Psychoanalytic Politics Research Articles

Voice Lessons

Abstract This paper reflects on the national referendum for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament that took place in Australia in mid-October 2023. At the time of writing, the aftershocks from the failure of the referendum to gain the necessary majorities were still being felt keenly by many of the Voice advocates and supporters. The hurt and grief of many First Nations people were shared by millions of non-Indigenous “Yes” voters, while much reckoning continued in the subsequent weeks and months. The author here explores what might have been gained if more attention had been given to what an Indigenous Voice to Parliament might “sound like,” instead of the excessive focus on, and public discourse around what it might “look like.” Resources from the philosophies and physiology of voice, communication ethics, cultural studies, critical anthropology, Australian Indigenous writing and scholarship, and psychoanalytic politics are utilised to explore the connections between the human voice, vocal expression, hearing and listening, silence and song.

Underground Topography of the Political Unconscious in Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison

Coming from different socio-economic backgrounds but sharing the experience of being black intellectuals in the US before the Civil Rights movement, Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison met in New York in 1937. Although they eventually grew distant, their friendship generated some of the most important political writings of African-American literature. They were interested in the ideas of Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx for possible solutions to the “Negro question.” They argued for a Freudo-Marxist synthesis as a remedy for the broken black psyche under white supremacist pressure. With its dimension on American racism, the synthesis they proposed offers a distinct and important contribution to the dominantly European canon of the theory. This article investigates the political psychoanalysis of Wright and Ellison as represented in their ideationally interlinked novels, Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952) and Wright’s The Man Who Lived Underground (2021). It analyses how their novelistic writing emerges as a dynamic space to elaborate upon a political psychoanalysis through their own race-based version of a theoretical synthesis. Moreover, the study also offers a new approach to new material, as Richard Wright's The Man Who Lived Underground remained unpublished until it was recently rediscovered and printed for the first time in 2021.

Psicoanálisis de guerrilla. Del psicoanálisis genérico e impuro

In dealing with the radical politicization of psychoanalysis from a geopolitical standpoint, this essay argues that psychoanalysis has to be capable to rethink and reembody itself with every contingent and immanent dislocations of its transcendental horizons. Through a reading of Slavoj Žižek and Alain Badiou on Mao Tse-Tung, we can think about the notion of dislocation and localization of the Idea. We will argue that this has historically happened in psychoanalysis in the transition from Freud to Lacan; however, the issue is that this dislocation has undergone a retroactivity of necessity which makes a vanishing mediator out of the contingent scrap of reality that it initially relied on—and this forms the quilting point of the contemporary Lacanian ideology. Through Gabriel Tupinambá›s The Desire of Psychoanalysis, we will inspect the notion of generic psychoanalysis. We will insist that while generic psychoanalysis is crucial for the refiguring of psychoanalytic politics in a dislocative matter, we need to take this outlook to the end onto a psychoanalysis that is willing to impurify itself through localization as this is the only psychoanalysis worthy of the name.

Conceptual analysis of the narrative strategy of the text of the propaganda speech from the position of the post-Romanov psychoanalytic approach

The article presents the author's version of narrative analysis based on the methodology of post-Romanov political psychoanalysis and discourse analysis of the text of a propaganda speech. The concepts of the master signifier, the points of attachment, the double movement of signifiers in the structure of the narrative as the basis for the internalization of the ideas and values of the narrative by the addressee of communication are actualized. The matrix of the university's discourse is considered as a constructive basis that ensures the promotion and functioning of the narrative. The analysis of the case of the speech of the US Secretary of State Colin Powell at the UN Security Council on February 5, 2003 is given. The initial theoretical positions and conclusions are correlated with the data of public opinion polls conducted by the Gallup Institute.The author's main contribution to the theory of narrative analysis is the approbation of the conceptual apparatus of political psychoanalysis to propaganda texts. The study of the phenomenon of internalization of the narrative of war in the mass consciousness requires a deep understanding of the driving forces underlying the processes under study. For the first time, the media text is analyzed from the perspective of a psychoanalytic approach, with the possibility of defining and describing specific reference points of a speech that determine its structure and final result. The proposed study lays the prerequisites for the further development of the concept of the narrative life cycle and the formulation of the concept of the counter-narrative, the definition of the inherent limitations and opportunities of this life cycle.

