For the majority of people in our culture, the biggest barrier to knowledge is not the lack of availability of materials with which to learn. Rather, it is the obstacles within ourselves, the hidden anxieties that make us feel disinterested or avoidant, the guilts that make us deny what we know, that are often most limiting. Mind and experience constantly influence brain circuitry. Psychoanalysis will not alter your brain circuits to give you perfect pitch or make you a math whiz. But can psychoanalysis help to break down barriers to connections in one’s mind, and make the mind run with greater ease? Can it make you smarter in ways that are useful? That’s my bet.
Dr. Blum is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in Philadelphia.