NP Eliot

[Doug Millison]

T.S. Eliot is often discussed as an important writer with regard to 
Pynchon's work, Joyce, too.  Here's part of something that was posted 
today on the PSYART list that some of you may find interesting 
(forgive me if this is common knowledge or otherwise inappropriate):

T. S. Eliot had a nervous breakdown just before he wrote "The Waste Land,"
and was treated in Lausanne by Dr. Roger Vittoz.  I'm wondering if anyone on
this list is familiar with Dr. Vittoz or his methods of treatment.

Eliot says in a letter that Vittoz is not a Freudian, and that he didn't want
to be seen by a Freudian. He's never enthusiastic about either Freud or Jung,
and has little caricatures of their theories built into some of his poems. My
guess is that he read Freud at a relatively early date, probably c. 1910, and
didn't care for what he read. It couldn't have helped, at a later date, that
Eliot's friend, Scofield Thayer, was treated personally by Freud,  apparently
to no avail: Thayer spent the latter part of his life confined to a
sanitarium, as did James Joyce's daughter after being treated by Jung. From
the other perspective, it's hard to imagine Eliot as a good candidate for any
kind of "talking" therapy. He was prickly and surly about inquiries that he
regarded as intrusive or overly personal, and left orders that his biography
was never to be written.

Among a few scraps about Vittoz, he sometimes laid his hand on his patient's
forehead. I'm wondering if his methods could have been close to what we call
meditation today--calming the mind by keeping quiet rather than talking.
Anything with an Eastern flavor probably would have appealed to Eliot, who
studied Sanscrit and Pali at Harvard in order to read Buddhist and Hindu
texts in their original languages. At one point, he said, he considered
becoming a Buddhist.

Eliot says Vittoz told him there was nothing wrong with him psychologically,
but that he had been born with an aboulie. I've seen contemporary references
to "the Vittoz method," which didn't, however, say what it was.  Possibly it
is, or was, more popular in Europe than in the United States.

Thanks for any information or suggestions.

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The PSYART moderator suggested this url: 
http://www.lassalle.claranet.fr/biosynergie_english.htm
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