Leading articles

THE VIENNA PSYCHOANALYST wants to give not only already internationally established psychoanalysts, but also still unknown psychoanalysts the opportunity to post a self-written and not yet published article on the FrontPage of our online magazine!

Our Users then can leave comments, ask questions or discuss the articles in our forum. Our aim is to provide an international platform where for the first time anyone interested in psychoanalysis can exchange ideas on certain topics.
Articles are welcome in German and/ or English.

If you are interested, please send your article to
leadingarticle@theviennapsychoanalyst.at


(For reasons of readability, the male form is used with personal names, however the female form is also always intended.)

In our interview series "in conversation with“, we will briefly present the authors of the leading articles. We want to give our users the opportunity to read the leading article from a different point of view.


This week we are very glad to welcome Thomas Heindl from Vienna, Austria:

He is a philosopher, filmmaker and TV-producer. Since 2013 he dedicates himself to philosophy and his studies at the University Vienna. He published numerous texts and essays in newspapers, magazines and on his blog www.interaktionstheorie.org. Heindl is the producer of several TV-Shows on German and Austrian broadcasting stations. His documentary series „Bohemian Life“, about the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism and its co-founder Ernst Fuchs, was published on the online art magazine spykeheels.com.



DWP: What led you to occupy yourself with psychoanalysis or with Freud and his achievements?

Thomas Heindl: I discovered Freuds Interpretaion of Dreams as a teenager on my parents´ bookshelf and read it. The person and the topic attracted me in an almost mystical way. Later, psychoanalysis became interesting to me in the context of interaction theory, which I am engaged with a lot, as well as Constructivism.


DWP: How did you come about the topic of your essay?

Thomas Heindl: The topic of Artificial Intelligence is socially and philosophically highly relevant. The mainly negative approaches which are spread through the media bother me. The actual topic resulted from my ambition to state a more positive point of view – the psychoanalytical connection came to me spontaneously during my writings.


DWP: Why would you like to have a psychoanalytic perspective or rather a psychoanalytic assessment regarding your essay from our readers?

Thomas Heindl: I am convinced, that psychoanalysis can have an important impact on a positive development of AI – this could prove to be crucial for a beneficial coexistence of mankind an AI.


DWP: Specifically, what questions do you have for our readers?

Thomas Heindl: Almost all theses of the essay, which I have stated in points 1-9 of the present draft, require specialized psychoanalytic inputs. I would especially like analogies. to interpersonal relationships, mainly concerning education. I´d appreciate comments, opinions, also references to literature, which either confirm or disprove the approach. The goal is to publish the essay supplemented with eligible quotes.


DWP: Which philosophers, or psychoanalysts, do you think have influenced your thinking the most?

Thomas Heindl: Gregory Bateson, Northon S. Whitehead, Susan Blackmore, Constructivists. My fairly moderate knowledge of psychoanalysis results from reading Freud, Jung and Gerrig/Zimbardo.


DWP: What do you find good or particularly good in psychoanalysis and is there anything you do not like about it?

Thomas Heindl: To me psychoanalysis is a great method to purposively transform subjective reality.


DWP: According to Bruno Bettelheim and the importance of fairy tales in childhood. Will you tell us your favorite fairy tale? And do you see parallels to your own adult life?

Thomas Heindl: It is not a fairy tale, but as an infant I liked the legend of King Arthur. As a teenager I named my band „Merlin“. Much later I pulled Excalibur out of the stone. 


DWP: I dream,…

Thomas Heindl: …a lot, almost daily, but quite seldom while sleeping.


DWP: Do you have a favorite Freud - quote?

Thomas Heindl: „Es gibt ebenso wenig hundertprozentige Wahrheit wie hundertprozentigen Alkohol.” [Quote not found in English]
            

Thank you very much for this conversation, we are already looking forward to your leading article!



Contact information of the author:
Thomas Heindl