Ordinary Unhappiness

Just in time for Halloween, Abby and Patrick welcome video essayist and scholar Mariana Colín (aka The Morbid Zoo) for a wide-ranging conversation about media, communication, consent, the problem(s) of other minds, and more. What lies behind our fantasies about science, and in what ways can our narratives about new technologies merely reprise old problems – while also creating entirely new ones? What are the limits to what we can imagine, what we can consent to, and what media can represent back to us? If perfect communication and psychic transparency were possible, would that actually be a good thing – or would it be a living nightmare?  The three follow these questions by taking up some of Freud’s strangest work – his writing on telepathy – alongside David Cronenberg’s 1981 classic movie Scanners. It’s a wild and rollicking journey that we promise won’t make your head explode (at least not in the literal, bad way). 
More Mariana is here:
YouTube: (345) The Morbid Zoo - YouTube
Bluesky: Mariana Colín (@themorbidzoo.bsky.social) — Bluesky
Website: Mariana Colín (Page 1)
References include: 
Sigmund Freud, “Psychoanalysis and Telepathy” (1921)
Sigmund Freud, “Dreams and Occultism,” from New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1933)
Claudie Massicotte, “Psychical Transmissions: Freud, Spiritualism, and the Occult”
Maria Pierri, Occultism and the Origins of Psychoanalysis: Freud, Ferenczi, and the Challenge of Thought Transference
Maria Pierri, Sigmund Freud and the Forsyth Case, Coincidences and the Thought-Transmission in Psychoanalysis
Hannah Zeavin, The Distance Cure
Roger Luchurst, The Invention of Telepathy
CS Peirce, “The Fixation of Belief” 
Avgi Saketopoulou, Sexuality Beyond Consent: Risk, Race, Traumatophilia
Have you noticed that Freud is back? Got questions about psychoanalysis? Or maybe you’ve traversed the fantasy and lived to tell the tale? Leave us a voicemail! (646) 450-0847
 
 A podcast about psychoanalysis, politics, pop culture, and the ways we suffer now. New episodes on Saturdays. Find us online:
 
 http://www.ordinaryunhappiness.com
X: @UnhappinessPod
Instagram: @OrdinaryUnhappiness
Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness

Theme song:
Formal Chicken - Gnossienne No. 1
https://open.spotify.com/album/2MIIYnbyLqriV3vrpUTxxO
Provided by Fruits Music

Subscribe to get access to the full episode, the episode reading list, and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness
Abby and Patrick take up Josef Breuer’s final contribution to the Studies on Hysteria. The second-last-chapter of the Studies, this lengthy “Theoretical” essay is generally viewed by commentators as holding only historical interest. Yet it crystallizes the clinical preoccupations, philosophical questions, and favorite metaphors that Freud and Breuer shared – from recurrent analogies to state-of-the-art technologies (IE, electricity and telephones) to the relationship between ideas, the body, and states of consciousness. Moreover, as Abby and Patrick explain, this essay not only puts the character of Freud’s originality in context, but also showcases Breuer at his most sympathetic, including some striking reflections on Victorian sexual mores, trauma, and more.
Have you noticed that Freud is back? Got questions about psychoanalysis? Or maybe you’ve traversed the fantasy and lived to tell the tale? Leave us a voicemail! (646) 450-0847
 
 A podcast about psychoanalysis, politics, pop culture, and the ways we suffer now. New episodes on Saturdays. Find us online:
 
 http://www.ordinaryunhappiness.com
X: @UnhappinessPod
Instagram: @OrdinaryUnhappiness
Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness

Theme song:
Formal Chicken - Gnossienne No. 1
https://open.spotify.com/album/2MIIYnbyLqriV3vrpUTxxO
Provided by Fruits Music

Abby and Patrick are joined by Elizabeth Cotton, author of UberTherapy: The New Business of Mental Health, and Linda Michaels of the Psychotherapy Action Network (PsiAN), for a conversation about platform capitalism and datafication are reshaping psychotherapy, and how clinicians and patients can organize for safer, deeper care. From Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to venture capitalists to practice-management companies, and more, Elizabeth and Linda unpack how an unholy alliance of players have together worked to standardize, automate, and monetize the work of therapy. As they explain, these developments – which are mirrored by trends in other industries – not only exploit gaps in existing mental health infrastructure in the US and UK, but pose unique risks to privacy, safety, and basic well-being. Against these tendencies, Elizabeth and Linda reflect on research from the Psychotherapy Action Network, which has found that people increasingly demand depth therapies and long-term relationships with human clinicians over symptom reduction and on-demand chatbot interaction. The result is a far-reaching conversation about technology, solidarity, and more.

