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Indian Express
5 days ago
- General
- Indian Express
Is there an Indian psychoanalysis? Understanding Sudhir Kakar's cultural turn
Born on this day in 1938, Sudhir Kakar, the 'father of Indian psychoanalysis', is celebrated for bringing a distinct 'Indianness' to the field. Psychoanalysis is a theory of mind and a clinical practice developed by Sigmund Freud. It primarily focuses on the relationship between 'conscious' thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, and the 'unconscious' mind. Notably, Freud and others after him emphasised upon the discipline's universality. By interpreting the Indian psyche through myths and societal norms, Kakar infused psychoanalysis with an Indian cultural richness, and redefined how the discipline could engage with non-Western minds. His ideas continue to reshape how India thinks about the mind, culture, and identity today. Kakar passed away last year. Kakar believed that Freud's theories, while revolutionary, were embedded in European culture, meaning they often failed to resonate with Indian psychological realities. He argued that Indian culture views reality differently from the post-Enlightenment West. 'In the traditional Indian view, which still exerts a powerful influence on how even most modern Indians view marriage and family, parent-sons and filial bonds among the sons living in an extended family override the importance of the couple as the foundation of the family,' he said in an address to the Indian Psychoanalytic Society in 2022. But rather than rejecting psychoanalysis, Kakar expanded it by interpreting the unconscious through the lens of Indian myths, familial structures, and spiritual traditions. He introduced concepts such as the 'Ganesha Complex' as an Indian-alternative to Freud's influential Oedipus Complex, which borrowed from Greek mythology to explain a son's sexual attitude to his mother and hostility towards the father. 'My main argument is that the ''hegemonic narrative'' of Hindu culture as far as male development is concerned is neither that of Freud's Oedipus nor that of Christianity's Adam,' he wrote in 'Hindu Myth and Psychoanalytic Concepts: The Ganesha Complex' published in Asian Culture and Psychotherapy: Implications for East and West (2005). Kakar used the myth of Skanda (also known as Kartikeya) and Ganesha to explain India's culturally sanctioned dependence on the maternal figure. Unlike Skanda, Ganesha in the myth chooses maternal closeness over heroic independence. 'By remaining an infant… Ganesha will never know the pangs of separation from the mother… That Ganesha's lot is considered superior to Skanda's is perhaps an indication of the Indian man's cultural preference in the dilemma of separation-individuation,' Kakar wrote. Kakar drew heavily from Indian epics, folklore, and even popular cinema to reveal how collective fantasies shape the unconscious. 'The self,' he said 'is a system of reverberating representational worlds — representations of culture, primary family relationships and bodily life.' While Kakar's work itself was rooted in Hindu culture, he envisioned an Indian psychoanalysis that would engage critically with Western theories. 'The wish is that a future generation of Indian analysts realises that a critical stance is now needed after a long, much too long phase of idealisation of Western analytic gurus,' he said. Psychoanalysts in India today draw deeply from Kakar's reimagining of psychoanalysis, integrating his culturally rooted insights into clinical practice, specifically acknowledging the imprint of collective histories, myths, and identities on the unconscious. As Amrita Narayanan, a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst, wrote in 'An Elastic Indianness: In Memory of Sudhir Kakar' (2024), Kakar believed that the Indian 'ego', formed through the blurring of self and other, was fundamentally different than the Western, autonomous conception. 'The 'I am' and 'we are' are birthed simultaneously for Indians,' she wrote, suggesting that for many, social expectations are internalised as personal desires. This deep enmeshment of self and community has major implications for how therapists understand emotional conflict, sexuality, and even violence. 'Much like Freud, Kakar's quest for clues in folk tales, fables, and epics holds the reimagination of Indianness, in which the self yearns for spirituality,' said Pulkit Sharma, a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist. For many clinicians, Kakar's recognition of India's spiritual imagination, through epics, rituals, and mythology, reshaped what counts as healing. Myths of Ganesha and Ram, used by Kakar to illustrate the nurturing and sacrificial Indian son, challenged Western tropes like Oedipus and offered a new vocabulary for male development. Similarly, fantasies of femininity, coded as nurturing, maternal, and emotionally sensitive, are central rather than deviant. 'In the clinical room, sensitivity is given to caste, religion, gender, family, generational myths, and traditions that shape the subjectivity of the client. All of it informs the therapist about indigenous narratives and themes that help in learning the unconscious script. This accessibility serves as a guide to meaningful therapeutic growth,' Sharma said. 'The psychotherapist must know that it's not merely a defence, but a well-meaning psychological structure that fosters healing. The psychopathology is not intrapsychic but extrapsychic in Kakar's works. It further carries the ruptures of colonialism, modernity, and globalisation,' he added.
