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 Valerie Marko from Vienna, Austria:

Born in Graz. Lives and works in Vienna. Independent psychotherapy practice for psychoanalysis/psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy in Vienna.
Before that, she worked psychotherapeutic at the psychotherapeutic outpatient clinic of the Sigmund Freud Private University and at iwik - Verein zur Verbesserung der Lebensqualität.
Experience in working with children and adolescents by the Caritas institution "Am Himmel", the umbrella organization of Austrian Autistic Aids and Austrian Diabetic Association.

Education:
Study of psychotherapy sciences at the Sigmund Freud Private University Vienna.
Completion of the first diploma of international business administration at the University of Economics and business Vienna, Austria.

Scientific work:
"Der Nestflüchter" - The psychoanalytic view of a young depressive man
Anorexia nervosa and religious fasting. The symptoms of anorexia with a case study.
The joke as a defense mechanism based on Wilhelm Busch´s "Max and Moritz"



DWP: What brought you to psychoanalysis?

Valerie Marko: My interest and curiosity of the individual. In dealing with my own emotions and I became fascinated with the unconscious and reach my personal limits. Psychoanalysis allowed me a way, to use my creativity, which I initially tried to live out while studying art history.

Therefore it is my goal, to escort my patients on their way of self-knowledge too and to arouse their curiosity about their own history.


DWP: If you had the opportunity to talk with Sigmund Freud, what would be the topic?
Are there any specific questions?

Valerie Marko: Hmm, I think I would have many questions, but in a conversation with Freud shouldn’t one follow the basic rules of psychoanalysis and give into the free association!?


DWP: Fabric or leather couch?

Valerie Marko: Fabric.


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?

Valerie Marko: Max & Moritz - Wilhelms Busch´s work of the two scalawag’s boys has been accompanying me since my early childhood - even though the stories about the Struwwelpeter (or Shockheaded Peter) and the Suppen-Kaspar (The Story of the Soup-Kaspar) are immensely violent and not at all suitable as children´s stories. Years later, in my bachelor´s thesis, I dealt with the humor/jokes as a defense mechanism by Max and Moritz. Not only could I gain more psychoanalytic knowledge, but also reading Freud´s "The Joke and its Relationship to the Unconscious" has brought more than one smile on my lips.


DWP: I dream,….

Valerie Marko: ... as we all dream, even when we can not always remember. It is always nice if I manage to take a souvenir from my dream world into my consciousness.


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

Valerie Marko: The lectures and seminars at the SFU Vienna gave me exciting theoretical knowledge, but the conclusion of the psychotherapeutic studies is only the beginning of a long journey: the development of a technique suitable for yourself. A quote from Cremerius, comes to my mind, who describes in a most amusing way the trained analyst as follows: "The end of this studies is that he has gained deep insights into the essence of psychoanalytic therapy, understood the individual elements, and understood them in their meaning. .. But they are only parts - he does not see how they work together. It is as if you had parts of a car engine in front of you and are required to build a functioning engine. In addition, the parts that he finds in front of him come from engine types of different construction years." (Cremerius J., 2008, p. 173)

With the decision to go on the trail of the unconscious, I choose a long and exciting trip. It is the individuality and the individual, which make the therapeutic process from patient to patient so unique. The goal here is not healing, but the ability to follow one´s own wishes, to live up to reality and to extend the realm of the possible: Just like Freud wanted, to achieve the ability to work, love and to enjoy. This means not only being free of symptoms but a freedom that allows us to experience ourselves and in relation to others more autonomously.

In the course of my education, however, I also had to experience how psychoanalytic institutions often oppose each other with aversion rather than promoting jointly a further development of psychoanalysis - a development that, in my opinion, must be reduced in order to become more open in dealing with one another.

                                                                                                                    
DWP: What challenges did you have to face during your analytic training?

Valerie Marko: On one hand, the intense encounter with myself, the ability to work with one´s own feelings and to involve them in a common process with the patients.

On the other hand, when I was initially visited by patients who were not able to handle the process of psychoanalysis: in the beginning of my therapeutic activities, these were mainly people with severe structural disorders, diminished intelligence quotient, or less reflectance – the classical psychoanalytic work is difficult to apply here.

The patients described by Freud and other great analysts are not comparable with those of today. The psychoanalytic procedure has to include a wider indication basis, because not all, or very few patients come from a higher social class, have a degree and have also the necessary "spare money" to undergo a high-frequency analysis. There are, however, no un-analyzable patients; it "only" requires a practiced and, above all, suitable technique.


DWP: Do you have a favorite Freud - quote?

Valerie Marko: “I have told you that psycho-analysis began as a method of treatment; but I did not want to commend it to your interest as a method of treatment but on account of the truths it contains, on account of the information it gives us about what concerns human beings most of all - their own nature - and on account of the connections it discloses between the most different of their activities.” (New Introductory Lectures)

 
DWP:  Are there other psychoanalysts, in addition to Sigmund Freud, who you like to study?

Valerie Marko: There are so many! Anita Eckstaedt, Ralph Greenson, Otto Kernberg, Melanie Klein, Juergen Meltzer, Stavros Mentzos, Otto Rank ... Now I read across, once here, once there, depending on where my interests lies or at what point I am with a patient.


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



Contact information of the author:
Valerie Marko