Why Psychoanalysis?

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by Elisabeth Roudinesco,

Translated by Rachel Bowlby

Columbia University Press

Due/Published November 2001, 184 pages, cloth

ISBN 0231122020

Why do some people still choose psychoanalysis--Freud's so-called talking cure--when numerous medications are available that treat the symptoms of psychic distress so much faster? Elisabeth Roudinesco tackles this difficult question, exploring what she sees as a "depressive society": an epidemic of distress being addressed only by an increasing reliance on prescription drugs. 

Far from contesting the efficacy of new medications like Prozac, Zoloft, and Viagra in alleviating the symptoms of any number of mental or nervous conditions, Roudinesco argues that the use of such drugs fails to solve patients' real problems. From the man who takes Viagra without ever wondering why he is suffering from impotence, to the woman who is given antidepressants to deal with the loss of a loved one, to the adolescent experiencing a variety of mental disorders, who is simply prescribed Ritalin, Roudinesco sees a society that is obsessed with efficiency and desperate for the quick fix.

She argues that "the talking cure" and pharmacology represent not just different approaches to psychiatry but different worldviews. The rush to treat symptoms is itself symptomatic of an antiseptic and depressive culture in which thought is reduced to the firing of neurons and desire is just a chemical secretion. In contrast, psychoanalysis testifies to human freedom and the power of language.

Contents


• Translator's Note
• Preface
• Notes
• Index
• Part I. The Depressive Society
• 1. The Defeat of the Subject
• 2. The Medications of the Mind
• Part II. The Great Quarrel Over the Unconscious
• 3. The Soul Is Not a Thing
• 5. Frankenstein's Brain
• Part III. The Future of Psychoanalysis
• 4. Behavior-Modification Man
• 6. The ''Equinox Letter''
• 7. Freud Is Dead in America
• 8. A French Scientism
• 9. Science and Psychoanalysis
• 10. Tragic Man
• 11. Universality, Difference, Exclusion
• 12. Critique of Psychoanalytic Institutions

Review

"Psychoanalysis testifies to an advance of civilization over barbarism. It restores the idea that human speech is free and that human destiny is not confined to biological being. Thus in the future it should occupy its full place, next to the other sciences, to contest the obscurantist claims seeking to reduce thought to a neuron or to equate desire with a chemical secretion." - Elisabeth Roudinesco, Why Psychoanalysis?

Why psychoanalysis if we can take a pill and make our problems go away? Elisabeth Roudinesco, perhaps best known for her biography of Jacques Lacan, offers a thoughtful and, given the current climate, courageous account of why psychoanalysis is still necessary and the dangerous implications of our reliance on drugs. She argues that rather than confronting our problems and trying to understand their causes through psychoanalysis and language, psychopharmacological drugs offer non-confrontational solutions. Roudinesco recognizes the value of drugs in many cases but also worries that it chips away at what makes us human: "The power of the medicines of the mind is thus the symptom of a modernity tending toward the abolition of not only the desire for liberty but also the very idea of confronting experience. Silence is therefore preferable to language, which is a source of distress and shame." Roudinesco argues that we now live in a "depressive culture," characterized by a preponderance of individuals suffering from depression and a culture that is apathetic and non-confrontational. Roudinesco's work is a passionate and original discussion of psychopharmacological drugs that looks beyond claims of efficiency to examine how they shape concepts of the subject. She also presents an historical account of how psychoanalysis and drugs have shaped our ideas of the individual and society. Whether or not you agree with Roudinesco (you'll probably find yourself doing a bit of both) Why Psychoanalysis is a superbly written and challenging counter-weight to conventional thought about drugs and the failings of Freud.

Also by Elisabeth Roudinesco Lacan

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