adam phillips leaves out the number one reason psychoanalysts are attracted to literature: you don't have to know the person to theorize about her. it's so much easier to analyze someone you've never met,and the characters she made up, than it is to approach the clinical setting where a real relationship is involved. it seems to me that the reason analysts and others are interested in analyzing famous people they've never met, never talked to or had any relationship with, is it's so, so easy. you can say anything you want and jane austen isn't here to say "huh? where'd you ever get that idea about me?"
in a real analysis that type of response from the patient is common. the analyst has to know how to respond back. in literary analysis hey, there's no one around you have to relate to. you can basically say anything you want and the more clever you are the farther away from the subject you can get. that is, you can escape into your pretty words and no one will ever say, hold on, whatever happened to your subject? aren't you talking about adam?