The Unconscious of Political Economy

The libidinal tensions described by Freud are not simply characteristic of the subject, but are part of interpersonal politics (family) of the struggle for power. This is the reason why Etienne Balibar points out that, in his description of the crowd formation and the genesis of the superego, Freud does not provide a "psychoanalysis of politics" (an explanation of the political dynamics of the crowds, through processes which are themselves apolitical), but their opposite: the politics of psychoanalysis (the explanation of the emergence of the triadic structure of the Ego-Id-Superego, through family "political" power struggles). This is what Marx does in A Critique of Political Economy: he brings out his unconscious, and that is why he calls the object of his critique "political economy."

Apophenic Reading and the Politics of Psychoanalysis

ABSTRACT Psychoanalysis provides a framework for understanding how phenomena like parapraxes, fantasies, and dreams are indices of unconscious processes. In this way it is a particularly suspicious undertaking, linking surface clues to what, by definition, cannot be known. This essay attends to the suspicious and skeptical registers of psychoanalysis to sense a resonance between what is made visible and invisible in the making of “nation” and “human.” There is a secret history of psychoanalysis, in which it is bound up with political agitation, socialist movements, and skepticism of human exceptionalism. What about the suspicious method of psychoanalysis is threatening not only to psychic but to political repression? By tarrying in this secret history, and the strange, symptomatic ambivalences in psychoanalytic texts, this article suggests that the politically serviceable roots of psychoanalysis could be returned from their repression in the present day, to answer to contemporary abolitionist projects.

Left Freudians

Abstract Are the limits of psychoanalytic politics the limits of the politics of psychoanalysis’s founding father, Sigmund Freud? This article offers an answer to this question by discussing Freud’s political affinities and then recounting a short history of the “Left Freudians,” psychoanalytic thinkers who broke with Freud’s old-style liberalism. Freud was neither a communist nor a political radical, but he was the figurehead of a tradition of inquiry and body of knowledge that lent itself to radical political thought and practice. How does psychoanalytic thinking justify this ideological break? Beginning with anarchist Otto Gross, this article traces a genealogy of radical psychoanalytic thinkers through the historical depoliticization and repression of political psychoanalysis, unearthing its more radical proponents and critiques and substantiating Gross’s assertion that psychoanalysis is preparatory work for the revolution. At the end of the genealogy, the article turns to psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan’s infamous and emblematic encounter with provocateurs from the radical student movement. Neither as domineering nor paternalistic as he seemed, Lacan’s diagnosis of the revolutionaries as hysterical helots should be read as his own provocation for them to clarify their desire, because the purpose of political psychoanalysis is to understand the unconscious desire involved in political acts.

The Failure and Reality of Sublimation: Psychoanalytic Ontology and Revolution

Occupying a privileged position in psychoanalytic thought, sublimation—the process in which the sexual instinct becomes social—is notably undertheorized and notoriously criticized, to some extent as the embodiment of the methodology and politics of psychoanalysis. As a way of elucidating the concept, this article addresses political critiques of sublimation by situating it in Freud's metapsychology and elaborating its speculative theorization. Critics put psychoanalysis in the context of the power structures that it takes for granted as real to show that it imposes on the subject the failure to accede to reality and the failure of its desire—a double bind supposedly finalized by sublimation. In contrast, expositors of Freud's metapsychology draw on its positing of a more complex relation between failure and reality to assert sublimation as real and libidinal. Even as sublimation may be sexual by other means, however, it is premised on the libido's failure to shape social reality. Seemingly compromising it, sublimation's repetition of the condition it is supposed to solve in fact hints at a definition of reality beyond the reality it ostensibly upholds. Freud illustrates this in his analysis of Leonardo, which I reread to highlight sublimation as the realization of desire in its failure and psychoanalysis as reflecting a common sense of reality to embed in it, indeed realize through it, another reality bearing foreclosed desires.

