The Place of the Radical in the Cure: Reply to Commentaries

Abstract

My reply to the commentaries first addresses the question of the relations between psychoanalytic theory and practice. Drawing on the ancient Greek concept of theoria, I expand on this question by evoking a third register, that of psychoanalysis as a collective that theorizes and practices in a particular socio-historical context. I argue for a view of psychoanalysis as a collective residing at the intersection of general discourse, social power, and subjectivity, a position that should be consciously considered as part of its ethos and its ethics. I examine in this context Stern's notion of clinical philosophy and the potential for a variety of dialogues between clinical psychoanalysis and critical theory. I look at the unique possibilities offered in this domain by relational psychoanalysis, and argue that mining these possibilities may require that we explore new kinds of theoretical narrative. Looking at the history of the psychoanalytic theoria, I raise the question of theoretical and clinical activism. Given its discursive and social position, what is the responsibility of psychoanalysis vis-à-vis individuals and societies? How might it address what Kafka refers to as collecting and uncollecting? I conclude in turning to psychoanalysis' own collective trauma, the destruction during World War II of its German-speaking centers, and the theoretical-political shifts that followed, as its central European pioneers became exiles in the now dominant centers of the United States and the United Kingdom. I suggest that our collective trauma might hold some clues for our contemporary limitations, and potentials.