Review of Psychoanalysis outside the clinic: Interventions in psychosocial studies

• Reviews the book, Psychoanalysis outside the clinic: Interventions in pychosocial studies by Stephen Frosh (2011). Through a detailed exposition of existing scholarly endeavors, the book illustrates how these concepts can be applied to issues of a transindividual nature. At the same time, the book tries to rein in those enthusiasts who believe that psychoanalytic knowledge, with its emphasis on affect and the unconscious, holds the missing elements to a Grand Theory of the Social. One way of reading this book is therefore as a review of previous efforts to transcend the original analyst-analysand dyad. Each chapter looks at a different area and sub discipline that has experienced an influx of psychoanalytic ideas, including literary studies, social psychology and ethics. The author always remains critical of the dogmatic tendencies of psychoanalytic thinking, which at times appears to want to install its mode of viewing the social world as a new 'Master Discourse'. This development effects a domestication of its ideas, a 'blunting of the subversive edge of psychoanalysis'. This book is not likely to convert those sceptical of the discipline's tenets; and, though it might disappoint those searching for an impassioned argument for the explanatory potency of psychoanalysis, it nevertheless provides an indispensable guide to existing interdisciplinary efforts.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Psykologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Psychology (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

psychoanalysis

clinics

intervention

psychosocial studies

psychoanalytic knowledge

Human

Knowledge Level

Psychoanalytic Theory

article

3315:Psychoanalytic Therapy

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

rec (ämneskategori)