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venue, says he was "totally shocked" at audi-
ence response to the play and the interest in
Freud.
"People representing all generations have
been coming to see it, and it has sparked
many private conversations and public dis-
cussions',' he says.
Marc Rosen, Ph.D., a Southfield-based
psychologist, is chair of public informa-
tion for the Michigan Psychoanalytic
Institute and Society (MPI), with offices in
Farmington Hills and Ann Arbor. He agrees
that people seem to have a real curiosity
about Freud and his psychoanalytic prin-
ciples.
"I don't know if the new movie and play
indicate there is a renewed interest in Freud,
but his concepts and central idea of looking
deeply into how the mind works have never
died',' he says.
There is indeed a mystique about Freud
and his ideas about the human mind.
Sigmund Freud was born Sigismund
Schlomo Freud in 1856 to Jewish parents
in the small town of Freiberg, now part of
the Czech Republic. His father, Jacob, was a
wool merchant, and his mother, Amalie, was
Jacob's second wife. Sigmund was their first
child of eight (Jacob had two children by a
previous marriage), and the family eventu-
ally settled in Vienna.
Freud entered the University of Vienna at
age 17 and became a physician, training as a
neurologist.
He never renounced his Judaism during
a time and place when anti-Semitism was
rampant. He maintained a Jewish identity
throughout his life, although he was not a
practicing Jew and felt being religious had a
neurotic quality
He managed to escape the Nazis in 1938
— fleeing to England before his death to
cancer in 1939 — but four of his sisters died
in concentration camps.
"Freud consistently said he didn't give
up his Jewish identify or culture — he
belonged to B'nai B'rith — and it's a big part
of his legacy,' says Melvin Bornstein, M.D., a
Birmingham psychiatrist, professor of psy-
chiatry at Wayne State University and train-
ing analyst at MPI.
"But from a rational and scientific per-
spective, Freud thought religion was an
illusion and the concept of God had no use-
fulness!"
Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute
MPI educates, provides services to local communities.
Alice Schweiger
Special to the Jewish News
ith offices in Farmington Hills
and Ann Arbor, the Michigan
Psychoanalytic Institute and
Society, founded in 1957, provides train
ing to qualified individuals to become
psychoanalysts.
The institute cur-
rently has some 120
members. Dr. Melvin
Bornstein, a Jewish
Birmingham-based
psychiatrist, professor
of psychiatry at Wayne
State University
Dr. Melvin
School of Medicine
W
Bornstein
and training analyst at MPI, estimates
that about 40 percent of MPI's member
analysts are Jewish.
Bornstein will be honored, along
with another Jewish psychiatrist, Dr.
Ronald Benson of Ann Arbor, who
is the longest-serving active mem-
ber of the Psychiatry Department at
the University Of
Michigan Medical
School, for contri-
butions to psycho-
analysis at the 27th
annual Michigan
Psychoanalytic
Foundation Benefit.
The foundation
Dr. Ronald
was
established in
Benson
The Talking Cure
It was in the late 1880s that Freud developed
his "talking cure."
Patients were to recline on a psychoana-
lytic couch with the analyst out of view and
talk openly and freely, saying anything that
came to mind. Freud felt free association
encouraged individuals to recall events, emo-
tions and fantasies forgotten to the conscious
mind.
Through that process, current emotions
and behaviors could be traced back to very
early experiences in childhood, uncovering
repressed roots of the patient's problems.
During treatment, as unconscious wishes
and conflicts are brought into consciousness,
they are resolved, Freud believed.
Opposed to other psychotherapies, psy-
choanalysis is a long-term therapy, often tak-
ing many years to help the patient develop
insight into problems. Today, many mental
health professionals question whether
Freud's theories are still relevant.
However, according to Rosen, "Freud is the
giant on whose shoulders most clinicians
stand. His ideas have been the basis for the
many schools of thought in psychotherapy."
Today, mental health professionals use
1987 to provide financial support for
the educational, clinical and research
programs of MPI. The benefit, with
cocktails, dinner and entertainment, will
take place Saturday, Nov. 5, at the Inn
at St. Johns, 40445 Five Mile Road, in
Plymouth. Tickets are $175/$75 stu-
dents.
MPI offers the following outreach pro-
grams and services to the community:
• Low-fee treatment clinics in
Farmington Hills and Ann Arbor
• Walnut Lake Nursery – open to
3-5-year-olds whose emotional,
behavioral or developmental chal-
lenges interfere with success in
regular preschool or daycare
• Scientific papers and lectures pre-
sented to the community on a vari-
ety of topics
• Reel Deal film series, with speak-
ers and panel discussions and an
a variety of effective therapies. Cognitive
therapy is short term and attempts to change
thought processes; behavioral therapy
assumes all problem behavior is learned and
can be corrected; psychodynamic therapy is
similar to analysis but less intensive, focusing
on particular problems; psychopharmacol-
ogy — a big component in symptom relief
— uses drugs to treat mental disorders.
Within the psychoanalytic community,
there is a sense that analysis is the most
thorough therapy, the gold standard.
"People want a quick fix, but I see many
individuals who have tried other forms of
treatment without lasting success or relief'
says Deanna Holtzman, Ph.D., a Bloomfield
Hills psychologist and training and supervis-
ing analyst at MPI.
But in today's economy and with busy
schedules, not everyone has the time or
financial resources for a drawn-out process.
According to Lawrence Perlman, Ph.D.,
a clinical psychologist in Ann Arbor, not all
patients are candidates for analysis.
"The process is not only time consuming,
it doesn't always produce good results," he
says. "It doesn't necessarily work for certain
problems like OCD (obsessive compulsive
disorder) and depression.
"Yes, if people are looking for self-knowl-
edge, an historical exploration, it's fine; but
it's not always the best symptomatic treat-
ment. There was a time when analysis was
the epitome, but I find it on the decline. It
has always been an elitist form of treatment,
but nowadays not many people can afford it!'
Still, Holtzman says she doesn't see a drop
in analytic patients.
"In my practice, I am fortunate to work
with the same number of adult male and
female analytic patients I have for years',' she
says. As for the long process, "it takes time
to develop a trusting relationship in a safe
environment where someone can allow him-
self/herself to confide personal, conflictual
issues."
Freud on page 28
online blog, offering psychoanalytic
and philosophical opportunities to
re-experience and re-evaluate the
meaning of the movies you see
• SOFAR (Strategic Outreach to
Families of All Reservists), which
helps support and counsel fami-
lies of military men and women
deployed abroad
• Courses in psychotherapy for pro-
fessionals
For more information on
psychoanalysis and the Michigan
Psychoanalytic Institute, or
to purchase tickets to the
Psychoanalytic Foundation
Benefit on Nov. 5, call
(248) 851-3380 (Farmington
Hills) or (734) 213-3399 (Ann
Arbor), or go to mpi-mps.org .
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