“Confessors would be the greatest novelists the world has ever had if they could relate the stories which are whispered into their ears in the confession box.” In the century and half since this acute observation by the French novelist Jules Barbey D’Aurevilly, psychotherapists have largely replaced the clergy in their uncommon access to the deepest, richest cache of untold tales. Hidden among the medicalized dispassion of their case notes are crimes, sacrifices, farces, and triumphs—all the elements of any genre of literary masterpiece. But, much like their frocked predecessors, clinicians are often discouraged from enjoying their access to this inexhaustible material. While therapy may not have the inviolable seal of the confessional, it is highly sensitive and confidential; the events disclosed belong to the patient, and they are shared not to enlighten or entertain a general audience but to relieve the symptoms of a specific individual suffering from a specific disorder. Psychotherapists are engaged to heal, or at least ameliorate, well-defined pathologies with the assistance of empirical science. Their vocation is something, ostensibly, altogether distinct from that of the author.

Cutting against this common presupposition is the vast history of cross-pollination between psychology and literature. Freud leaned on Flaubert and Hoffman; Woolf and Mann were influenced by Freud. Nietzsche learned his psychology from Emerson and Stendhal. Milan Kundera’s best novels belong to Nietzsche. It has been said that Shakespeare was the greatest reader of Montaigne, and it might be said that Dante was the greatest reader of Aquinas. Could there have been a Racine without a Pascal, a Euripides without a Socrates, a Hemingway without an Ecclesiastes? Scrutinize any work of literature from the last two millennia, and you will find it not only has an author, but also at least one psychologist, to whom it owes its existence. Do the same for landmark works in psychology, and you will notice, how until relatively recently, such studies not only rely upon myths and stories as comfortably as firsthand experience, but all are compelling narratives in their own right. To borrow a phrase, literature without psychology is empty, and psychology without literature is blind.

The aim of this course is to demonstrate to clinicians, first, that they can learn from the techniques of literature to produce compelling case studies that will improve the experience of their patients and the knowledge of the psychological community, and second, that their training and experience are an unmatched preparation for writing novels, plays, essays, and other creative works. These goals will be accomplished by analyzing fiction that centers on the confessions of troubled anti-heroes (which bear some resemblance to the kinds of disclosures one might find in the clinical setting), non-fiction essays that attempt psychological analysis for a broad public, and psychological tracts that demonstrate marked literary merit.