: coffee, pens, postcards, novels.
When it came to the important things, listening and interpretation, he was there, on the spot. He wasn’t one of those analysts who terrify you with their silence, sphinxes identified with their own stillness. Once he asked if I thought he talked too much, but I said no. I loved the exchange. He said that silence is a powerful tool but that it could re-create the inaccessible parent and “frantic child” scenario. So when he had something to say, he said it. Discussing Freudian theory was always considered a resistance, I knew that. But resist I would; the theory began to fascinate me.
Every time I saw him, I felt I’d moved forward in understanding; even as I rejoined the street, I’d be asking myself new questions. Gossip had it that Tahir had had affairs with his patients; apparently he’d talked on the phone while seeing them, and even went to the opera with them. But he was nothing but focused with me. Occasionally, if I asked him what he was doing that night, he would speak of his friendships with painters, dancers, poets, knowing I liked to identify with him, that this was something I wanted for myself.
After sessions he’d watch me looking at his catalogues, at his poetry books. “Take them,” he’d say. “Take anything you need.” He knew I wanted to extend my mind, having by now a thirst for intellectual matters. When I said I wanted to understand Freud and analysis, he encouraged me to read Proust, Marx, Emerson, Keats, Dostoevsky, Whitman and Blake.
He said that in most of Shakespeare’s plays there was at least one mad person, and in their madness they not only told you who they were, but they spoke important truths. He said that analysis was part of literary culture, but that literature was bigger than psychoanalysis, and swallowed it as a whale devoured a minnow. What great artist hasn’t been aware of the unconscious, which was not discovered by Freud but only mapped by him?
Also, he’d say: My profession is not, and should not be considered, a straight science. It was impossible for Freud to say that he cured people by poetry. Yet observe the important figures and see how like poets they are, with their speculative jumps and metaphors: Jung, Ferenczi, Klein, Balint, Lacan, each singing his own developmental story, particular passion and aesthetic. Their differing views don’t
Tahir’s place was full of pots and rugs and furniture that had to be polished, paintings that had to be insured and sculpture that had to be plugged in. He was extravagant too. I’d almost expected a quiet guy in a suit and bow tie. But Tahir was something of a show-off, dressed in postwar ethnic gear. He’d wear salwar kameez, a kaftan, hippy trousers, even a fez, and those slippers which curled up at the toe. I’d say, at times, that he looked more like a magician at the end of a pier than a doctor.
Nevertheless, he had the complete exotic-doctor presence and charisma. Dark-skinned, with long, greying hair, he was imperious, handsome, imposing. He must have been aware that he could seem ridiculous. Few would doubt he was arrogant, cruel, alcoholic and more than a little narcissistic. But I guess he reserved the right to be himself, as much himself as he could be. For him, as for the other hip shrinks, it wasn’t the work of analysis to make people respectable conformists but to let them be as mad as they wanted, living out and enjoying their conflicts—even if it meant suffering more—without being self-destructive. I caught on early when he quoted Pascal: “Men are so fundamentally mad that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.”
I fell in love with him, as I was supposed to, perhaps before I met him, and fantasised about his private life. I tried to seduce him, begging him to fuck me on the couch, while convinced that this was not something I really wanted; I took him small presents: coffee, pens, postcards, novels.
When it came to the important things, listening and interpretation, he was there, on the spot. He wasn’t one of those analysts who terrify you with their silence, sphinxes identified with their own stillness. Once he asked if I thought he talked too much, but I said no. I loved the exchange. He said that silence is a powerful tool but that it could re-create the inaccessible parent and “frantic child” scenario. So when he had something to say, he said it. Discussing Freudian theory was always considered a resistance, I knew that. But resist I would; the theory began to fascinate me.
Every time I saw him, I felt I’d moved forward in understanding; even as I rejoined the street, I’d be asking myself new questions. Gossip had it that Tahir had had affairs with his patients; apparently he’d talked on the phone while seeing them, and even went to the opera with them. But he was nothing but focused with me. Occasionally, if I asked him what he was doing that night, he would speak of his friendships with painters, dancers, poets, knowing I liked to identify with him, that this was something I wanted for myself.
After sessions he’d watch me looking at his catalogues, at his poetry books. “Take them,” he’d say. “Take anything you need.” He knew I wanted to extend my mind, having by now a thirst for intellectual matters. When I said I wanted to understand Freud and analysis, he encouraged me to read Proust, Marx, Emerson, Keats, Dostoevsky, Whitman and Blake.
He said that in most of Shakespeare’s plays there was at least one mad person, and in their madness they not only told you who they were, but they spoke important truths. He said that analysis was part of literary culture, but that literature was bigger than psychoanalysis, and swallowed it as a whale devoured a minnow. What great artist hasn’t been aware of the unconscious, which was not discovered by Freud but only mapped by him?
Also, he’d say: My profession is not, and should not be considered, a straight science. It was impossible for Freud to say that he cured people by poetry. Yet observe the important figures and see how like poets they are, with their speculative jumps and metaphors: Jung, Ferenczi, Klein, Balint, Lacan, each singing his own developmental story, particular passion and aesthetic. Their differing views don’t
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