Judith Feher-Gurewich: Lacan in America or The Identity Crisis of Psychoanalysis
Moderation: Andreas Mayer
Sigmund-Freud-Museum, 11. Juni 2004

American Psychoanalysis has undergone many transformations since Freud brought the plague in the new continent in 1905. These transformations both affect and reflect the needs and ideals of a society that could no longer abide to the social and ideological implications of the Oedipal Complex and its apparent patriarchal undertones. Therefore the most powerful insights of the Freudian discovery have slowly been obscured by therapeutic approaches which blur the position of the father in the family configuration. The demise of Ego Psychology, the influence of Feminist theory, of attachment theory, of neuro-sciences, have shifted the focus from the unconscious to the intersubjective connection between mother and child. It is not surprising therefore that Lacanian theory was met with much resistance in the United States. The analysis of the causes of such resistance may also reveal the difficulty of defining precisely what is the object of psychoanalysis. What is the role of ideology in the shaping of psychoanalytic theories? Can psychoanalysis finds its bearings in light of social change without reverting to a reductionist or a normative approach? And more to the point today can Psychoanalysis find an ally in the neuro-sciences without totally submitting to their findings ?

Judith Feher-Gurewich is a psychoanalyst who practices in Cambridge, MA. She is an associated member at the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute and Society, and is an active member of Espace Analytique: Centre de recherches freudiennes, in Paris. She has run the Lacan Workshop at the Humanities Center at Harvard University for over 12 years and is presently an adjunct associate professor at the NYU post- doctoral program for psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. She has earned a Ph.D in sociology from Brandeis University and Law degrees from Columbia University ( New York) and Universite libre de Bruxelles. She is the co-éditor with Michel Tort of " Lacan and the New Wave of American Psychoanalysis" published by Other Press. She is the author of numerous articles on Lacanian theory and the relation between psychoanalysis and the social sciences. She is also the publisher of Other Press ( New York).

Andreas Mayer is a historian and sociologist of science, currently guest professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales and the Centre de sociologie, Ecoles des Mines in Paris. He has published books and articles on the history and sociology of psychoanalysis, notably "Mikroskopie der Psyche" (Wallstein Verlag 2002) and "Träume nach Freud" (Turia + Kant 2002, with Lydia Marinelli).

Eine Veranstaltung der Sigmund-Freud-Privatstiftung