The Psychoanalytic Work in the City: Psychoanalysis in Critical Social Situations

Abstract

The present work aims to showcase a psychoanalytic approach to social emergencies in settings that stretch beyond the context of middle- and upper-class private practices. We advocate for the development of new clinical devices of assistance in these situations, grounded in a novel psychoanalytic methodology. Our clinical practice takes inspiration in community clinics set up by Freud and his main followers between the years of 1918 and 1938, and is anchored in quintessential psychoanalytic concepts: the unconscious, drive, repetition and transference. Since our goal is not a mere translation of private clinic practices to the social sphere of the city, it is paramount that psychoanalysis is reinvented so as to enable psychoanalytic listening to be present on streets and public squares as well as on the design of public policies by governmental institutions.