All things Freud are new again. It’s true.

I was just perusing the New York Times this week and there it was an article titled Not Your Daddy’s Freud. Freud is now a meme, a Tok Tok viral sensation, the inspiration for countless shows about real life therapy. People want to know what goes on in the therapy treatment. What is the secret to Freud and his world?

Apparently, as I read the article, I learned there are record numbers of people studying to be analysts, which has them on the couch for 4-5 sessions per week, and then listening to their control cases for another 4-5 sessions per week. A lot of talking, talking, talking.

People need a place to talk. And to be listened to on a deep level. People want room to process their past, their dreams, their relationships, their inner desires, and more. Overall, society doesn’t have much tolerance for all this psycho-babble, but Freud does. He always did and always will.

People are leaving corporate America and other professional paths to study all this talking and what it means via their own talking and then talking to others about them. People also need to talk about themselves — for long periods of time. They need space to hear themselves, to be validated, to have someone express curiosity over their person and the happenings in their lives.

We, therapists and analysts, also need to talk about ourselves — a lot. To study in a Freudian tradition means those training get to talk and talk and talk too.

Funny how society doesn’t have much time for long talks any longer. It’s all a quick tweet, a social media shout out, a meme, a text, an emoji — the less said the better. No one has time to listen or take time to really hear someone. I am amazed that even newspaper articles state how long it will take you to read it. No time for taking anything much in in detail, let alone another person.

Yes, here is this article. Freud is back and more popular than ever. People need a space to talk — somehow it is the cure for what ails us — as another joins us to hear our story, our pain, our selves come alive. Analytic, depth work can be scary — it doesn’t offer the evidence based treatment of 10 sessions, 10 different thoughts, and you’re cured.

No Freud has each of walk the long road within which is where the pain lies hidden under many protective defensives, traumas, woundings, and more — all that has scaffolded our thoughts and how we bring ourselves to our current lives. As we delve and can bring to voice this pain — slowly through much talking — defenses can shift, memories and pain can be unearthed and more.

Slowly all the talking cures — or at least helps us tolerate what was unknowable as it has been so intolerable.

I practice from this lens within my training. I need to talk, to be heard — and I then return it to my patients who need to talk, to be listened to — it’s these winding roads that lead us to self. Even in this day and age when there is no time to talk — Freud beckons.