Politics, Phantomization and Pathological Cultural Accommodation

ABSTRACT In this article I attempt to illuminate the five themes from Dynamic Systems Theory, that Dr. Gabriel Trop identifies in his compelling investigation of the political context in psychoanalysis and the politics of psychoanalysis (this issue). Drawing from my personal experience as an Iranian émigré and my work with my patients, I elucidate how a complex matrix of cultures, politics, languages and faiths intersect in the very ways Trop applies the dynamic concepts of changeability; disruption; experimentation; particularization; and exposure. The terms “phantom selves” and “phantomization”, are elaborated to describe the type of experiences that relate to the after-effect of traumatic loss. I suggest that rigidly administered religions, cultural ideologies, and unvarying traditions crush people’s souls and take them hostage. The intersection of politics and psychoanalysis (or the politics in psychoanalysis) has the potential to restrict and censor our lens and scope of inquiry. Ultimately, the politicization of psychoanalytic communities can reduce human complexity, collapse social multiplicity, and runs the risk of creating a new binary set of good-versus-evil moral absolutisms by which we—wittingly or unwittingly—measure psychological health.

The Ethics and Politics of Psychoanalysis as a Dynamic System

ABSTRACT This article examines the political and ethical consequences of a specifically dynamic systems view of psychoanalysis and selfhood, arguing that a dynamic systems view entails an ethos, or a way of looking at the world. The article postulates the “thin” normativity, or the minimalist set of commitments involved in a dynamic systems account of selfhood. These minimal commitments provide a framework for exploring two ways in which politics and psychoanalysis intersect: first, how political context surfaces in psychoanalysis (as it is thematized concretely in treatment); and second, the politics of psychoanalysis (as a political or cultural force). The commitments can be summarized under the headings of an ethos of changeability; disruption; experimentation; particularization; and exposure.

In the Land of the Antilibidinal Ego: Dependency, Denial, Dissociation, and Contempt: Discussion of “Contempt Management: You’re Crazy, I’m Not”

This article considers the concepts of contempt and counter-contempt, and the management of these relational affects – ideas that Josephs and Stone (this issue) usefully opened up for exploration in the clinical situation and beyond. The author extends the relevance of these phenomena to important topics like serial killing, mass shootings, and genocide. These elaborations may help those striving to prevent these horrific tragedies. The author also finds these concepts useful for comprehending and managing psychoanalytic politics – a domain in which they can manifest with problematic intensity that is deleterious to the healthy functioning and growth of our discipline. To cope with, contain, and ultimately transcend these disruptive, internecine conflicts, the author advocates for the utility and value of a comparative-integrative perspective.

German Jews between Freud, Marx, and Halakha: Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, Erich Fromm, and the Psychoanalysis of Jewish Ritual in 1920s Heidelberg1

Abstract This essay explores the psychoanalytic sanitarium (Therapeutikum) directed by Frieda Fromm-Reichmann and Erich Fromm in Heidelberg from 1924 to 1928. The Therapeutikum aimed to combine adherence to Jewish ritual with psychoanalytic practice and radical politics for a group of German Jews who were rethinking their Orthodox backgrounds in light of new intellectual and political currents and modern sensibilities. Visitors to the sanitarium included many leading German-Jewish thinkers, and Heidelberg’s proximity to Frankfurt placed the Therapeutikum in the orbit of the Institute for Social Research and near a major hub in the renaissance of Jewish learning then occurring. At the centre of the article is a discussion of essays by Fromm-Reichmann and Fromm that subjected Jewish ritual (kashrut and shabbat) to psychoanalytic investigation. Appearing in Imago in 1927, the articles marked the two writers’ public break with Orthodox Judaism. This essay argues that the Imago articles marked a crucial moment in the political, intellectual, and religious history of German Jewry. Even if the Fromms’ synthesis of Freudianism, radical politics, and Judaism was conceptually shaky, their sanitarium illustrates the centrality of psychoanalysis—as a sensibility, a hermeneutic and above all a way of creating social and communal bonds—to a generation of German Jews navigating the challenges of German and Jewish modernity.

