Sigmund Freud

Psychoanalytic Dinner-Parties...

The Crusader included me in his latest dinner-party, of outstanding and just fame. A micro-environment where I can speak in a non co-official language. Bliss. A very pleasant bunch of guests in Feria de San Isidro times. A couple arrived a bit late: we are told that the husband had gone to Las Ventas and left after the 5th bull. A guest arrived horribly late: she confesses that she stayed for the 6th. "Was it any good?" - asks the envious but still punctual co-guest. "Un desastre!" replies the Grand Lady.

A pin-stripes suited charming French guest engages some of us in comparative geopolitical-psychoanalysis. "How could one describe the relationship between French and Spaniards versus the rapport between Portuguese and Spaniards? "- he asks from me. One tries to be extremely diplomatic in hyper-sensitive issues like this. A bit of easy-listening History, a light joke or two, an implicit courtesy to the concept of European Powers, and one can sail away without major hiccups. A smiling and good humoured member of that little committee, Greek from birth and now married to a Spaniard, tells us about a recent visit with a group of Spanish friends to a famous Museum-Palace in the South of Portugal. Not that far away from the border with The Neighbor, now that one thinks about it. That she had tried to be an honest broker to end a very vocal conflict that erupted between the Portuguese tour guide and the Spanish tourists on somewhat diverging interpretations of a chunk of shared History (and Sovereignty...). And that she ended up being the sacrificial scapegoat-goat in a very heated argument. We decline to pursue the theme. Either we all undergo historical psychoanalysis and have our respective therapeutic catharsis regarding the Times of The Felipes, or better to stick to a "don't mention the war" attitude.

When one thought that Uncle Sigmund and his "Récamier" plump divan were out of the way, a beautiful late-comer enters the room and confesses herself, poor child, a follower of a post-Freudian psychotherapy school.. And a diploma-carrying Psychologist practitioner at that.

I remember, on my previous life, the stern warning from a white-haired Psychiatry Professor who learned his trade in Germany, as it used to be when one was serious about it: "Never fall into the temptation of doing "Psychanalyse de Salon". Out-of-the-hat so-called psychoanalytic interpretations can be very damaging.. Does that also apply to Countries being asked gently to lay down on the coach?

I tried to impress the black-dressed guapa Psychologist with vignettes from previous life, showing off a firm grasp of Neurochemistry subtleties and trying to rub Uncle Sigmund's face in the mud that stucks at the bottom of the Litter Bins of History...