The Freudian-Marxian-Structuralist (FMS) Movement in France : Variations on a Theme by Sherry Turkle

Abstract

In her monograph on Freud’s French Revolution. Sherry Turkle draws the picture of a leading figure in the French social sciences, the psycho-analyst Jacques Lacan. She shows how he played a central role in the institutionalization of a discipline, psycho-analysis, which had traditionally been rejected in France. The rejection was mainly due to the existence of a strong psychiatric tradition rooted in the work and person of Janet. This tradition was decisively somatic and as such little prepared to acknowledge the freudian interpretation of mental disorders According to Turkle’s analysis — which I simplify — Lacan succeeded in introducing Freud to France by translating his work in such terms that it could appeal less to the world of physicians and psychiatrists than to the world of intellectuals and especially philosophers, literary critics, etc... More explicity, the older concern and commitment of Lacan with the surrealist movement ( the only movement which in its time was receptive to freudian ideasi inclined him to a « literary » translation of Freud. This translation in turn appeared as congruent with diffuse expectations from the relevant elements of the French intellectual world.