For and Against Psychoanalysis

Bol

In this thoroughly revised and updated second edition, Stephen Frosh examines the arguments surrounding psychoanalysis at some key points and provides an accessible introduction and critical guide to the current standing of psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis has always been a source of controversy throughout academic and popular culture. This controversy relates to questions of its true value, its scientific status, its politics and its therapeutic effectiveness. Psychoanalysis' defenders regard it as a body of knowledge built on careful and painstaking exploration of complex clinical encounters, offering more detailed and valid insights than can be obtained from other sources. Psychoanalysis is also a building block for considerations of human subjectivity in a wide range of academic disciplines and practical areas of work, from social theory to feminist studies, to counselling and psychotherapy. In this thoroughly revised and updated second edition of For and Against Psychoanalysis, Stephen Frosh examines the arguments surrounding psychoanalysis at some key points: its standing as a scientific theory, its value as a method of therapy, its potency as a contributor to debates around identity construction, gender, homosexuality and racism. At each of these points, there is something to be said 'for and against' psychoanalysis, with the balance depending on whether it deepens our understanding of human functioning, whether it is consistent with its own perceptions and theories or seems subservient to social pressures and norms, and whether it is coherent or muddled, evocative or sterile. For and Against Psychoanalysis provides an accessible introduction and critical guide to the current standing of psychoanalysis. It is essential reading for students of psychoanalysis, counselling, psychotherapy and psychology, and for social researchers and social theorists, as well as for those who are simply interested in what place psychoanalysis has in the modern world.

Bol Partner

Ever since Freud's work was first published, the principles and therapeutic efficacy of psychoanalysis have been called into question by many who seek to refute the major claims of the psychoanalytic movement. But in spite of the arguments of those who doubt its standing as a science, the emphasis the clinical practice of psychoanalysis places on acquiring truthful knowledge of human functioning has led to its being regarded as a potent contributor to debates around gender, identity construction and racism. Psychoanalysis is also regarded as a key element of academic disciplines as diverse as gender studies, psychotherapy and literary criticism for the insight it provides into human subjectivity. In this book, Stephen Frosh explores questions of meaning and interpretation in psychoanalysis, the aims and effectiveness of psychanalytic therapy, and the application of psychonalytic theory to social concerns. He shows how the elements of politics, therapy, subjectivity and science which exist concurrently within psychoanalysis, but on different planes, provide us with an enormous number of things to say about its value and limitations. In presenting arguments both for and against, the author enables us to appreciate more clearly what psychoanalysis has to offer, and what it does not. Essential reading for psychoanalysts, counsellors and psychotherapists, For and Against Psychoanalysis provides a first-class introduction to the ideas behind psychoanalysis and the place it occupies in the modern world.