In Peter Shaffer’s Equus, published in 1973, Dysart’s hesitation about

depriving Alan of his intense passion to make him “normal” at the price of
taking away his individuality, is a result of his countertransference toward
treating him.
First, it is necessary to explain the concept of countertransference. This
phenomenon was first defined by Sigmund Freud as being “a result of the
patient’s influence on [the physician’s] unconscious feelings”. In this sense, the
term includes unconscious reactions to a patient that are determined by the
psychoanalyst’s own life history and unconscious content. These feelings
toward a patient interfere with objectivity and limit the therapist’s effectiveness.
Buscar contratransferencia positiva/ negativa.
In Equus, we learn that Dysart admits envying Alan because of the intense
passion he feels, as the doctor compares Alan’s life with his own. At the
beginning of the play, Dysart reveals to his friend and colleague Hester, that he
has reached a stage in his profession where he feels unworthy and cannot see
the value of what he does. But he adds, that meeting the boy was the reason
that triggered those feelings. He ends up envying Alan and wishing he could
experience a love/passion like that.
There are several instances that account for this :
“The doubts have been there for years, pilling up steadily in this dreary place.
It’s only the extremity of this case that’s made them active. I know that. The
extremity is the point! All the same, whatever the reason, they are now, these
doubts, not just vaguely worrying- but intolerable…” (p. 36)
“I don’t know why you listen, it’s just professional menopause. Everyone gets it
sooner or later. Except you… I feel the job is unworthy to fill me…I’D LIKE TO
SPEND THE NEXT TEN YEARS wandering very slowly around the real
Greece. Anyway, all this dream nonsense is your fault…It’s that lad of yours
who started it off. Do you know it’s his face I saw on every victim across the
stone?... HE HAS THE STRAGEST STARE I EVER MET… IT’S EXACTLY
LIKE BEING ACCUSED. VIOLENTLY ACCUSED. But what of? Treating him is
going to be unsettling. Especially in my present state. His singing was direct
enough. His speech is more so…” (p. 44)
So, as we can see, Martin is affected by Alan as he has evoked feelings of
uncertainty towards the value of his profession. projection? . Furthermore, by
analysing Alan, Dysart began to reflect upon his own life and the fragile
relationship he has with his wife. They share little intimacy and have no
children. As a result of this, the doctor feels that he lives a boring life, and
wishes to experience the love for life Alan has. He has triggered his thoughts on
love and makes him understand what is lacking in his life. He is left wondering,
whether curing the boy would kill the boy’s spirit.
PAGE 42 Dysart’s dream
In one scene of the play, Dysart dreams about being a priest and killing children
in a ritual sacrifice instead of healing them. We can relate this to the perception
he has on his job. He feels that by curing Alan, he is taking away his potential.
This relates to his own doubts about the treatment. He questions whether Alan
is really disturbed or not or he is just a boy with a lot of enthusiasm whose life is
not restricted by the society’s interpretation of what is fixed or abnormal. This
view about normalcy can be explained by the work of one psychoanalyst.
He has theories concerning the
 Robert David Laing (1927), a Scottish psychiatrist.
"normal" and all its manifestations which help to interpret Equus . He developed
a theory that claimed that mental illness was an escape mechanism that allowed
individuals to free themselves from intolerable circumstances. As a
revolutionary thinker, he questioned the controls that were imposed on the
individual by family, state, and society. Rejecting a physiological basis for
diseases such as schizophrenia, Laing argued that madness was a response to
insanity in the environment. According to him, making a person “normal” is a
product of repression, denial, displacement, projection, introjection and other
forms of destructive action on experience.
This view on normalcy, can be depicted in Dysart’s character. He (Dysart)
questions whether treating Alan will take away his individuality and his potential.
He is confronted with a dilemma. We can see this in Laing’s introduction to
Politics of experience, a quote says “That the ordinary person is a shriveled,
desiccated fragment of what a person can be”. Dysart knows that by curing
Alan, he will be removing Alan’s source of happiness and his individuality. This
is the dilemma he suffers: to cure Alan and place him successfully into society,
or, not treating him and allowing him his happiness but not being a typical
citizen(?
Dr. Dysart in the play is also the "bearer of a wound"; whether it is his
impotence, sterility, or lack of feeling will be up to the viewer to decide, but he is
wounded. Dysart now realises now that he has "cut parts of individuality" from the
children.

