029: Interview With A Pro.

Drama Room, Keith Coppage & I, 3:32PM, (DATE FORGOTTEN)

1)So tell me your experiences with your schooling in this field, such psychoanalysis or psychology.

KC: “Well, when I was at Cal I went back and forth between English and Psychology. I ended up with both, mostly English. In Psych, I ended up loving it because of the experiments. In the lower division courses, all you do is experiments… on PEOPLE (Hysterical laughter). I took a bunch of courses, and they all dealt with what is normal, what is abnormal, and in a way it was like, who’s to judge? There weren’t a lot of answers, so it was fun.”

2)(Giggles) Do you have any interesting stories involving what you did after schooling such as with patients, or others, such as other students, in your field?

KC: “Well, since I ended up doing English as a major and Psych as my minor, essentially, I left the field. But we had a couple of situations where things had to be dealt with after school, a problem that I heard about when we were doing hypnosis. There was a problem with someone from Cal who had a post-hypnotic suggestion that made the news. At first I laughed it off. But then I got a call from this girl who was in on the project with me, and there were things that came up in that session, things neither one of us will discuss to this day. And we realized that this person was exhibiting, or like showing off, behaviors and stuff that were a direct result of the hypnosis session. So we had to call up the professor and get in touch with other people to remember what was said and done. Eventually some professionals had to be brought in… and what it told me was, woah, you can really be traumatized by the smallest stuff. Hypnosis, that was cool, and the most fun. The longest lasting memories of my psych period was from that.”


3)Please elaborate on if you agree or disagree with Freud’s theories, why or why not. Do you think they can be proven again.

KC: Well, as someone who had a difficult relationship with his mom, I can say that I paid close attention to his Oedipal theories, and while the sexual tension that he thinks is everywhere isn’t always present in THAT kind of relationship, I can say that yeah, some of his points were valid, but then it was stressed to me in college and elsewhere that Freud himself wasn’t always meant to be taken literally. That’s why there’s so much discrediting of him today. I don’t know how much of it still hangs. But this is true: it’s all about the mom. I agree. Word for word, no. But your relationship with your mom has more potential to damage. And its regardless of sex, although they find that moms screw up their sons more than their daughters, and dads screw up their daughters more than their sons, HAHAHAHA. Where his theories are difficult, again, is what’s normal. Is it normal to live with your mom til you’re 35. He had definite timelines, ages where you should do this or that. Now, ordinary, no. You want to talk about loving your mom, well, I think it’s among that’s the most complex relationships, sure. Erotic, well, God, I man you want to stop a conversation go right up to someone and ask how often they think about their mom in a sexual way! No, I don’t believe that to be universal at all. If you wanna talk normalcy, there’s nothing really wrong with living with your mom til your 35, but he doesn’t allow that kind of flexibility. The other guys who came after him were, well, they were hella open-minded by comparison. Jung was that way. Adler too.

4)Can you (laughs) tell me your thoughts toward studying Freud in depth, if you did in depth.
KC: Okay the thing about that is, sometime in the 1970’s, people began sort of dissing him right and left. Attaching everything to sex and all that. So when I got to college it was kind of at the end of that kind of thinking. He wasn’t the father of modern psychology anymore… maybe the stepfather HAHAHAHA. But my professors were starting to look at his theories and felt that maybe he had good stuff, but that the sexuality ruined him, or at least ruined him for modern audiences. I believe that the sexual emphasis became kind of disproved in the 70’s and early 80’s. I remember my professor saying one time, “we’re in an age where one has sex with everything that moves, so how can we know what is right and wrong or normal and abnormal.” And then also homosexuality kind of came out too. “Came out” HAHHAHA. Anyway, Freud would cite these case studies of how the reason Mr. Smith acted this way was that he was secretly having fantasies about his priest. And now… well, hell it seems like everyone has fantasies, including the priests HAHAHAHA.. but yeah. It was more Jung then, I mean he was seen as the successor, but the theorist that I related to the most, and the one that I sort of clung to then and now was Gestalt.

Okay here it is in a nutshell. In Freud, everything means something but only because it represents something. And it’s pretty iron clad. Red means this, and birds mean that. In Gestalt he took Freud’s theories and kind of opened them up. And then existentialism too kinda made it seem like who are we to have absolutes. I kind of think modern psychology is more influenced by Jean Paul Sarte and guys like that than Freud.


5)So let’s talk about his partner Jung. Did you study and or research him at all. (sighs) If not, why not.

Well, poor Jung… when they threw out Freud… and by the way, he’s back in style, I have a friend who teaches at Stanford and she says there’s books and classes on him once again… but at the time, no, and since Freud was being de-emphasized when I was in college, Jung was kind of… well, tainted. We didn’t deal with him much at all.

6)Have you ever considered being seen by a psychoanalyst? (Giggles) Why or why not?
KC: Jeez, probing kinda deep aren’t we? HAHAHAHAHA Well no, I never did it nor did I consider it… now, what I’ll say is that I was in counseling for ten years. Didn’t do a bit of good, I’m still a mess huh? HAHAHAHAHAHA Anyway I learned a great deal about myself and my counselor because one of the best buds I’ve ever had. He became a high school principal in the district. Psychiatry or analysis you know is often when there’s some real trouble, something that won’t fly. And you know what? It’s more expensive! People don’t talk about it but there’s a major difference between a counselor and a shrink, and that’s that the counselor can’t prescribe drugs and they charge more!

Plus a shrink couldn’t do a damn thing for me. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, Too late!

7)What are you feelings toward psychoanalysis, positive, negative, or neutral.

KC: Oh, positive, all the way. And its vital, and we need to not be afraid of it. Conservative people are scared spit-less but who cares. In class I did some experiments and, well, I learned more about myself and the world around me, or like, how I, you know, how I perceive it.. Changed my perspective.

8)What makes you a qualified person to answer my questions?

KC. K. I was a psychology major at the University of California Berkeley, and while I did leave the major, the kind of questions you’re asking, well, most psych people can answer them. So there. HAHAHAHAHAH

9)I did some reading on his Eros Theory and his Thanatos theory. Do you agree with his ideas?

KC: Eh. Again you’re dealing with absolutes. In Eros, you’re dealing with absolutes, that we all have the desire to construct and be creative. I can buy that to a degree but again are you talking every single human being? But I’d go with that. Less for Thanatos, which is, well, the theory is that they war against each other, Eros and Thanatos. That I don’t believe at all. Eros, when you kinda look at it coldly, isn’t really that revolutionary a thought. It’s actually kind of Judeo-Christian an idea. Being from that tradition it makes sense to me, but I think it goes beyond psychology.

10)I also did reading on his narcissism, Oedipal complexes as well. How do you feel about them, or your opinions on them.

KC I think I kinda answered the Oedipal idea… and his theory on narcissism… that is something that, no, I don’t buy. Again with Freud there’s an awful lot that seems cause and effect, no questions asked. Maybe it was the cocaine that influenced him HAHAHAHAHA but while I think we’re always dealing with our moms, it’s not that cut and dry. Now you know a lot of people think Freud wrote his On Narcissism to kind of go up against Jung, you know he takes Freud’s theorys and de-sexes them. That’s probably another research paper on your part huh? HAHAHAHAHAHAH/