Spectator
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Spectator
Adrift in the world: My Sister and Other Lovers, by Esther Freud, reviewed
Some people spend years squirming on a leather chaise longue before they come to understand, as Philip Larkin so pithily observed: 'They fuck you up, your mum and dad.' Few go on to make peace with the sagacity delivered in his next line: 'They may not mean to, but they do.' In My Sister and Other Lovers, Esther Freud's sequel to her autobiographical novel Hideous Kinky, sisters Lucy and Bea – who spent their early childhood trailing after their hippy mother through 1960s Morocco – slowly edge towards such catharsis. Before that, however, comes a lot more turbulence, and Freud – whose great-grandfather pioneered the couch method – is acutely attentive to its psychological effects. Back in the UK, but still bound to a mother who hitchhikes her way from one disastrous situation to the next, we see the now grown-up sisters attempt, and often fail, to negotiate life on their own terms. Lucy, the narrator, helplessly caught between her fiery older sister and her unreliable parent, chooses men 'in direct relation to how likely they are to leave'. Bea, who is traumatised by childhood abuse, finds escape in heroin. For much of the novel, then, Bea is lost to that darkness, but Freud makes her absence feel like a presence. Delivered in an episodic style reflective of fractured lives, the book skims across time like a stone. When it lands, we're in a new place, with new people and years may have elapsed. Freud writes for the hard-working reader. She refuses to hold our hand. But there's a difference between trusting our intelligence and outright neglect. Writers, as Martin Amis once said, 'must be a good host'. When characters walk on without introduction and past events are mentioned as if we were there (but we weren't), it starts to feel like we've been abandoned at a party in a room full of strangers. Freud's proclivity for experimentation also leads to problems at sentence level. Missing commas, presumably sacrificed in the name of style, abound ('Hearing her name Pearl threw herself between us'); shifting into 'writerly' mode leads to confusing descriptions ('I swallowed so loud the gulp jumped in the car'); and dodgy similes ('The future lifted like a barn') make us feel not, as they should, the joy of recognition, but bewilderment. When style compromises meaning, it ceases to be style; it's just bad writing.
The Guardian
04-07-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
My co-worker thinks her single friend should lose weight. Is not caring about looks ‘giving up'?
Hi Ugly, I recently chatted with a middle-aged co-worker about her friend who is unhappy being single and thinks she should lose weight. As Gen X women growing up in the 1980s, our biggest concern was weight and calorie counting to control it (now we can add wrinkles, yellow teeth and odd body hair to the list). When I (flippantly?) suggested encouraging the friend to accept her body as it is, my co-worker said, 'Well she can't just give up!' Giving up – that's another thing we Gen X women have always tried to avoid. Like looking at our moms in sweatpants and no makeup and thinking they weren't trying to be beautiful any more. My question: are there other words to describe acceptance of your looks as they are, at any age, or are we just truly 'giving up'? – Gen Acceptance One reason talk of 'giving up' leaves a bad taste in the mouth, writes psychoanalyst Adam Phillips in his book On Giving Up, is that it 'is felt to be an ominous foreshadowing of, or reminder of, the ultimate giving up that is suicide, or just the milder version of living a kind of death-in-life'. In other words: your co-worker unconsciously believes that a woman who gives up dieting might as well be dead. Forgive me (and Phillips – and, indirectly, Freud, the father of psychoanalysis) for being dramatic. But I think it's true! Maybe doubly true when it comes to physical beauty, which has long been framed as less ornamental than essential, particularly for women and gender non-conforming people. We often think