2/11: Jacques Lacan, Paris, May 1968

Turkle, Sherry. “The Social Roots of Psychoanalytic Culture” and “‘Reinventing’ Freud in France” in Psychoanalytic Politics: Jacques Lacan and Freud’s French Revolution.

(Additionally, here is the introduction to the book, for those who are curious.)

We will be back in our old stomping grounds, Harper 125. Monday, February 11th, 7:00pm


Discussion questions:

1. In what way was psychoanalysis ill-fitting for French culture? How did psychoanalysis serve as "a screen onto which [French] culture projecte[ed] its preoccupations and values" and what aspects of psychoanalysis were taken up differently than in America (48)? If France and America each 'invented its own Freud', must claims about what psychoanalysis "is" necessarily be situated, or is there any coherence in referring back to an original Freudian project fit for rediscovery?

2. Turkle puts forth a theory about the uptake of psychoanalysis in times of social unrest: "...with mobility of place, profession, and status, and a new instability of values, old ways of looking at the world no longer apply. Individuals are thrown back on themselves and may be more receptive to theories such as psychoanalysis which search for meaning in dreams, wishes, fears, and confusions (31)." This is in stark contrast to epochs of social stability, in which "family, ancestry, and religion" become stable reference points by which personal meaning is understood. Yet, further, these aforementioned "structural" categories (family, ancestry, and religion) become re-conceived when the locus of the individual becomes the point of theoretical intervention. In the accounts we have read of the U.S. (mainly Zaretsky) and this new account of France, what changes in the way in which the individual relates to his or her social milieu? Is this sufficient for describing the prevalence of ego psychology in America and Lacanian analysis in France? What other conditions might we take into account? (I have in mind the sociology of therapeutic practices, see page 42)

3. The uptake of Lacanian theory reveals a bifurcation between analytic theory and practice that we have been highlighting and calling into question in our historical investigations. While many "felt that his theoretical perspective had brought them back to fundamental truths which served as sources of renewal in their lives as analysts," this was offset by a mistrust in Lacan as a clinician (59). Yet, if psychoanalysis is a form of knowledge based in practice, how can theoretical knowledge coexist with a domain of technical application in which it is deemed unfit?

4. This question is more open-ended: to what extent is psychoanalysis itself a form of political participation, and how does actual political participation become figured in analytic practice? Turkle spends the latter part of "'Reinventing' Freud in France" looking at the ways in which this question was debated by analysts around the May 1968 events. Since many argue that Freud's project was part of a larger social upheaval in fin de siècle Vienna, this question is inscribed into the very origins of psychoanalytic discourse.

2/6: Does Psychoanalysis Work?

Does Psychoanalysis Work?
A lunchtime talk with Dr. Robert Galatzer-Levy

Wednesday, February 6 at 1:30pm
Reynolds Club South Lounge
5706 S. University Ave., 2nd Fl.


We joke about the interminable length of psychoanalysis and the real difficulty of demonstrating tangible and quantifiable progress. But is this the reason that approaches to mental health that emphasize practical steps and chemical intervention have risen above the slow task of self-examination?

*Lunch is available for the first 30 people to RSVP by emailing mikeymcgovern@uchicago.edu*

Free and open to the public!


Robert Galatzer-Levy, MD is on the faculties of the University of Chicago Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience, and the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. He is co-author of numerous books on psychoanalysis and social science, and provides psychiatric services, including evaluations, psycho-therapy and psychoanalysis to adults, children and adolescents.

Sponsored by:

Psychoannals (psychoannals.blogspot.com) and SPI (freudians.org), with the support of Student Government

1/28: The Repression of Psychoanalysis

Jacoby, Russell. “The Repression of Psychoanalysis” in The Repression of Psychoanalysis: Otto Fenichel and the Political Freudians.
Zaretsky, Eli. “Autonomy and Resistance” and “Charisma or Rationalization? U.S. Psychoanalysis in the Epoch of the Cold War” in Secrets of the Soul: A Social and Cultural History of Psychoanalysis.

Here is a breakdown of the Zaretsky for those who would like to be more choosy (though it does go by quite fast):
Autonomy and Resistance 163-174: ego and resistance as center of PSA, challenges
Autonomy and Resistance 174-192: decentralizing the psychoanalytic movement
Charisma or Rationalization 276-287: U.S. social reorganization and social theory
Charisma or Rationalization 287-306: medicalization and integrating psychoanalysis

Discussion questions to come later in the week.

PLEASE NOTE: We will be meeting in Harper 102 instead of our usual meeting place, 125. The time will still be 7pm on Monday night.

1/14: An Ambiguous Legacy

Young-Bruehl, Elizabeth and Murrary Schwartz. “Why Psychoanalysis Has No History.”
Zaretsky, Eli. “The Ambiguous Legacy of Psychoanalysis” and “Absorption and Marginality” (selections) in Secrets of the Soul: A Social and Cultural History of Psychoanalysis.

PLEASE NOTE: We will be meeting in Harper 102 instead of our usual meeting place, 125. The time will still be 7pm on Monday night.

Winter 2013 Reading List

Psychoannals Winter 2013 Reading Series

Psychoanalysis: 
Global Emergences

Psychoanalysis is often described as a project inextricable from the sociocultural milieu of Vienna at the turn of the 20^th century, an invention (or a discovery) that became linked up to the dissemination of modernism. Yet as both practice and ideology, its most enduring legacies have been established elsewhere. This quarter, we want to ask questions of the historical and geographical moments of psychoanalysis: why, at a particular time in a particular place, does psychoanalysis gain purchase? Do these different emergences of psychoanalysis really describe one thing? If psychoanalysis purports to make claims about “the human,” how are these dealt with by societies bound up in specific forms of selfhood?

Psychoannals is a student-led psychoanalysis reading group for all interested members of the university. We meet on even week Mondays at 7pm in Harper 125 (specific room assignments will be available online and publicized for convenience.

For readings, visit http://psychoannals.blogspot.com, and sign up for our listhost at https://lists.uchicago.edu/web/info/psychoannals.

1/14 – An Ambiguous Legacy

Young-Bruehl, Elizabeth and Murrary Schwartz. “Why Psychoanalysis Has No History.”

Zaretsky, Eli. “The Ambiguous Legacy of Psychoanalysis” and “Absorption and Marginality” (selections) in Secrets of the Soul: A Social and Cultural History of Psychoanalysis.

1/28 – The Repression of Psychoanalysis

Jacoby, Russel. “The Repression of Psychoanalysis” in The Repression of Psychoanalysis: Otto Fenichel and the Political Freudians.

Zaretsky, Eli. “Autonomy and Resistance” (selections) and “Charisma or Rationalization? U.S. Psychoanalysis in the Epoch of the Cold War” in Secrets of the Soul: A Social and Cultural History of Psychoanalysis.

2/11 – Jacques Lacan, Paris, May 1968

Turkle, Sherry. “The Social Roots of Psychoanalytic Culture” and “‘Reinventing’ Freud in France” in Psychoanalytic Politics: Jacques Lacan and Freud’s French Revolution.

2/25 – A “Lacan Ward” in Argentina

Lakoff, Andrew. “The Lacan Ward” in Pharmaceutical Reason: Knowledge and Value in Global Psychiatry.

3/11 – Made in China? Exporting Psychoanalysis

Schlösser, Anne-Marie. “Oedipus in China: Can we Export Psychoanalysis?”

Osnos, Evan. “Meet Dr. Freud: Does Psychoanalysis Have a Future in an Authoritarian State?”