Laura Sokolowsky’s survey of psychoanalysis under Weimar and Nazism explores how the paradigm of a ‘psychoanalysis for all’ became untenable as the Nazis rose to power. Mainly discussing the evolution of the Berlin Institute during the period between Freud’s creation of free psychoanalytic centres after the founding of the Weimar Republic and the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, the book explores the ideal of making psychoanalysis available to the population of a shattered country after World War I, and charts how the Institute later came under Nazi control following the segregation and dismissal of Jewish colleagues in the late 1930s. The book shows how Freudian standards resisted the medicalisation of psychoanalysis for purposes of adaptation and normalisation, but also follows Freud’s distinction between sacrifice (where you know what you have given up) and concession (an abandonment of position through compromise) to demonstrate how German psychoanalysts put themselves at the service of the fascist master, in the hope of obtaining official recognition and material rewards. Discussing the relations of psychoanalysis with politics and ethics, as well as the origin of the Lacanian movement as a response to the institutionalisation of psychoanalysis during the Nazi occupation, this book is fascinating reading for scholars and practitioners of psychoanalysis working today.

This volume explores a central paradox in the evolution of psychoanalytic thought and practice and the ways in which they were used. Why and how have some authoritarian regimes utilized psychoanalytic concepts of the self to envisage a new social and political order?

Obscenity, Psychoanalysis and Literature offers a fascinating psychoanalytic reading of four landmark obscenity trials involving the texts of D. H. Lawrence and James Joyce. By tracing the legal histories of Lawrence and Joyce, from censorship to their eventual redemption and transformation into champions of sexual freedom, the book draws a narrative of changing legal, literary and cultural investments. The book examines the four trials of these authors in detail to show how the literary text can function as a symbol of both life and death and the political uses of figuring them as such. Taking a psychoanalytic perspective, we can see how this narrative of sexual repression to sexual liberation may itself be an emergent form of the superego imperative to enjoy and consume. Through close readings of trial transcripts and archival documents, this book helps elucidate the fantasies operating throughout the trials: the unquestioned assumptions of the nature of sexuality, gender, drugs and truth. It demonstrates with clarity how, through its attempt to suppress the sexual, the law confronts its own nature as language and in doing so troubles the distinctions between law, literature and desire that it usually wishes to protect. Offering a uniquely psychoanalytic account of the obscenity trials of these authors, this text will be of great interest to scholars from across the fields of psychoanalysis, law and literature.

While traditional feminist readings on antagonism have pivoted around the sole axis of sex and/or gender, a broader and intersectional approach to antagonism is much needed; this book offers an innovative, feminist, and discursive reading on the Lacanian concept of sexual position as a way to problematize the concepts of political antagonism and political subjects. Can Lacanian psychoanalysis offer new grounds for feminist politics? This discursive mediation of Lacan's work presents a new theoretical framework upon which to articulate proposals for intersectional political theory. The first part of this book develops the theoretical framework, and the second part applies it to the construction of woman’s identity in European politics and economy. It concludes with notes for a feminist political and economic praxis through community currencies and municipalism. The interdisciplinary approach of this book will appeal to scholars interested in the fields of psychoanalysis, feminisms, and political philosophy as well as multidisciplinary scholars interested in discourse theory, sexuality and gender studies, cultural studies, queer theory, and continental philosophy. Students at master's and PhD level will also find this a useful feminist introduction to Lacanian psychoanalysis, discourse, and gender.

Making Mental Health: A Critical History historicises mental health by examining the concept from the ‘madness’ of the late nineteenth century to the changing ideas about its contemporary concerns and status. It argues that a critical approach to the history of psychiatry and mental health shows them to constitute a dual clinical-political project that gathered pace over the course of the twentieth century and continues to resonate in the present. Drawing on scholarship across several areas of historical inquiry as well as historical and contemporary clinical literature, the book uses a thematic approach to highlight decisive moments that demonstrate the stakes of this engagement in Anglo-American contexts. By tracing the (unfinished) history of institutions, the search for cures for psychiatric distress, the growing interest of the nation-state in mental health, the history of attempts to globalise psychiatry, the controversies over the politics of diagnostic categories that erupted in the 1960s and 1970s, and the history of theorising about the relationship between the psyche and the market, the book offers a comprehensive account of the evolution of mental health into a commonplace concern. Addressing key questions in the fields of history, medical humanities, and the social sciences, as well as in the psychiatry disciplines themselves, the book is an essential contribution to an ongoing conversation about mental distress and its meanings.

This text explores a set of key concepts in Marxist theory as developed and read by Lacan, demonstrating links and connections between Marxist thought and Lacanian practice. The book examines the complexity of these encounters through the structure of a comprehensive vocabulary which covers diverse areas, from capitalism and communism to history, ideology, politics, work, and family. Offering new perspectives on these concepts in psychoanalysis, as well as in the fields of political and critical theory, the book brings together contributions from a range of international experts to demonstrate the dynamic relationship between Marx and Lacan, as well as illuminating "untranslatable points" which may offer productive tension between the two. The entries trace the trajectory of Lacan’s appropriation of Marx’s concepts and analyses how they were questioned, criticized, and reworked by Lacan, accounting for the wide reach of two thinkers and worlds in constant homology. Each entry also discusses psychoanalytic debates relating to the concept and seeks to refine the clinical scope of Marx’s work, demonstrating its impact on the social and individual dimensions of Lacanian clinical practice. With a practical and structured approach, The Marx through Lacan Vocabulary will appeal to psychoanalysts and researchers in a range of fields, including political science, cultural studies, and philosophy.

Explores issues concerning the justification and legitimacy of psychoanalytic knowledge, and its relevance to political and social questions.