Psychoanalytic Judaism, Judaic Psychoanalysis

Abstract

The article begins with a summary account of some major trends in the co-location of psychoanalysis and Judaism, relating particularly to: the origins of psychoanalysis; antisemitism directed towards, and within, psychoanalysis; links between Jewish mysticism and psychoanalysis through notions of ‘tikkun’ and reparation; hermeneutics and interpretation; and the transmission of knowledge through intense personal relationships. Psychoanalytic interpretation has also been applied to some Jewish (especially biblical) texts. The article then offers an account of Jewishness as rooted in ambivalence and contradictory ties – and particularly as a way of being that is fundamentally interrupted by otherness. I give an example of this and try to show that what one author I draw on calls ‘the backward pull of love and accidental attachment’ is constitutive of Judaism and of psychoanalysis as well. As such, it is a powerful ethical claim to say that ‘Judaic’ psychoanalysis exists.