Psychoanalytic theory and psychology: conditions of possibility for clinical and cultural practice

Parker, Ian (2008) Psychoanalytic theory and psychology: conditions of possibility for clinical and cultural practice. Theory & psychology, 18 (2). pp. 147-165. ISSN 0959-3543

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Abstract

This special issue addresses a series of critical theoretical questions concerning the emergence and history of psychoanalysis in different cultural settings. Contributors from different parts of the world bring their particular local vantage points to bear on traditions of psychoanalysis, treated here as forms of clinical practice and as an array of cultural representations of internal mental states and social relations. The theoretical focus is on the status of psychoanalysis as a form of knowledge (positioned alongside and in contradistinction to psychology), on the nature of knowledge in psychology (of others by practitioners and researchers), and on forms of popularized self-knowledge (including the relationship between that self-knowledge and professional claims). The inclusion of such material in a psychology journal begs a series of questions about the relationship between psychoanalysis and psychology and the historical conjuncture at which it would seem appropriate to re-examine this relationship. This opens the way to a critical engagement with psychoanalysis in different parts of the world.