I would like to invite your readers to know more about psychoanalysis in Pakistan. In the Pakistan Psychoanalytic Society, we often hear: “There is no history of psychoanalysis in Pakistan, so it was to be invented.” Indeed, the subcontinent has witnessed more than a hundred years of interest in psychoanalysis, but much of that interest has passed through the prism of Hinduism i.e. the well-known Dr Bose in India discussed a ‘Ganesha Complex’ prior to the partition in British India. One Masud Khan went on to make a name for himself, however controversial, as a colleague of Donald Winnicott in the UK, but he did so one year prior to Pakistan’s existence.
Yet, this is precisely what psychoanalysis is attuned toward: the singular inventions that are possible after passing through vacuums and voids. Psychoanalysis is a singular orientation that focuses on speech. To my surprise, I discovered, here and there, practitioners and theorists with a keen interest in psychoanalysis scattered, isolated, throughout the country. We bring them together in a mutual interest in the work of analysis through our circle, ‘Psychoanalysis, Pakistan’, and warmly invite them to participate in our upcoming conference which is organised jointly among the Faculty of Arts & Sciences, Aga Khan University, and the Department of Psychology, University of Exeter. For this conference, we will be pleased to learn more about the pioneering efforts of solitary souls inventing a psychoanalytic orientation here in Pakistan, alongside distinguished members of the British Psychoanalytic Association and the New Lacanian School.
This orientation will help the participants know what it is that only a psychoanalyst can know.
Dr Duane Rousselle
AKU, Karachi
