Is Psycho-analysis dead?

[butchersapron]

J is all flesh and no spirit.... an animal with instincts and nowt more... what little there is above it - is but a thin veneer... Just read his posts...

On the other hand, his brains is not much more than a computer, "processing information"... Again, read his posts...

He has no idea what "meaning" means, so can't really understand anything even vaguely meaningful and....

Oh, why do I bother?!?

I meant you g

 

[gorski]

Who cares what you think...

 

[butchersapron]

You do

 

[gorski]

I suggest you join Jonti for Sunday morning meaning classes...

 

[teahead]

Does anyone still take Freud, Lacan or Kristeva seriously? For either clinical or philosophical reasons?

Object relations - Alvarex, Hannah Segal, Margaret Mahler, Winnicott, etc - is partnered with attachment theory, systemic theory, cognitive strategies and social learning theory. Freud and all that were like early music maybe - the beginnings of a kind of intervention into ideas about how people work psychologically. Nowadays psychodynamic thinking represents one from a number of competing metaphors. The guiding principle in both medicine (reduction of harm) and literature studies (production of discourses) is evidence-based outcomes.

 

[Jonti]

That is rather harsh, although I must admit that anyone who quotes Pink Floyd (which presumably means he also owns one or more of their records) is an utter stranger to psychological equanimity.

stupid boy!

 

[gorski]

If only you could see just how limited you are, thanx to your prejudices and sheer uninformed-ness on the subject, you could see just how clever and informed he is, J...

And that's despite our [Phil and me] disagreement re. Freud's role in History of ideas etc. - and you two broadly agreeing that he was a "bad thing"...

I think we need to differentiate things in a more meaningful, in-depth manner, in Freud's thinking and see various stages etc.

I.e. how he changed his stance over the years, how he influenced the world, the novelty he brings in etc.

Only then, I would argue, critique of specific parts should come into play.

As it is - this means very little, if anything at all...

No real debate, nothing much to learn, sadly...

 

[Jonti]

The trouble for classical psychoanalysis is that other narratives, other interpretations of the raw data of experience, are always possible. That's just the way things are. Of course there is such a thing as reality, but all the same it is inevitably subject to interpretation.

That is an especially acute problem when it comes to being objective about subjectivity. We are not only products of our histories and our life stories. We can chose how we feel about events, at least to some extent. We are also able to interpret events in a way that can radically affect their impact on our consciousness. People are essentially self-interpreting and self-transcendent, and not merely the passive products of their history.

This certainly does present difficulties for the crudely determinist Marxist or classical Freudian!

As shown by the silly disruptions and almost psychotic displays of hatred in this thread

 

[gorski]

Like yours!!!! There's no one more psychotically deranged re. psychoanalysis than you, no one filled with more hatred towards it than you and you have the audacity to mention it... Fuck, what a wanker!!!

 

[Lee Trevino]

My therapist has said many good things to me this year. Now they don´t just use psychoanalysis - although once I discussed a dream with her. I was in a channel full of excrement. The analyst was dragging me down the channel. Then at the end of the channel I jumped into a pool of clear water. My therapist said that that is loosening things up in my head.

I also have many dreams where I am walking around buildings that are disused and full of rubble. I have tried to analyse the dreams and think that the buildings are my skull.

 

[Lee Trevino]

If psycho-analysis is dead then we might as well go shopping!

(joke)

 

[gorski]

Promising intro:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/q8373r4335t17747/