Author: Harold Braswell

by Harold Braswell

For most of my career, I kept my interest in psychoanalysis largely separate from my work as a professor of bioethics. I was nervous that colleagues and students would find psychoanalysis weird and retrograde, and I had other interests that were more readily accepted.

But in summer 2020 I earned tenure, which gave me a high enough degree of job security to allay my fears. Also, shortly after that, my father died. I had a lot of regrets about our relationship, and these regrets made me feel an urgent need to stop holding back in life and to live as I wanted. I entered personal analysis and decided to pursue clinical training, which meant first earning a degree in social work and then becoming a clinical candidate at my local psychoanalytic institute. These experiences dramatically enhanced my understanding of the transformative impact of psychoanalysis on my own life, and its potential to better the lives of others.

Then, in fall 2022, my university, Saint Louis University, launched a new undergraduate Core Curriculum, which required all incoming students to take one of its new “Ignite Seminars.” These seminars could be on any almost any topic, provided that the instructor was passionate about it—passion which, it was hoped, would “ignite” the minds of students just embarking on their education.

Continue reading “Teaching Psychoanalysis as a Manual for Living”