Life — June 2, 1921 — page 9: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Analysis This page features a poem titled "My Grandma's Brew" by Jennie Betts Horowitz celebrating an old family recipe for elder-blossom wine, presented nostalgically as a cherished heirloom. The accompanying cartoon satirizes early 20th-century psychoanalysis. A patient sits with an analyst, and the caption reads: "Psychoanalyst: THE FIRST THING TO DO IS TO REMOVE YOUR COMPLEX. Mrs. Neuroses: OH, DOCTOR, SHALL I HAVE TO TAKE ETHER?" The joke mocks both Freudian psychology's then-new concepts ("complexes," "neuroses") and the patient's literal misunderstanding—she assumes "removing" a complex requires anesthesia like a surgical procedure. This reflects contemporary skepticism about psychoanalysis as pseudoscientific pseudointellectual nonsense, treating psychological problems as absurdly as one might treat physical ailments.