Persian

Translator: Amir Sadra Derakhshanifar

Meysam Adab

OK, Salah! The Freudian Association, whether accidentally or through analysis, has found out the root of all evil; and what it says seems plausible, of course if its revolutionary rage! lets it express what it says eloquently. Muhammad Sanati is a right-wing liberal, who has happened to pass by psychoanalysis in the middle of his wanderings: I really doubt whether his own analysis has been successful; or has he been analysed in the first place? Has he gone through any psychoanalysis stuff academically? These are all doubts he himself should clarify. Still, it’s no exaggeration if one believes that he’s the number one culprit for dynamic psychotherapy in Iran. The great majority of therapists with this approach are directly his students, or enjoy his support, or those disciples of his who occupy university chairs, or at least those who breathe in the discursive atmosphere fuelled by Sanati. To put aside the predicament of other so-called therapeutic approaches, and the macro-scale corruption within the related ministry or within the whole Iranian governmental system altogether, and to approach the situation with an intra-familial stance, it’s time we put aside all “godfathers;” and there’s no escaping the fact that they are to be blamed for the present state of affairs. I really cannot understand why some people refer to Freud or Lacan? It’s as if they wanted to compare a good-for-nothing with Avicenna! How dissimilar Jacques-Allen Miller is with Iranian so-called psychoanalysts! It suffices to take DSM away from Sanati and his disciples and friends to recognise their psychoanalytic knowledge. When the godfather is a so-called enlightened mind rather than an analyst, there’s nothing wrong with mixing analysis with yoga or Buddhism under the guise of postmodernism, and come up with a potion called Davanlou-Freud-Jon Kabat-Zinn. Have you noticed the slightest reaction by Sanati and his followers who all occupy university chairs against this fraudulent decadence? The same thing applies to that other social climber who considers herself and a four or five guys around her the biggest Freudian group in Iran; she and her supervisor got famous thanks to Sanati’s support. No sooner has Stefano Bolognini been selected President of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society than they translate his books with lots of advertisement, thinking they are the sole representatives of the IPA in Iran. This corrupt money-laundering system (psychoanalysis intermingled with capitalism) is so full of discrimination that a rage like that of  Mitra Kadivar’s acquaintances, as you described, is not altogether unbelievable. If you want to approach them, you should never be gentle.

P.S. All this comment is an analysand’s viewpoint. That’s all.