of beauty as a declaration of self, a means of survival, a signifier of societal worth. It increases our economic and social potential. It opens doors and buys grace; it affords access and attention. To fall short of it, conversely, is to edge toward a kind of cultural erasure. Naturally, when one's appearance is rewarded and/or punished like this, it starts to seem as important as life itself. Or more important. Consider a quote from a 2024 Washington Post story on the renewed popularity of tanning beds, known to heighten users' risk of skin cancer: 'I'd rather die hot than live ugly.' (A rebuttal, if I may.) This conflation of beauty and life comes up quite a few times in your question, albeit in less extreme terms. You categorize weight loss and stray hairs as some of your 'biggest concerns'. You recall worrying about your mother not wearing makeup – which only makes sense if makeup is a symbol of something more. (The will to carry on, maybe?) Your co-worker implies that giving up on thinness must mean giving up on dating, which must mean giving up on love, which, well – why bother going on, then? Sign up to Well Actually Practical advice, expert insights and answers to your questions about how to live a good life after newsletter promotion This is a bit absurd. (The unconscious is nothing if not irrational!) 'The daunting association' of giving up, Phillips writes, 'has stopped us being able to think about the milder, more instructive, more promising givings up,' of which there are many. Like giving up on maintaining beauty standards, for example. The pursuit of an unrealistic, often unhealthy and ever-shifting appearance ideal is something that paradoxically 'anaesthetizes' us to life, as Phillips might say, even as we think of it as offering more life (or more opportunity). Skipping meals to lose weight can deprive the body of nutrients it needs to function properly. Getting Botox to look younger can 'alter the way [the] brain interprets and processes other people's emotions'. Self-surveilling can train us to prioritize how we look over how we feel. 'In order to feel alive one might have to give up, say, one's habitual tactics and techniques for deadening oneself,' Phillips writes. In this sense, 'giving up' is exactly the phrase you're looking for, Gen Acceptance. Give up, you know, starving. Give up vitamin deficiencies. Give up calorie-counting, step-counting, mirror-staring. Give up sucking in and Spanx-shaped skin indentations. Give up middle-aged men who demand someone do any of the above in exchange for happy hour apps at Applebee's. More from Jessica DeFino's Ask Ugly: My father had plastic surgery. Now he wants me and my mother to get work done How should I be styling my pubic hair? How do I deal with imperfection? I want to ignore beauty culture. But I'll never get anywhere if I don't look a certain way If 'giving up' still doesn't sit right, try recontextualizing it as getting something back: time, money, energy, brain space, health – life, one might say. I'm not saying it's easy. Giving up can prompt 'very real suffering', as Phillips puts it. Quitting involves reassessing what we value, and this can get more painful with age. Maybe that's why your co-worker is so resistant to the idea of her friend accepting her body as-is. It might force her to ask herself: could she do the same? Should she? If so, what does that say about how she's lived thus far? Did she waste her one wild and precious existence thinking about dressing-on-the-side salads? Who is she if she's not thin, or at least trying to be? But if your co-worker isn't interested in reconsidering her beliefs, I'd give up trying to convince her. Because sometimes, giving up is good. Do you have a beauty question for Ask Ugly? Submit it anonymously here — and be as detailed as possible, please! Anonymous if you prefer Please be as detailed as possible Your contact details are helpful so we can contact you for more information. They will only be seen by the Guardian.
The Guardian
03-07-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Not ‘giving up': Is there another way to describe accepting how I look as I age?
