Work
Freud grounded psychoanalysis in terms of a collaborative uncovering of the unconscious as dynamic and over-determined. That such uncovering occurs in a fraction of the time “psychoanalysis” occupies or that it necessitates much preparation does not deny it its status as the core and defining element of the practice; if anything, it reinforces it as the however infinitesimally small but not any the less defining marker of a practice that is singular and specific, a practice that is irreducible to this or that of the modes of relating with which we are already familiar.
That such uncovering leaves open the questions of “efficacy” and so-called “therapeutic value,” that, in other words, the uncovering does not necessarily make people “feel better,” assuming we already know and agree on what the expression actually means, the way doctors and parents are presumably supposed to make patients and children “feel better,” may be a concern for those attempting to justify the practice in the eyes of a culture grounded in the principles of expediency and comfort. But it is precisely the work of such a culture that psychoanalysis has been designed to counter. This is no less true nowadays than it was in the time of Freud. Sadly, the practice has become increasingly consolidated around the safety and satisfaction certain objects may bring to the process of reproduction and less around the complexity and unpredictability of our desires.
It is for this reason that, I believe, the parental metaphor has continued to hold great sway over the profession. Unlike all the other models that have enjoyed varying degrees of success (I am thinking of friendship, education, witnessing, or even healing) parenting comes closest to elevating repetition from a basic physiological need and/or a pathological compulsion to the status of a stable and overarching principle of psychic life.
However, and by the standards of not only this or that of the various leading orientations in psychoanalytic theory or practice but by those standards that the discipline itself has held as its foundational and distinguishing mark, repetition could not be any further from the either the truth of the unconscious or, for that matter, the history of its science. As regards the former, and even at those times when the unconscious is trapped in the most monotonous and debilitating of cyclical scenarios, it is still, and however minimally, an unconscious that dreams, phantasises, mourns, defers, displaces, remembers, thinks, and compromises; it is still an unconscious that works. It is a machine that affords a rest only once in its lifetime, in that very same ground where it finds its final resting place. Otherwise, it is in constant movement. As for the science of the unconscious, it has managed to thrive precisely because many of its practitioners, famous or otherwise, have resisted the institutional demands and methodological requirements for repetition and homogeneity.
This entry was posted on 26 April 2008 at 10:37 am and is filed under Dreams, Freud, History, Machines, MetaTherapeutics, Re-Parenting, Repetition, Schizoanalysis, Work . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
27 April 2008 at 12:01 pm
“it is still an unconscious that works.”
For most jobs work is characterized by repetition; the worker is ” trapped in the most monotonous and debilitating of cyclical scenarios.” Accordingly, would it be better to think of the unconscious as more akin to play? At the higher strata of the economy there are jobs which do pay people to dream, fantasize, think, compromise, etc. Might not the argument be made that, to the extent that it frees up the workings of the unconscious, psychoanalysis is a tool that’s particularly valuable to people who occupy the upper strata of the workforce — designers, managers, entrepreneurs, marketers, analysts?
27 April 2008 at 5:52 pm
I think we’ve often collapsed work onto repetitive drudgery and equated play with an inventive privilege. Lucky is the one who gets paid to play! No?
The economic parallels become fairly obvious here and many have drawn them to attack psychoanalysis as a privilege that only the few can afford and the even fewer still can use.
I don’t agree with that view. In my own clinical experience I have found that the assembly line worker is no more and no less likely to use analysis than the designer or enterpreneur.
The standard Guattari once identified for psychoanalysis makes a lot of sense to me: it “should simply give you a boost of virtuosity, like a pianist, for certain difficulties. It should give you more freedom, more humor, more willingness to jump from one scale of reference to another” (“So What”, 14). I think we could all use some of that “virtuosity.”
28 April 2008 at 10:01 am
I wasn’t interested in the economics of psychoanalysis as in the use of the term “work” to characterize what the unconscious is up to. You say: “But it is precisely the work of such a culture that psychoanalysis has been designed to counter,” then later you say that, even in the midst of seemingly endless repetitive cycles, “it is still, and however minimally, an unconscious that dreams, phantasises, mourns, defers, displaces, remembers, thinks, and compromises; it is still an unconscious that works.” I’m just wondering if it might not be better to say that it’s an unconscious that PLAYS.
Industrial work is characterized by repetition of tightly structured rational procedures. Intellectual workers are charged with constructing these repetitive routines — of constructing routines that are rational, organized, systematic, conscious. It seems to me that sychoanalysis wants to loosen these conscious routines and structures by letting the unconscious inject more free play into the self-system. I’m suggesting that, in giving the analysand permission to play, the analyst counters the rationalized work culture and the rationalized worker who plugs into this culture like part of the machinery. The analysand becomes increasingly able to “play with himself”: to become an agent who dismantles the machinery, putting the pieces back together in ways that are less efficiently productive and more exploratory.
28 April 2008 at 10:27 am
Fair enough. I think what threw me off was your last remark re designers, managers, and other “upper strata” types. I don’t think we fundamentally disagree; I am reluctant to make the distinction between work and play as you do though. I’m going to have to elaborate on that a fair bit and shall do so soon enough. :)
29 April 2008 at 9:42 am
My elaborations continue here.
22 June 2008 at 4:04 pm
The opposition between the two views of psychoanalysis that you point out above seems to be between the view that psychoanalysis is to make the analysand feel better, allowing him/her to reproduce (this view seems to be mired with the capitalist ethic); and the psychoanalysis that deals with (refuses to reduce) the “complexity and unpredictability of our desires,” the psychoanalysis that recognizes the unconscious as something that works, as (in Deleuze and Guattari’s terms) a machine.
Is this a real opposition? Or isn’t the latter the generalization of the former (the latter’s reduction, i.e. a fixation on one of the things that it does)? After all, reproduction is also work, right?
When you describe the unconscious as something that works, even as you seem to eschew the term “reproduction” to refer to what the unconscious does, do you find the term “production” (Deleuze and Guattari’s term) acceptable? Or is even that–i.e. looking at the unconscious as something that works, as something that has to work, something that has to do something–rather than just being a complex, incomprehensible space of ineffable desires–also “capitalistic”? That is to say, does it fall into the dominant discourse? Does it make of psychoanalysis a Royal science preserving the current State of things?