Sociologies de l'individu et approches psychanalytiques : quelques convergences

Abstract

The ‘sociology of the individual’ has become a major theme in social sciences. This article argues that it can shed some light on certain tendencies in the evolution of psychoanalytic theory (which does not all lead to lacanism) which could, in return, provide some fruitful insights. Andre Green’s metapsychological researches, which valued the object relation as a source of expansion of the Self, are for instance both freudian and post-freudian. These are then pulled towards a pluralist interpretation in which the Self is consolidated and stimulated by the richness and depth of various objectal relations, to which correspond forms of individuality that have become more experimental with time. By no means is psychoanalysis vowed to the denunciation of Modern culture too hastily disqualified as being anarchic and destructive for individuals.