From Comics to the Couch: 'A French Nurse's Dream' with Vera Camden, PhD and Valentino Zullo, PhD, LISW-S (Cleveland, Ohio)

From Psychoanalysis On and Off the Couch · 01:00:48

Show by Harvey Schwartz MD

"The image is prevailing. Valentino and I agree that, yes, the image is prevailing, but we're seeing it as having a liberatory quality as well, a sort of fostering of a certain depth of imagination. We see that instead of our moving towards the Dark Ages, we say it may be that we're reviving something of the Middle Ages. That comics and cartoons obviously are part of manuscript illumination or cave painting. That the separation of text and image has a certain tragic quality to it if you think of the richness of the medieval view. We're not as alarmed, perhaps, but we're also not saying that people need to be on their phones continually, but there is a way in which the richness of the image is part of what we are going through as a culture." — Vera Camden, PhD "The gutter is that space between the panels. So anybody who's ever looked at a comic, it's hard not to look when they're placed in front of you in the newspaper, for example. That space between, typically it's white, is referred to as the gutter, and it's the place of imagination in comics. It's that place where you are the active participant. You decide what happens between panel one and panel two. There's some movement typically that happens, and it's the requirement of the reader to make that movement happen. It's an important role that the gutter takes, like it is that place of imagination. That, unlike the moving image, comics can only become alive with the participation of the reader. And that's the role of the gutter." — Valentino Zullo, PhD, LISW-S Episode Description: We begin by recognizing that "Comics, motion pictures, photography and psychoanalysis grew up together." Vera and Valentino discuss the enlivening participation by the reader that is invited by the spare schematic quality of graphic images. They describe the images of A French Nurse's Dream - a comic included by Freud in his Interpretation of Dreams. Freud remarked, "how well a comic paper could be used to illustrate the theory of dreams." Vera and Valentino contrast the aliveness of the comic as compared to the static images of 'the hysteric' pictured at the Salpêtrière. We discuss Maus, Manga (popular Japanese comics) and the reaction of colleagues when they learn of Freud's regard for comics. We close: "Comics, for its part, is a language of play, handily suited as it were to a different expression of the self and the human experience, one that cultivates a different sense of being, and a different sensibility for the psychoanalyst." A French Nurse's Dream link: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_French_Nurse%27s_Dream.jpg Our Guests: Vera J. Camden, PhD, is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Cleveland Psychoanalytic Center, and Emerita Professor of English at Kent State University and Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University. She is Associate Editor of American Imago and American Editor of the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics. Recent books include The Cambridge Companion to Literature and Psychoanalysis (CUP, 2022), which won the American Psychoanalytic Association Book Prize in 2024, and She Being Dead Yet Speaketh: The Franklin Family Papers (Iter Press and ACMRS, 2020), which was shortlisted for the Richard L. Greaves Prize of the International John Bunyan Society in 2022. Valentino L. Zullo, PhD, LISW-S, is an advanced candidate in psychoanalytic training at the Cleveland Psychoanalytic Center and Assistant Professor of English and Co-Director of the Rust Belt Humanities Lab at Ursuline College. He is a licensed independent social worker and co-editor-in-chief of Rust Belt Studies and Associate editor of the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics. He co-leads the Get Graphic program at Cleveland Public Library, where he was the Ohio Center for the Book Scholar-in-Residence, and is a board member of the Siegel & Shuster Society. Recommended Readings: Barry, L. (2002). One hundred demons. Sasquatch Books. Bechdel, A. (2012). Are you my mother? A comic drama. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Bui, T. (2017). The best we could do: An illustrated memoir. Abrams ComicArts. Chast, R. (2014). Can't we talk about something more pleasant? A memoir. Bloomsbury. Green, J. (1972). Binky Brown meets the Holy Virgin Mary. Last Gasp. Hulls, T. (2024). Feeding ghosts: A graphic memoir. MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux. McCloud, S. (1993). Understanding comics: The invisible art. Kitchen Sink Press. Satrapi, M. (2003). Persepolis: The story of a childhood. Pantheon Books. Spiegelman, A. (1996). The complete Maus. Pantheon Books. Telgemeier, R. (2019). Guts. Graphix. Comics Scholarship and Graphic Medicine Beaty, B. (2005). Fredric Wertham and the critique of mass culture. University Press of Mississippi. Chute, H. L. (2017). Why comics? From underground to everywhere. Harper. Czerwiec, M. K., Williams, I., Squier, S. M., Green, M. J., Myers, K. R., & Smith, S. T. (2015). Graphic medicine manifesto. Penn State University Press. Gardner, J…

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