‘Bodies that splutter’ – theorizing jouissance in bareback and chemsex porn

ABSTRACTThis article explores associations between the psychoanalytic theory of jouissance and representations of bareback and chemsex between cis-gendered men in gay porn. It uses the concept of ‘bodies that splutter’ to focus on how tensions allied to the definition and interpretation of jouissance can be used as a foundation to interpret and reposition a queer and psychoanalytic politics of bareback and chemsex as porn. In so doing, the article will suggest that pornographic practices of bareback and chemsex in the output of UK director Liam Cole and US website RawFuckClub.com attempt to frame these practices of gay male desire as phallic jouissance. Working with the notion of ‘bodies that splutter’, the article will transpose Judith Butler’s concept of performative bodies that matter and Tim Deans’ unconscious bodies that mutter to consider a dialogue between pornography and jouissance where bodies also ‘splutter’.

A Whole Climate of Critique: Psychoanalytic Politics between Vitality and Obsolescence

Previous articleNext article No AccessReview EssayA Whole Climate of Critique: Psychoanalytic Politics between Vitality and ObsolescencePhillip Henry and Benjamin Y. FongPhillip HenryUniversity of Chicago Search for more articles by this author and Benjamin Y. FongArizona State University Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Critical Historical Studies Volume 5, Number 1Spring 2018 Sponsored by the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory (3CT) Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/697030 Views: 156Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref © 2018 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Eli Zaretsky Response to Fong and Henry, Critical Historical Studies 5, no.22 (Nov 2018): 311–323.https://doi.org/10.1086/699687

The deontology of a political psychoanalysis: an interview with Patricia Gherovici

Patricia Gherovici’s groundbreaking work in Lacanian psychoanalysis brings unique focus to both clinical psychology and today’s socio-political reality. In this interview, we ask Dr Gherovici to reflect on how Lacanian theory can be applied to the political issues of today. Our discussion takes place months after the Trump election and addresses such matters as unconscious choice in gender selection; rising levels of anxiety in non-cis identified analysands over Trump’s presidency; the subversive potential of the unconscious; the efficacy of grounding ethics on comedy; and employing Jacques Lacan’s notion of the sinthome to depathologize psychosis and transgender identity. Dr. Gherovici finds in her analysands a window through which to witness the impact of our social reality upon our psychic selves; and she argues for a psychoanalytic praxis that not only marries the political to the clinical, but also bases its ethics upon recognition of the singularity of the subject. In particular, she points to the subject’s individual sinthome as charting a creative response to the dire realities we each confront.

What Can Reality Television Teach Us About Psychoanalytic Politics?

The coincidence of hearing two different patients describe watching the same reality television show as a way of comforting themselves during the 2016 election campaign leads the author to reflect on how this particular show came to occupy the place of thirdness in ongoing sessions. Thinking together about this reality show added a new dimension that made it possible for patient and therapist to emerge from a merged state of disbelief into an exploration of the meaning of what seemed an unimaginable political reality, and the exercise of individual agency. In the second part of the article, the author reviews the unfortunate history that has frequently emerged when psychoanalytic institutions attempt to coexist with totalitarian regimes. Pointing out that within-group differences can prove as full of rancor and shame-inducing behavior as between-group differences, the author turns again to the reality television show to provide some answers to this perennial problem.

