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From: Erik Hoogcarspel <jehms@xxxxxxxxx>
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Date: Sun, 09 Oct 2005 20:29:11 +0200
Mark Kelly schreef:
Let's take this point about psychoanalysis. Assuming an analyst did do
this, and I'm sure there are plenty who do, simply tell the patient
the meaning of the dream, well, this is obviously interventionist, you
are right. But is it speaking for someone else? The entire point in
psychoanalysis is that the unconscious is not something that cna be
accessed either by the subject or, indeed, by the analyst in a direct
manner. Telling the subject the hidden meaning of his dream is a
didactic operation which presupposes a certain power relation, and is
therefore, as Foucault would say, certainly dangerous, but it is not
speaking for. Speaking for the subject would, I would have thought, be
articulating the conscious experience of the subject itself, for
example when a journalist waxes about the pain of the victims of a
natural disaster, not making a diagnosis about the unconscious based
on the subject's own account of himself. This is by no means
non-invasive - I was wrong if I said that - but it's not shameful either.
You cannot deny however that the psychoanalyst has the power of his expertise to determine the truth about the patient and limit his possibilities and selfimage at will. This is of course assuming that the game is played not ironically. I remember manipulating analysts when I wanted to get the verdict 'not stable enough to become a soldier'. Anyhow, Foucault learned a lot from Sartre and Sartre was a vehement opponent of psychoanalyses, because it ignores free choice and responsability.
Erik
www.xs4all.nl/~jehms
