Harris, Judith. ”Rewriting the Subject: Psychoanalytic Approaches to Creative Writing and Composition Pedagogy." College English, Vol. 64, No. 2, 2001.
Harris defines the writing subject as: the student who produces the writing. Harris contends that in some way or another, writing is always unpredictable, not only because the process of producing language is unpredictable and highly dependent upon socialization and background, but because people are so variable and complex. "Acts of writing," she says, "are often as enigmatic and unconsciously elusive as we are human beings." Language, our method of communicating the self, is therefore inextricable from the self. Like the self, the subject is "socially circumscribed by the language and the culture it represents." The writing process and the finished product are variable and unpredictable. If all writing is, as Harris argues, an indeterminate process, controlling its every aspect is as tenuous and impossible as commanding the subconscious.
Harris advocates, therefore, for a psychoanalytic approach to the teaching of writing, in order to unpack the variety of players lurking beneath the surface of the writing subject’s conscious mind. Harris acknowledges the limitations, both perceived and actual, of the psychoanalytical approach in general. However she contends that the practices of writing and psychotherapy complement one another, quoting James Moffat as “both require synthesizing of firsthand experience and secondhand knowledge.” Furthermore, a psychoanalytic approach to writing can allow the writing teacher to expose the patterns and habits that will serve to hinder the individual writer on a case by case basis.
The technique is not novel. Even Freud pointed out the effect of the unconscious mind on the writing process. In this article, it seems Harris is simply advocating for a holistic approach to the teaching of writing, one which encompasses the whole of the writing subject’s humanity. She is pointing out the ways in which the instruction of composition and creative writing tend to utilize the same techniques and highlight the same fault-lines. Furthermore, she is proposing that the point of overlap for all writing happens at the very beginning, in the period in which the writing subjects “listen to themselves.”
