Further to Nabokov and Freud:

A great American writer named Charles Bukowski probably could have used a little professional therapy, but shared Nabokov’s disdain. Bukowski’s line was something like, “The psychiatrists have a word for people like me. And I have a word for the psychiatrists.”

Freud was not a psychiatrist. He was a neurologist (i.e., a real doctor) who developed a form of conversation (i.e., a non-medical discipline) that is independent of his, or anyone's, medical knowledge. This discipline, although open to abuse, is potentially of great value. As Freud himself insisted, it is not part of medicine. Nor is it part of the pseudo-medical enterprise called "psychiatry". Disdain based on ignorance of the most elementary and easily ascertainable data is itself deserving of disdain.

 

Anthony Stadlen