Introduction to Political Psychoanalysis of a Group in the Middle East

The present study focuses on investigating group psychoanalysis in the Middle East. The study uses a descriptive-analytic method and library resources have been used to collect the data. Additionally, the researcher’s observations of people’s everyday behavior have played an important role in the production and analysis of the study. Group psychoanalysis in the Middle East can be conducted through people’s daily behaviors, proverbs, poetry, mythology, etc., and some of the general characteristics of people in the Middle East include: xenophobia, revivalism, fatalism, nostalgic, wills and so on. Members of the group have often failed to achieve Libido wills and it is very important in unifying and reproduction violence. Therefore, if libidinal wills are irrationally fixed, it will be important in forming fundamentalist and racist groups, a situation that is dominant among many groups in the Middle East. Adversities, from early childhood and afterwards, in the subjects have always been influential in the political behavior of group members, and it manifests itself as counter-projections. Consequently, it affects the foreign policy of the governments. On the other hand, two kinds of subjects are identifiable in the Middle East, one; classical subject that is related to nostalgia and mythology and, two; modern subjects which is self-alienated. As a result, both subjects are seeking identity and self-expression in public in relation to forming groups. Therefore, collective unconscious in the Middle East shows itself as extreme boundaries and leads to forming groups characterized with violence. Psychoanalysis shows important aspects to identify many developments in the Middle East; totally analysis of Freud, Carl Jung and Reich about groups can be applied in the present Middle East.

Politics of psychoanalysis in liberal and neoliberal capitalism

This article offers a discussion on the politics of psychoanalysis in liberal and neoliberal capitalism. After jointly reflecting on the persistence of neoliberalism in these times of Trump, the two authors separate and exchange various arguments, some more closely related to Marxism and others closer to Freudianism, in discussing the positions of psychoanalysis in regard to various aspects related to capitalism: its liberal modality and its patriarchal foundation, its scientific and university guises, money and the market, the socialist alternative and the revolutionary horizon.

Obsession & politics: A contribution to Lacanian political psychoanalysis

Obsessional politics gives name to what remains unsaid and under-examined within the contemporary political situation. If obsessional politics may be taken to refer to those tendencies within the political field whose symptomatic condition concerns a demand for novelty, and an avoidance of the goal of authentic novelty via the aim of repetition, it may be further assumed that obsessional politics operates according to the trinity of the obsessional neurotic: self-mastery, repetition, and novelty. Taken together, these three rings form the knot of obsessional politics. This article sets out to demonstrate that it is possible to form a post-obsessional knot by way of Jacques Lacan’s concept of “style,” Slavoj Žižek’s “act,” and Alain Badiou’s “event.”

Thoughts on the Present and Future of Psychoanalytic Education.

This paper originated in a series of dialogues between the authors over a period of approximately one year, focused on present problems (and possible solutions) in psychoanalytic education, internationally but particularly in the U.S. Both authors have been involved in psychoanalytic education and governance over many years and share a concern with where psychoanalysis presently stands and where it is going. They share the experience of being part of what today is a significant minority of psychoanalysts involved in academic pursuits, thus being situated at the boundary between psychoanalysis and university-based psychiatry as professions. Having been involved in the leadership of both psychoanalytic and psychiatric organizations, they share an interest in organizational theory, an additional joint interest influencing their approach to institutional aspects of psychoanalysis. Despite these commonalities, however, they have been identified as having differently shaded positions and views within psychoanalytic politics: Robert Michels, as relatively conservative regarding controversial issues in psychoanalytic institutional functioning and governance, and Otto Kernberg as inclined toward rapid change regarding these issues (Auchincloss and Michels 2003; Kernberg 2014). This difference determined a dynamic of particular interest in their dialogue: the extent to which mutual respect yet differing viewpoints might issue in an analysis and joint recommendations that might be of interest to the field. In what follows, their achievement in that direction is spelled out in some detail.