k,
yes... there is something profoundly stupid about the idea that "freud
was an idiot" - if you don't actually know his work! but when d&g
attack freud or make fun of him (as they do rather more light-heartedly
in MP than in AO, i've always thought) it is from an very sound
knowledge of his work: and as I'm sure you know,guattari's work
especially is grounded partly in psycho-analysis and Lacan, and
obviously his work at La Borde. also, they acknowledge in barious
places freud's achievement in his creation of the idea of the energetic
and libidinal unconscious, and while they have reservations about what
he does with this idea their whole project is in a sense "within" the
discourse freud created! -we could perhaps with fairness say all Freud
really did was subject the unconcious to the standards of the society in
which he lived, he read into it his own cultural prejudices, messed up
the analysis - a classic case of projection? certainly it involved no
small anmount of hysterical avoidance! - but who can escape this error?
who can be "objective"?
despite this little apology for freud, the objections d&g raise against
psycho-analysis are very serious and I'm not sure about your feeling
that "a little psychoanalysis would [not] be all that bad." I think
you are confusing things a bit if you try and say "but some people
really are alienated... therapy would really help them" -- individual
analysis, individual "re-subjectification" obviously helps people to
"act competently" in the everyday, to assume their responsibilities as
citizens... but why are these people alienated to begin with? what is it
to "be alienated"? can we really reduce the process of alienation to an
individual process - and therefore one that can be "solved" individually
- one that doesn't relate to society as a whole - a little interior
secret, perhaps something to do with your mother and father....??!!!
??
dan h.
Kalapsyche@xxxxxxx wrote:
>
> In a message dated 12/14/1998 9:35:11 AM EST, daniel@xxxxxxx writes:
>
> << and yes, d&g charicature psycho-analysis - but they do it so very well -
> >>
>
> LOL!!! Ok, here's what concerns me with the American reception of Deleuze and
> Guatarri's critique of psychoanalysis: Whenever I hear people throwing it
> about, I can never be sure whether this is the result of a careful and
> critical appraisal of psychoanalysis itself, or whether it is simply an
> unreflective acceptance of something American's tend to believe anyway (That
> Freud was an idiot with nothing worth picking up and carrying along). Looking
> at the current state of clinical practice in the states today, I'm *not
> certain* that a little psychoanalysis would be all that bad. Clearly such a
> shift would have to be approached very carefully with a lot of discussion on
> what the analytic setting *ought* to be like. Then again, I'm not always
> certain that telling a patient what's going on is such a bad thing either...
> Somehow some of this pomo bull about building warm and fuzzy narratives seems
> to miss some key points about alienation and separation that might show up to
> only be adequately dealt with in a moment of the perfomative. Just as the
> Shaman provides the missing word to allow the tribe to flow again, so too
> would the analyst provide the missing signifier allowing a subjectivization to
> take place. Nonetheless I'm speculating. But then, we tend to treat patients
> as equivalent to money in the States anyway insofar as they are self-same
> economic units of exchange whose entire being can be summed up by a simplistic
> diagnostic test, so it's unlikely that some such shift could occur.
--
http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/chupacabras/48/
http://www.tw2.com/staff/daniel/
Ware ware Karate-do o shugyo surumonowa,
Tsuneni bushido seishin o wasurezu,
Wa to nin o motte nashi,
Soshite tsutomereba kanarazu tasu.
We who study Karate-do,
Should never forget the spirit of the samurai,
With peace, perseverance and hard work,
We will reach our goal without failure.
