Medicine: Thanatopsis, 1955

All over the U.S., patients in analysis were deprived of their daily or every-other-day sessions last week as 500 members of the American Psychoanalytic Association stepped away from their couches and journeyed to Manhattan for their winter meeting. At scientific sessions there was little to distinguish them from any other group of medical specialists;* they jampacked smoke-filled rooms and listened to the latest theories with polite interest, though they were outspoken in disbelief of some of the more farfetched items.

A speaker who won respectful attention but little agreement was Manhattan's Mortimer Ostow, 37. He recalled that after observing the violence of World War I, Sigmund Freud revised his basis for psychoanalysis: instead of hunger and lust, which he had previously rated as the fundamental instincts, he postulated love (Eros) and a death instinct (Thanatos). Dr. Ostow made a different proposal. Instead of changing psychoanalysis again to meet the threat of World War III, he suggested that Freud's amended theory be applied to improve mankind so as to ensure peace. His recommendation: analyze all statesmen.

Analyst Ostow was not fazed by the fact that Freud's concept of a death instinct has proved difficult to accept. On it, he based his campaign to make the world safe for Eros. "It is the death instinct that is responsible for murder, wars, suicide and destructiveness," said he. While Eros fights and ultimately controls Thanatos, modern warfare could destroy most of the world's population and culture before Eros has time even to warm up. "If we are sure that psychoanalysis can attenuate the potential of death instinct — and I believe it can — then we are in a position to urge with conviction the psychoanalysis of all candidates for significant political leadership. But even that is a remote and limited goal. The impact of Freud's writings has been sufficient to relax . . . some of the most recent and superficial repressions even of individuals who have not been analyzed. If the death instinct is equally well accepted and publicized by analysts, would dissemination of this information have a salutary effect on society?"

Analyst Ostow answered his own question: "Possibly." In any case, he was certain, telling the world about the death instinct could do no harm. But he was more hopeful than his hearers. Snapped leading Manhattan Freudian Dr. Lawrence S. Kubie: "We don't need instincts to explain the phenomena of cruelty."

Further highlights of the analysts' searching of their own and others' souls:

¶ All the advice now so freely given on "how not to worry" is misleading, suggested Beverly Hills' Dr. Judd Marmor: "[Too] many people operate on the assumption that to worry about anything is ipso facto 'neurotic' and that the 'normal' person should never worry. [Actually] to be unworried in the face of distressing or threatening reality may sometimes be a symptom of a severe mental disorder, rather than a sign of mental health."