June 30, 2009

opening, with certain integrity

Working through my own problems with the psyche, it's inescapable that I had to think over the tension between post-structuralism and psychoanalysis, as well as that between the patient and analyst. 

Foucault has an uneasy relationship with psychoanalysis, aside from his personal regrets towards its inability to provide recourse to his depression and identity struggle, his major conceptual tools are incompatible to the a fixated interiority. If Madness and Civilization is an indicator of the magnitude of his thought, then it's hardly surprising that he faults psychoanalysis for locating remedy in confession. That is, he equates Freud's revolution to the catholic orthodox that it overthrows. With his impulse to love transgression, Foucault's problem is the claimed lucidity of the analyst makes a dialogue with the unreason pretentious. 

My own intuitions to resist psychoanalysis has been it's all-encompassing narrative. However I resist it, I too often catch myself interpreting situations/dreams through the lenses of desire and drive. I like giving narratives to events in my life, but could those stories just be a bit more authentic? 


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