Psychoanalysis on the Far Side of the 20th Century

source: SPI — The Society for Psychoanalytic Inquiry    2014年1月10日
Each generation inherits a new past. Today, psychoanalysis is fading fast. Classroom instructors savage it; the latest scientific psychologies reject it; analysts themselves struggle to attract new patients and trainees. Freud remains universally hailed as one of the defining minds of the 20th century, yet nobody knows exactly what this means. Since psychoanalysis defines who we have come to be, how are we to define it? A revolutionary science of mind; a new basis for critical thinking about history and society; a form of therapeutic practice; a new sexual morality; a general theory of human nature; a practice of self-understanding; a dominant medical paradigm; a hermeneutic key to culture; a tendentious, pseudo-scientific, and dangerous ideology. How can psychoanalysis make sense of its tangled history? What made psychoanalysis a powerful articulation of self and society? Was it bound to historical configurations that have since passed? How does psychoanalysis appear the self, society, science, and psychology of today? Can psychoanalytic ideas have comprehensive range and force in the new century? Why should they?
Prudence Gourguechon, Katie Jenness, Thomas Svolos and Gary Walls, Jeremy Cohan (moderator)
Educational Objectives: At the conclusion of the program, participants will be able to: 1) Describe how present day perceptions of the history of psychoanalysis bear on the present and future directions of the field; 2) Analyze contemporary trends within psychoanalysis and their implications for possible future development; 3) Plan for ways to address problematic aspects of contemporary psychoanalytic theory and practice.