English translation of an essay by Carlos Tabbia originally titled in Spanish "La caja de herramientas del psicoanalista: un aprendiz en los talleres de Bion y Meltzer." (2013)
"Una psicoanalista en Teherán" —Spanish translation of the book "Doing Psychoanalysis in Tehran" by Gohar Homayounpour (MIT Press, 2012), published by Paradiso Editores.
"«Tuve mucho que soñar (anoche)» – Un Manifiesto" —Spanish translation of the experimental piece "I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night) – A Manifesto" by Kara Kohn-Gardner y Carlos Padrón, published in Stillpoint Magazine Issue 011: SLEEP.
"Lecciones de amor II: la erótica de la toxicidad" —Spanish translation of the short essay "Lessons in Love II: The Erotics of Toxicity" by Luce deLire, published in Stillpoint Magazine Issue 011: SLEEP.
"(si acaso) soñar" —Spanish translation of the short essay "perchance to dream" by Aneta Stojnić, published in Stillpoint Magazine Issue 011: SLEEP.
"Trascender la encarcelación" —Spanish translation of the short essay "Transcend Incarceration" by Will Anderson, published in Stillpoint Magazine Issue 010: JUDGE.
"Entre la ley y la transgresión: deseo, ética y destino simbólico en el psicoanálisis" —Spanish translation of the short essay "In-Between the Law and Transgression: Desire, Ethics, and Symbolic Destiny in Psychoanalysis" by Richard B. Keys, published in Stillpoint Magazine Issue 010: JUDGE.
"Lecciones de amor I: sobre el coqueteo revolucionario" —Spanish translation of the short essay "Lessons in Love I: On Revolutionary Flirting" by Luce deLire, published in Stillpoint Magazine Issue 009: TENDER.
"La ternura del corte" —Spanish translation of the short essay "The Tenderness of the Cut" by Vanessa Sinclair, published in Stillpoint Magazine Issue 009: TENDER.
"¿Y qué pasa si el dinero falla?" —Spanish translation of the short essay "What If Money Misfires?" by Franco 'Bifo' Berardi, published in Stillpoint Magazine Issue 008: ETHER.
"La eterealidad de las redes sociales" —Spanish translation of the short essay "Ethereality at the Edge of Social Media" by L. Ayu Saraswati, published in Stillpoint Magazine Issue 008: ETHER.
"Una psicoanalista en Teherán" —Spanish translation of the book "Doing Psychoanalysis in Tehran" by Gohar Homayounpour (MIT Press, 2012), published by Paradiso Editores.
Is psychoanalysis possible in the Islamic Republic of Iran? This is the question that Gohar Homayounpour poses to herself, and to us, at the beginning of this memoir of displacement, nostalgia, love, and pain. Twenty years after leaving her country, Homayounpour, an Iranian, Western-trained psychoanalyst, returns to Tehran to establish a psychoanalytic practice. When an American colleague exclaims, “I do not think that Iranians can free-associate!” Homayounpour responds that in her opinion Iranians do nothing but. Iranian culture, she says, revolves around stories. Why wouldn't Freud's methods work, given Iranians' need to talk?
Thus begins a fascinating narrative of interlocking stories that resembles—more than a little—a psychoanalytic session. Homayounpour recounts the pleasure and pain of returning to her motherland, her passion for the work of Milan Kundera, her complex relationship with Kundera's Iranian translator (her father), and her own and other Iranians' anxieties of influence and disobedience. Woven throughout the narrative are glimpses of her sometimes frustrating, always candid, sessions with patients. Ms. N, a famous artist, dreams of abandonment and sits in the analyst's chair rather than on the analysand's couch; a young chador-clad woman expresses shame because she has lost her virginity; an eloquently suicidal young man cannot kill himself.
As a psychoanalyst, Homayounpour knows that behind every story told is another story that remains untold. Doing Psychoanalysis in Tehran connects the stories, spoken and unspoken, that ordinary Iranians tell about their lives before their hour is up.
If you're in Mexico, you can buy my translation here. It will soon be available in other Latin American countries and Spain.
You can also find the original book on the MIT Press website or purchase it at your local bookstore.