Chapter Eight - On Psychoanalysis

…true reality being discoverable only by the mind, being the object of a mental process, we acquire a true knowledge only of things that we are obliged to re-create by thought, things that are hidden from us in everyday life ……

Marcel Proust, Sodom and Gomorrah

 

 

The last chapter of my book is on psychoanalysis. Just as Proust was in search of lost time. A psychoanalyst seeks to reveal thoughts memories and emotions that have made us who we are. The so-called fundamental rule of psychoanalysis is that a patient report everything comes to mind while lying on the analytic couch. Often smells will lead us to important memories that give insight into the long forgotten past and allow us to reclaim aspects of ourselves so that we can live authentically and in line with our true selves. It is my hope that as you read and sniff this book you will have some chance encounters with parts of yourself that you had thought were lost forever.