I came to the podcast Ordinary Unhappiness very recently while on a Wilfred Bion binge (blog post abt that stuck in development hell). The shtick seems to be that three very well-informed-on-psychoanalysis young(ish) East Coast Americans (two seem married, to each other I mean) will have a topic (Bion and groups, the 1967 film The President’s Analyst which was suppressed by the FBI) that they explore, brining Sigmund, Carl, Jacques, Melanie, Karen and that crowd to bear, and throwing in their own apercus. Before they get into the meat of it (usually with a guest) they shoot the breeze/shit.
Mostly I like it, though obvs ymmv.
The episode I want to say a little about is the one on Taylor Swift, from I think the back end of 2023 (they speculate on Ms Swift primarying Joe Biden…). I listened to it in two bursts, of roughly equal length, across two days (iirc). The first half is okay, but I thought not quite as insightful as it could have been. Lots of stuff on cathexis –
In psychoanalysis, cathexis (or emotional investment) is defined as the process of allocation of mental or emotional energy to a person, object, or idea.[1][2]
and Swift enabling cathexis in her fans etc.
The second half was, for me, much better. They’re not Swifties, (I am an indolent Swiftie, I guess?) but they respect the woman’s hustle, and her obvious talent, courage and intelligence, without setting her on a pedestal.
There’s some good stuff about Swift being in – and acknowledging – various double-binds. Some of these every woman faces, some are mostly problems for the uber-famous. A little Bateson might not have gone amiss here?
There’s good stuff on Lacan’s The Big Other in the context of longing for approbation which can never be enough and the way it shapes us (see also Fucko and also that famous paragraph in John Berger’s Ways of Seeing).
They then get into some serious and seriously entertaining (I am a bad bad person) snark about Travis Kelce, who, to be fair has gone public about how smart she is and how much she teaches him (would a big male sports star have said this 20 years ago? Or would the fear of being called a pussy/pussy-whipped kept him quiet? Idk.)
One of them says words to the effect “eh, look, everyone’s interiority is a black box, but you get the feeling some people’s boxes are smaller than others.”
Quite. The. Burn.
There’s also a nice Zizek line – “enjoy your symptom, but maybe get a better symptom?”
There is a long long quote at the end from (new to me) from Christopher Bollas‘s book, Being a Character: Psychoanalysis and Self Experience. It may be a portion of this, idk.
I listened to twice but am going to have to explore more (perhaps an excerpt could earn me ten or fifteen quid in Pseuds’ Corner, whatever the going rate is these days).
Anyway, clearly gonna enjoy listening to a bunch more of these podcasts, but again, ymmv.
marchudson.net 
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