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 Dragica Stojković:

born in 1988, has studied psychology and comparative literature at the University of Zurich and has completed her PhD on suicide notes. She is a practicing psychoanalyst and does her training at the Freud-Institut Zürich. She contributed to various editorial boards (aware, delirium, Journal für Psychoanalyse, Psychoscope), numerous publications and she is the editor of the internal magazine of the Lacan-Seminar-Zürich, called “che vuoi?” Research interests: Suicide notes; structure, process, and function of wish(ing) and dream(ing); theory of language, rhetoric and poetology.



DWP: What brought you to psychoanalysis?

Dragica Stojković: I was introduced to psychoanalysis by the happy coincidence that I was able to visit many seminars and lectures by Prof. Dr. phil. Brigitte Boothe who, until January 2013, held the chair at the University of Zurich for Clinical Psychology, Psychotherapy, and Psychoanalysis. This gave me the opportunity to get acquainted with psychoanalytic discourse while I was still studying psychology.


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

Dragica Stojković: I would like to read and discuss two books written by Maurice Blanchot – L’éspace litteraire and Le pas au-delà –, because I would be interested to hear what he thinks of them. Additionally, I would like to introduce him to some ideas I have regarding the death drive and I would want to ask him for honest feedback on them. And, last but not least, I would love to feel a bit like Lou Andreas-Salomé, who enjoyed Freud’s support and admiration!


DWP: Fabric or leather couch?

Dragica Stojković: Currently a leather couch.


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

Dragica Stojković: "Bluebeard" is by far my most favourite fairy tale. The freshly married girl, constantly irritated by her husband’s blue beard, does not obey his demand; to not enter a certain room in their castle while he is out of the house travelling. With a golden key she nevertheless opens the entrance to the forbidden chamber and finds herself terrified by what she sees: streams of blood running out of the door, and dozens of female body parts (Bluebeards former wives). Only thanks to her three brothers who quickly came to help her out, she manages to escape Bluebeard’s punishment, which would have lead to her death. Bluebeard is killed by her three brothers and she, as a fresh widow, inherits all his wealth, which she uses it generously for good deeds serving the happiness of her family and herself. 
Honestly, I have never thought about whether I can see parallels between the "Bluebeard"-story and my own life. Certainly, I am led by curiosity; I am irritated, but not totally put off by the uncanny, and I would with pleasure cross certain inner limits. But: What if the young lady tried to escape her own sexuality out of fear? What, if Bluebeards sharpening the knife, threatening to kill her symbolizes the preparation of the sexual act? Girl, you’ve missed out, is an alternative interpretation of Bluebeards story. I would rather not want to be identified with being saved by my brothers from my entrance into grown-up sexuality (after having provoked the latter). This sort of regression – back home, where it’s safe – is a rather unsexy regression. I kind of like to think of myself as somebody who is braver than that.


DWP: I dream, …

Dragica Stojković: night and day. Unfortunately, my daydreaming sometimes tends to make me a bit too unproductive – but such laziness is at the same time a lovely thing. In my daydreams, I mostly and happily engage with princess-stuff: I design beautiful wedding dresses, build and furnish a house just the way I would like it, and I like to imagine, how my children would be, if I had some (there, my favourite fantasy is, to give birth to a couple of children that will be the nightmare of every overly conformed, devoid of passion, school-teacher).


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

Dragica Stojković: I really like its capacity for precise listening, thinking, and its ability to pay attention to details such as elusiveness, fractions, and their embeddedness in someone’s mental reality. It reminds me of reading poems aloud – an activity that means a lot to me. I also like the broadness of psychoanalysis: It can be a cultural theory, a theory of mental functioning, and a theory of the practice/a technical theory. It has a potency one can enjoy growing into.
All in all, I greatly appreciate the diversity of psychoanalysis (the different psychoanalytic schools and institutions) – one can learn a lot by listening to different views on the same topic. I must add though, that the latter is also a major concern of mine. While becoming a psychoanalyst, one tries to find a position, a point of identification and anchorage, with the analytic corpus and society. In that fragile phase, and also later on, one shares ‘the’ psychoanalysis with all other analysts as well. Everybody constructs its very own psychoanalysis out of the analytic discourse and analytic experiences. Now, some ideas and applications of analysis sometimes sound to me as if they were attacking, ruining, and distorting the very subject I am so passionate about. Despite knowing that this is a foolish reaction of mine – I do not own a patent for ‘the’ psychoanalysis – I often engage in useless ideological discussions and am often surprised to see, how easily other, even mature psychoanalysts, are allowing themselves to get involved in destructive discussions, leading to nowhere but resentful feelings and fractions.


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

Dragica Stojković: Currently, I am still in analytic training.
But the biggest challenge is now over: It was extremely exhausting to work on my PhD and to bring it to an end; to, additionally, engage in other scientific projects, while, at the same time, work as a clinical psychologist, build up my psychoanalytic practice, and engage in my own analysis, supervision, and courses at the psychoanalytic institutes. I have no idea, how I managed to keep going during that time. It was really difficult to stay calm and find appreciation for the work that had to be done (in itself, the work was interesting, actually almost every bit of it, but it was simply too much). It was in these times of frustration, when I found myself being totally receptive for all sorts of complaints on the psychoanalytic training: how much we are asked to invest – be it money, time, or emotional resources. I often thought: I’d like to work less, sleep more, but I can’t, because I would otherwise drown in debts.
I believe that I am less concerned these days, because I have managed to make more space for the experiences I am making during my analytic training. I feel I can now profit more in this way and I am grateful for that; which of course does not mean that I have nothing to complain about anymore – but that, I think, is a normal part of life. And, potentially, quite amusing.


DWP: Do you have a favourite Freud-quote?

Dragica Stojković: “Psyche is extended; it knows nothing of it.”


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