Hi Ugly, I recently chatted with a middle-aged coworker about her friend who is unhappy being single and thinks she should lose weight. As Gen X women growing up in the 1980s, our biggest concern was weight and calorie counting to control it (now we can add wrinkles, yellow teeth and odd body hair to the list). When I (flippantly?) suggested encouraging the friend to accept her body as it is, my coworker said, 'Well she can't just give up!' Giving up – that's another thing we Gen X women have always tried to avoid. Like looking at our moms in sweatpants and no makeup and thinking they weren't trying to be beautiful anymore. My question: are there other words to describe acceptance of your looks as they are, at any age, or are we just truly 'giving up'? - Gen Acceptance One reason talk of 'giving up' leaves a bad taste in the mouth, writes psychoanalyst Adam Phillips in his book On Giving Up, is that it 'is felt to be an ominous foreshadowing of, or reminder of, the ultimate giving up that is suicide, or just the milder version of living a kind of death-in-life'. In other words: your coworker unconsciously believes that a woman who gives up dieting might as well be dead. Forgive me (and Phillips – and, indirectly, Freud, the father of psychoanalysis) for being dramatic. But I think it's true! Maybe doubly true when it comes to physical beauty, which has long been framed as less ornamental than essential, particularly for women and gender non-conforming people. We often think of beauty as a declaration of self, a means of survival, a signifier of societal worth. It increases our economic and social potential. It opens doors and buys grace; it affords access and attention. To fall short of it, conversely, is to edge toward a kind of cultural erasure. Naturally, when one's appearance is rewarded and/or punished like this, it starts to seem as important as life itself. Or more important. Consider a quote from a 2024 Washington Post story on the renewed popularity of tanning beds, known to heighten users' risk of skin cancer: 'I'd rather die hot than live ugly.' (A rebuttal, if I may.) This conflation of beauty and life comes up quite a few times in your question, albeit in less extreme terms. You categorize weight loss and stray hairs as some of your 'biggest concerns'. You recall worrying about your mother not wearing makeup – which only makes sense if makeup is a symbol of something more. (The will to carry on, maybe?) Your coworker implies that giving up on thinness must mean giving up on dating, which must mean giving up on love, which, well – why bother going on, then? Sign up to Well Actually Practical advice, expert insights and answers to your questions about how to live a good life after newsletter promotion This is a bit absurd. (The unconscious is nothing if not irrational!) 'The daunting association' of giving up, Phillips writes, 'has stopped us being able to think about the milder, more instructive, more promising givings up,' of which there are many. Like giving up on maintaining beauty standards, for example. The pursuit of an unrealistic, often unhealthy and ever-shifting appearance ideal is something that paradoxically 'anaesthetizes' us to life, as Phillips might say, even as we think of it as offering more life (or more opportunity). Skipping meals to lose weight can deprive the body of nutrients it needs to function properly. Getting Botox to look younger can 'alter the way [the] brain interprets and processes other people's emotions'. Self-surveilling can train us to prioritize how we look over how we feel. 'In order to feel alive one might have to give up, say, one's habitual tactics and techniques for deadening oneself,' Phillips writes. In this sense, 'giving up' is exactly the phrase you're looking for, Gen Acceptance. Give up, you know, starving. Give up vitamin deficiencies. Give up calorie-counting, step-counting, mirror-staring. Give up sucking in and Spanx-shaped skin indentations. Give up middle-aged men who demand someone do any of the above in exchange for happy hour apps at Applebee's. More from Jessica DeFino's Ask Ugly: My father had plastic surgery. Now he wants me and my mother to get work done How should I be styling my pubic hair? How do I deal with imperfection? I want to ignore beauty culture. But I'll never get anywhere if I don't look a certain way If 'giving up' still doesn't sit right, try recontextualizing it as getting something back: time, money, energy, brain space, health – life, one might say. I'm not saying it's easy. Giving up can prompt 'very real suffering', as Phillips puts it. Quitting involves reassessing what we value, and this can get more painful with age. Maybe that's why your coworker is so resistant to the idea of her friend accepting her body as-is. It might force her to ask herself: could she do the same? Should she? If so, what does that say about how she's lived thus far? Did she waste her one wild and precious existence thinking about dressing-on-the-side salads? Who is she if she's not thin, or at least trying to be? But if your coworker isn't interested in reconsidering her beliefs, I'd give up trying to convince her. Because sometimes, giving up is good. Do you have a beauty question for Ask Ugly? Submit it anonymously here — and be as detailed as possible, please! Anonymous if you prefer Please be as detailed as possible Your contact details are helpful so we can contact you for more information. They will only be seen by the Guardian.
USA Today
02-07-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Connections hints, clues and answers on Wednesday, July 2 2025
WARNING: THERE ARE CONNECTIONS SPOILERS AHEAD! DO NOT READ FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT THE JULY 2, 2025 NYT CONNECTIONS ANSWER SPOILED FOR YOU. Ready? OK! Have you been playing Connections, the super fun word game from the New York Times that has people sharing those multi-colored squares on social media like they did with Wordle? It's pretty fun and sometimes very challenging, so we're here to help you out with some clues and the answer for the four categories that you need to know: 1. Not real. 2. Think psychology. 3. One letter. 4. Think about your alma mater, sort of. The answers are below this photo: 1. Knockoff 2. Associated with Freud 3. Words after "T-" 4. Starting with high school/college abbrevitations Play more word games Looking for more word games?
