Abby and Patrick welcome journalist and critic Sam Adler-Bell, co-host of Dissent magazine’s Know Your Enemy podcast. They talk about how Sam came to study conservative thought from a leftist perspective and what role psychoanalysis plays in that project; discuss the libidinal satisfactions of conservative politics; and speculate about the contemporary absence of sophisticated right-wing psychoanalytic thinkers. Then they turn to a favorite writer, journalist Janet Malcolm, author of Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession and The Journalist and the Murderer. They talk about parallels between the role of the analyst and that of the journalist; interiors and interiority; secrets, thefts, and betrayals; the so-called “Freud wars”; and the internal politics of psychoanalytic institutions. Finally, they examine Malcolm’s famous claim that the task of the journalist is “morally indefensible” and its implications for the work of the analyst.

You can read Sam’s essay on Janet Malcolm here:

https://newrepublic.com/article/170930/janet-malcolm-dangerous-method

His essay on John Le Carré here:

https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-father-of-all-secrets-adler-bell

Sam on Succession and repetition compulsion is here:

https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/succession-season-three/

Know Your Enemy is available on all your favorite podcast platforms and their Patreon

The essay that Sam quotes, “Analysis Interminable: On Janet Malcolm,” by Hannah Gold

Janet Malcolm’s books under discussion:

Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession

In The Freud Archives

The Journalist and the Murderer

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Introduction