Dr. Frank Tallis is a writer and clinical psychologist. He has held lecturing posts at The Institute of Psychiatry and King’s College London. He has written five books of psychology for the lay reader, scientific works and crime novels. Frank will be joining Examined Life for a discussion of his latest book, The Act of Living: What the Great Psychologists Can Teach Us About Surviving Discontent in an Age of Anxiety on March 2nd. Contact info@examinedlife.co.uk for details on how to join.
What is an unbearable experience you somehow survived?
Not sure about unbearable – but certainly the most frightening experience I have ever survived was being out and about on a dark misty night in a remote village at the same time as a young American evangelist who had had a psychotic breakdown and was intent on sacrificing the inhabitants to God. It’s a long story. I wrote about the incident in my clinical memoir The Incurable Romantic. I genuinely thought I was going to get murdered and it was such a bizarre experience – as if reality had completely broken down and I had somehow made my way into a horror film.
What is a moment of pure joy for you?
Pretty much any moment in Mozart. He once said words to the effect that a composer is obliged to make his music a thing of beauty even when he is describing something terrible. His music fills my head with light – it’s the only way I can describe it.
Describe a time you laughed hard.
I’m not sure I should confess this. But once in a blue moon I find something so funny I laugh to the point of total incapacity. And I mean – total incapacity. I go beyond laughter – can’t talk – can barely stand – tears stream down my face and I make strange noises. The last time I did this was at a very solemn lecture on near death experiences. The lecture had attracted some old school eccentrics from central casting who managed to inadvertently convert the evening into a form of surreal theatrical comedy. I managed to control myself until the final moments of the Q&A – whereupon I had to make dash for the door. When I reached the street, gasping, I had what can only be reasonably described as a kind of paroxysmal fit and thoroughly embarrassed myself. I was with a friend who escorted me to a pub and supplied me with alcohol until I was sedated – although it took over an hour. I’m sure a psychoanalyst would make something of the fact that I laughed so much attending a talk about death. Humour as defence?
What are you most excited about?
Apart from the end of lockdown and getting vaccinated, I’m really excited by some of the thinking that’s going on at the cutting edge of contemporary science. I’ve usually got one or two popular science books on the go. At the moment I’m reading a book by the distinguished cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman, titled The Case Against Reality. He suggests that our current understanding of reality is completely wrong and offers an alternative account. He argues that if you look away from a spoon, something continues to exist, but it is not a spoon and it is not in time and space. Sounds utterly ludicrous but people as eminent as Francis Crick took Hoffman very seriously when he was developing his theories.
Where are you happiest?
I’m happiest when I am in my house in the south of France. When my wife and I were young and broke we drove down to the south of France and fantasized about how great it would be to have a place in Provence. It seemed a distant prospect and vaguely impossible. Consequently, it feels very romantic and satisfying when we sit on our terrace at sunset – sipping wine – looking out across the valley at the medieval hill-top village of Lacoste and the Marquis de Sade’s castle (where he got up to some magnificently depraved things). We can also see Mont Ventoux: the first mountain to be climbed simply because it’s there. The poet Petrach was the climber.
What annoys you in others?
Don’t get me started on queue jumping or I won’t stop. It’s what it represents that annoys me. Entitlement, selfishness, complete lack of community spirit. When I see people queue jumping, I see the thin end of a dark wedge. I see continuities between everyday acts of incivility and more significant acts of abuse. If you choose to pick up the thread of selfishness and follow it then you really don’t know how far it will take you.
When was the last time you did something for the first time? What was it?
Just over a year ago I started doing a Mei Quan Tai Chi Class which has continued on Zoom. I’ve spent most of my life sitting in a chair doing quite cerebral things and I was beginning to feel a bit detached from my body. I can now do the quite complex sequence of movements called the ‘short form’ – and I can also do it with ‘left and right’ movements exchanged so it becomes a ‘mirror image’. Surprisingly tricky. There’s quite a lot of research showing that Tai Chi is good for a range of things: fall prevention, cardiovascular risk, pain management, depression. I can recommend it.
What is something you desire you don’t currently have?
A painting by Francis Bacon.
If you could change one thing about your childhood, what would it be?
My early education. I was born in 1958 so went to primary and secondary schools in the 60s and 70s. So called ‘progressive teaching’ for kids attending big comprehensive schools in London during the 1970s was an absolute scandal. I can honestly say I left my secondary school having learned almost nothing. I could read – but that was about it.
What are you most proud of?
The fact that I’ve written both scientific works – my textbook on the cognitive neuropsychology of OCD, for example – and novels, such as my psychoanalytic detective series. I don’t see science and art as opposites. I love joining the dots. I’m much more interested in how things are complimentary than how they differ – much more interested in synthesis than separation.
What was the best advice you ever received?
Many, many years ago, one of my Ph.D supervisors pointed out that a sentence I’d written resembled one of his sentences. ‘Copying or close paraphrasing is fine,’ he said. ‘That is – if you really understand what you’re copying or paraphrasing. But the fact that you are copying and paraphrasing so closely probably means that you don’t understand what you’ve written here. Not properly. Unless you can express an idea or concept in your own words, you probably don’t understand it.’ He was absolutely right. Ever since that day, I test whether I really understand something by trying to express it entirely in my own words. If I can’t do that successfully, it soon becomes clear that I’m just deceiving myself and my understanding is superficial.
What’s your favourite question to ask a new acquaintance? Answer it (please)!
‘So, tell me about your favourite novels?’ Ice – by Anna Kavan. She was a patient of Ludwig Binswanger you know. It’s about a relationship but viewed through the lens of the unconscious. A quite astonishing piece of writing. The Glamour by Christopher Priest – extremely clever psychological thriller laid with trap doors that the reader falls through. The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro – remarkable how he captures the very particular atmosphere of an anxiety dream and sustains it for so long. J. G Ballard – Crash, High Rise, Concrete Island. Probably the greatest literary prophet of the late 20th century and massively influenced by Freud. May Sinclair – Uncanny Stories – May who? Yes, she’s almost forgotten now. And Uncanny Stories isn’t a novel, but still … it’s a fine read. May Sinclair supported the foundation of a psychological clinic in 1913 and was an early advocate of psychoanalysis. Yes, plenty more. How long have you got?
