glockner%beowulf@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu (Alexander Glockner) (06/18/87)
I read with interest the posting borrowed from soc.women. The question refered to using a program as a "psychoanalytical tool", but then addressed differences between code written by males and written by females. Without adding anything to the latter issue (I have neither the desire nor the experience to do so), I *would* like to offer my opinions on the original question -- could programs be used as evidence in a psychoanalytic discussion? It's important, I think, to distinguish psychoanalytic therapy from psychoanalytic discourse. The former is the stuff we usually think of when we hear Freud's name -- reclining on the couch, not facing the analyst, free-association, transference, resistance, etc. Freud himself (as far as I can tell) did *not* ask for any material from the patient that was composed outside of the doctor's office. So my first answer is: "A computer program written by a patient would not be used in his/her psychoanalysis." Psychoanalytic discourse, however, is very different. This not only includes journal articles written by and for analysts, but case studies (e.g The Wolf Man), biographies (e.g. Erikson on Luther and Gandhi), and general discussions (e.g. Freud on religion) which can be fruitfully read by an educated layman. Computer programs *might* be useful for the biographies and the general discussions. (I add the disclaimer since I am not a trained psychoanalyst.) While my intro-to-CS teachers tried their darndest to teach me "good programming style", a quick glance at my programs shows that I don't follow any one teacher's style, but picked up techniques at random from many places: classes, other textbooks, programs written by other people, feedback from users of my programs, "hard knocks" (debugging my unreadable code), etc. I now use indentation with a passion when I program; and while it's not immediately clear whether I do so because I respected the teacher who first showed it to me, or because of my traumatic experiences debugging FORTRAN IV programs, or some combination of factors, my use of it might be of some psychoanalytic significance when added to other knowledge about me. Also, the choice of (and mistakes in) variable names could be treated as another fertile ground for parapraxes -- better known as "Freudian slips". I hope you can remember your own examples, since I have repressed all of mine :-) A third example, though of only indirect significance, is the claim by some people that they can figure out who wrote which sections of a program as part of a group project. This is similar to a graphologist attempting to determine the author of a letter from other examples of handwriting, and many people claim to be able to deduce personality characteristics from handwriting... However, just as Freud would not pretend comprehensive knowledge of a patient after a few sessions; nor would he do so after reading some of his/her programs. My second answer is then: "Computer programs could be a useful tool in a psychoanalytical biography or discussion." I have no idea whether programs would be any more or less informative than other types of communication by the same person -- I do not have the experience to comment on that. Alexander Glockner Dept. of CSE UC San Diego glockner@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu