Re: [Foucault-L] Speaking for others

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