What Aristotle and Hollywood Taught Me About Psychoanalysis

ABSTRACT

Drawing on Aristotle’s Poetics and my work as a screenwriter in Hollywood, I look to some commonalities in the ways dramatists and psychoanalysts generate meaning through action and interactions. These ways include an attention to the interweave of text and subtext, a sense of rhythm and timing, an inquisitive stance and an interest in reversals and the recognition that follows.

KEYWORDS:

• Narrative
• recognition
• rhythm
• subtext
• questioning
• vitality affects

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Daniel Goldin

Daniel Goldin, MFT, Psy.D., serves as editor of Psychoanalytic Inquiry and associate editor of Psychoanalysis: Self and Context. He has written numerous articles for Psychoanalytic Dialogues, Psychoanalysis: Self and Context and Psychoanalytic Inquiry. His book Storying: Bringing Nature, Nurture and Culture Together in Psychotherapy and Everyday Life will be published by Routledge early next year.