Eight times, I have tried to overcome my deep-seated terror of psychoanalysis, and each time I have failed, more or less spectacularly. Perhaps I am expecting some kind of mystical revelation, or maybe I’m just too cheap to invest enough time and money to see my efforts bear fruit. When I confess to my phobia, I can sense my listeners’ misgivings, believing I am the type of snob who revels in going against the grain. But that is not the case, I clarify over and over. I get paranoid and tie myself in knots giving unnecessary explanations, all because I’m terrified of conflict and of being unloved, and because I’m sure the diagnosis will be that my phobia is a refusal to accept a clear necessity. Of course it’s true, I am in deep denial, I admit it. I also know I have a wide variety of pathologies, without which my life would be simpler, and thus happier. Maybe I was born in the wrong place.…