Dysart’s dilemma of normality is a reflection of his countertransference

Here arises once more the issue of sacrifice. How much can we give up? Hester insists that
Alan be cured. Dysart abhors sacrificing individuality, but he does effect a cure. In the language
of Laing (and the spirit of Freud), his dilemma as well as Shaffer's is "That the ordinary person
is a shriveled, desiccated fragment of what a person can be." 1" At this point it is fitting to
quote an excerpt from the introduction to 32 Laing's Politics of Experience, thereby helping the
reader to understand the many references to Laing in the pages following.

Humanity is estranged from its authentic possibilities. This basic vision prevents us from taking
any unequivocal view of the sanity of common sense, or of the madness of the so-called
madman. However, what is required is more than a passionate outcry of outraged humanity.
Our alienation goes to the roots. The realization of this is the essential springboard for any
serious reflection on any aspect of present interhuman life. Viewed from different
perspectives, construed in different ways and expressed in different idioms, this realization
unites men as diverse as Marx, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Freud, Heidegger, -Tillich and Sartre. At
all events, we are bemused and crazed creatures, strangers to our true selves, to one another,
and to the spiritual and material world-- mad, even, from an ideal standpoint we can glimpse
but not adopt. We are born into a world where alienation awaits us. We are potentially men,
but are in an alienated state, and this state is not simply a natural system. Alienation as our
present destiny is achieved only by outrageous violence prepetrated by human beings on
human beings. This book attempts to document some forms of our contemporary violation of
ourselves.1 9 Laing's language is subjective and poetic, as is much of Jung's work; the ideas
might be branded by some as 33 " romanticravings," but the information is pertinent to a
study of Eguus.

 Alan's pathology is highlighted by his psychotic identification with Equus and his
binding of the horses. Dr. Dysart's pathology is seen in his greatly inhibited sense of
passion. He envies Alan's passion and shows "countertransference" toward treating
him. Both characters are studied in terms of level of object relations, ego functions, and
unconscious fantasy

In Peter Shaffer’s Equus, published in 1973, Dysart’s hesitation about depriving

Alan of his intense passion to make him “normal” at the price of taking away his
individuality, is a result of his countertransference toward treating him.
P1: explain the concept of countertransference in psychology (Freud). Explain
in what way it occurs in the play, provide examples. Explain the examples and
their connection with transference

P2: explain Laing’s ideas about normalcy. Explain how his point of view is
depicted in Dysart’s character. Provide examples to account for his questioning
of the treatment.

P3: summarize. How Dysart’s uncertainty is connected with his

countertransference towards Alan?
He is depicted in the play as an ordinary person who has fantasies of leaving
his office and heading to Greece, where he dreams that his life would be
exciting. His encounter with Alan leaves him envying the boys love for life, and
wishes that he had the courage to face the kind of spirit his case, Alan, had. His
opposition to Alan can, therefore, be claimed to have triggered his thoughts on
love and makes him understand what is lacking in his life. He is left wondering,
whether curing the boy would kill the boy’s spirit. He has left questioning
whether Alan is really disturbed or not or he is just a boy with a lot of
enthusiasm whose life is not restricted by the society’s interpretation of what is
fixed or abnormal. ESTO CONECTARLO CON LAING
"that boy has known a passion more ferocious than I have felt in any second of my life. And
let me tell you something: I envy it".

 Alan makes Dysart realise how boring his life is. "I wish there was one person in my
life I could show"
 Here, we could say that the dream is an anticipation (buscar nombre de
como se llama esto) of the doctor’s feelings towards treating Alan. He
feels that he is sacrifying children.
We see how Dysart’s character develops for the audience as he becomes increasingly
disillusioned with his own life and the psychiatric profession. T

However, that said, he cannot but be aware that in removing the source of the boy's distress
and nightmares, and dealing with the violent emotion that has resulted in this disgusting
crime, he is also, very likely, removing the main source of the boy's ecstasy, individual passion,
and his own glory in being himself. Unlimited passion and violence have no place in society:
yet, man should be allowed to be an individual. This is part of the 'endless ambiguity' of the
human situation, of the conflict between two different kinds of right. Laing makes similar
statements in much stronger language. "What we call 'normal' is a product of repression,
denial, splitting, projection, introjection and other forms of destructive action or experience."
In fact, Laing's comments, applied to Eguus, reveal Dysart's cure as detrimental to Alan