O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first, Methought she purged the air of pestilence! That instant was I turned into a hart, And my desires like fell and cruel hounds, E’er since pursue me.                                                                                                                                       —  Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, I.1

         Shakespeare presents Orsino, the Duke of Illyria, describing his love for the rich countess, Olivia, with a variety of metaphors and in a variety of voices; there is little doubt that the phenomenology of love includes these and more. For Shakespeare’s Orsino, vision plays a part in love (“O, when mine eyes ...”), as does some promise that the other, the lover, will serve the role of a powerful and beneficent protector (“Methought she purged the air of pestilence!”). Shakespeare goes on to allude to a transformation wherein the once-active one or the subject, the Duke, becomes the object — here — of his own desires. We may note, as well, a shift in metaphor from loving eyes and protectiveness to the scene of the hunt in which the Duke, now portrayed as a pursued stag (“That instant was I turned into a hart”), is pursued by his own internal demons (“And my desires like fell and cruel hounds, E’er since pursue me”). (from Preface: Oedipal Paradigms in Collision ... 1998)

My first day in school? We began three courses. The first two were rather straightforward. One was a course on child development ... on the unfolding psychological and physical and social development of the child as seen through the lens of those who had trained in the Child Analysis of Anna Freud and those wh -- even if they differed -- deferred to the type of thinking that Freud's daughter had chosen. The course was taught by an analytically trained Child Psychiatrist who was quite organized but not particularly charismatic ... little flair ... no flares. Readings were broad and covered the first generation of Freud and his students and, thereafter, those latter day saints who stayed within the boundaries that were established by the editorial board of the Psychoanalytic Study of the Child which was pretty much still being guided by the Younger Freud. Child Analysis was, itself, not considered "real analysis," as it required certain modifications. What to say? What we were taught did not include those who may have strayed or who had stridently disagreed with Anna. I found this curious.

The second was a series of seminars on various types of psychopathologies. How did analysts see health and pathology. This was taught by a very charismatic Psychologist trained at the Berlin Psychoanalytic and who had been involved in the Resistance during WW2. He spoke with a heavy accent which made him a good stand-in for Sigmund -- already dead for more than thirty years. He openly admitted to taking supervision in his early years from some of the "others," but when it came to disagreeing with him or even openly questioning how a conclusion was derived from the data, he would respond with:

"Don't marry before your Fahzer." 

The Third Course deserves an entry all its own.

Any case, these first two Seminars on this weekend morning weren't accompanied by visceral reactions as when the Duke Of Illyria first laid eyes on Olivia or I on M.