References include:
Elizabeth Cotton, UberTherapy
The Business of Psychotherapy: Practice Management Companies
Holding the Frame in an Era of Corporate Care
Corporations in the Consulting Room 
When Talkspace Sued PsiAN and Me
What People Need and Want from Therapy
Psychotherapy Action Network
Have you noticed that Freud is back? Got questions about psychoanalysis? Or maybe you’ve traversed the fantasy and lived to tell the tale? Leave us a voicemail! (646) 450-0847
 
 A podcast about psychoanalysis, politics, pop culture, and the ways we suffer now. New episodes on Saturdays. Find us online:
 
 http://www.ordinaryunhappiness.com
X: @UnhappinessPod
Instagram: @OrdinaryUnhappiness
Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness

Theme song:
Formal Chicken - Gnossienne No. 1
https://open.spotify.com/album/2MIIYnbyLqriV3vrpUTxxO
Provided by Fruits Music

Unlocked Patreon episode. Support Ordinary Unhappiness on Patreon to get access to all the exclusive episodes. patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness
Abby, Patrick, and Dan dig into the realms of myth and fable to investigate the ancient origins of the Narcissus myth. As they discover, behind the skeletal form of the story (i.e., guy falls in love with his own reflection) are a multitude of versions, with some striking variations and suggestive throughlines. After cataloguing these, they turn to the primary source for the modern version of the myth, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, reading that poem’s account of the doomed encounter between Narcissus and the nymph Echo as a story of impossible desires and intertwined destinies.
Texts cited include:
Ovid, Metamorphoses, translated by Charles Martin: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393925340
Paul Veyne, Did the Greeks Believe Their Myths
Malcolm Kenneth Brown, The Narratives of Konon
The Oxyrhynchus Papyri: https://oxyrhynchus.web.ox.ac.uk/

Pausanias, translated by WHS Jones et al, Descriptions of Greece
Have you noticed that Freud is back? Got questions about psychoanalysis? Or maybe you’ve traversed the fantasy and lived to tell the tale? Leave us a voicemail! (646) 450-0847
A podcast about psychoanalysis, politics, pop culture, and the ways we suffer now. New episodes on Saturdays. Find us online:
http://www.ordinaryunhappiness.com
X: @UnhappinessPod
Instagram: @OrdinaryUnhappiness
Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness
Theme song:
Formal Chicken - Gnossienne No. 1
https://open.spotify.com/album/2MIIYnbyLqriV3vrpUTxxO
Provided by Fruits Music

Subscribe to get access to the full episode, the episode reading list, and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness
“No one leaves a star – that’s what makes one a star!” In the latest installment of Wild Analysis, Abby and Dan discuss Billy Wilder’s classic 1950 film, Sunset Boulevard. From Gloria Swanson’s masterful portrayal of faded starlet Norma Desmond to the film’s ruthless depiction of Hollywood’s love affair with youth and the very idea of movie magic itself, it’s a perfect opportunity for Abby and Dan to explore themes of celebrity, narcissism, and the tyranny of the image. Along the way, they talk psychic retreats, mirrors and the mirror stage, glamorous outfits, dead chimpanzees, and more.
References:
Jacques Lacan, “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the I Function as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience”
Nilofer Kaul, “Breaching the Frame: Psychoanalysis and Sunset Boulevard”
Have you noticed that Freud is back? Got questions about psychoanalysis? Or maybe you’ve traversed the fantasy and lived to tell the tale? Leave us a voicemail! (646) 450-0847
A podcast about psychoanalysis, politics, pop culture, and the ways we suffer now. New episodes on Saturdays. Find us online:
http://www.ordinaryunhappiness.com
X: @UnhappinessPod
Instagram: @OrdinaryUnhappiness
Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness
Theme song:
Formal Chicken - Gnossienne No. 1
https://open.spotify.com/album/2MIIYnbyLqriV3vrpUTxxO
Provided by Fruits Music