I was reflecting, leaving the cinema the other day, on the very clear similarity between the film I had just watched, “Source Code” (2011), by Duncan Jones, and “Groundhog Day” (1993), by Harold Ramis. In the latter, Bill Murray’s character, a stroppy and cynical weatherman finds himself “trapped” inside this Groundhog Day, as it is called, by finding himself forced to relive every single moment of it, from morning till night.

In “Source Code”, Jake Gyllenhaal’s character, an American helicopter pilot, finds himself on a commuter train, “trapped” inside someone else’s body, during the same 8 minutes before the explosion of a bomb that will kill him and everyone else in the train. And then he lives these minutes again, and again, because, it turns out, he is on a mission.

 
 
Compliments of Ace Clip Art
This is a question I often get from people when they first meet me. "You are a psychoanalyst", they say. "Right..." And then, after a moment of hesitation: "Excuse my ignorance, but I am always confused. A psychoanalyst. What does it mean? You are a doctor, aren't you? Are you a psychiatrist? A psychologist? No? So, what are you? What's the difference?"

You see, all those Greek words, made up by people who were not Greeks at a time when creating "new" Greek words was fashionable, are more or less opaque for whomever does not have much familiarity with the so called Psi world. They are compound terms, sharing the first bit, "psych-" (which comes from Psyche, i.e. Soul.)

So, we have:

  • Psychiatrist < Psychiatry < psyche + iatreia, ‘cure’.
  • Psychologist < Psychology < psyche + logos, 'discourse, study'
  • Psychotherapist < Psychotherapy < psyche + therapeia, 'nursing, cure'
  • Psychoanalyst < Psychoanalysis < psyche + analysis, 'separation into components, close examination'

All this is very interesting, but did not answer the question. What's the difference?
 
 
The female voice on the phone sounded very distressed. A wife, who was very worried that her husband, very depressed since having been made redundant six months ago, was getting worse and going to do something "crazy". I tried to calm her down, and asked for some more information.

This happens, from time to time. I get contacted by people who act on behalf of someone else. They are very worried about a relative, friend or significant other, and try to find some help. Sometimes they just ask me if I can prescribe medication, or want specific medical advice. If this is the case, I refer them to the person's GP.

More often, however, the call is a call of concern. Like this distressed wife, they call because they are worried that someone close to them is feeling down, is neglecting themselves, is depressed or just very unhappy.
 
 
In my latest post I wrote about how people who see that you are a therapist take it for granted that you deal with mentally ill people. I realize that this association between therapy and mental illness is not rare and goes both ways. If you are in therapy yourself many people seem to automatically believe that you are mentally impaired in some way.

Ask yourself. Imagine that you were in some kind of distress and asked your best friend for some kind of advice. What would you think if they told you that you need to see some a specialist, a psychotherapist perhaps?

Many people would take offence. They would protest that they are not ill, and cut the conversation short. If their best friend was like them, they would back down immediately and would try to suggest something else.
 
Nothing to cure 17/09/2009
 
People ask me sometimes what I do for a living, and when I tell them, almost invariably I am met with a look of understanding and compassion. I know what this look says. It says: “Poor you, for having to have such a regular contact with those mentally ill people.”

In the early days I tried to challenge this view. (I don’t anymore).

I would explain that people who go to a psychotherapist or a psychoanalyst are not necessarily mentally ill. I would admit that some of them might be, of course, but even they, I would stress, do not go to the therapist because of their illness. They might think so, but what they really do is go to the therapist because they need help and hopefully the therapist can provide this.

This very simple truth was incomprehensible to many of my interlocutors –and, I would expect, to many of the readers of this blog. I can almost hear, loud, the objections: “If you cannot cure people, why do you invite them to come to you? Is this a joke or something?”