Postmodern Jitters and Paradigms Lost: Reply to Review Essays by Lewes and O'Connor

  • Postmodern theory and critiques currently exert a considerable influence on psychoanalytic theory, particularly in regard to the revision of a theory of sexuality and gender. This article reviews some of the critiques and alternative views of sexuality proposed by various postmodern theorists such as Butler, Jameson, Baudrillard, and Foucault. After conducting a critical comparison of these critiques and alternatives with contemporary analytic revisionist theory, I contend that, despite the useful aspects of postmodernism's critical cultural perspective, some postmodern positions run directly counter to certain key psychoanalytic tenets about human agency and the existence of an inner psychic world or selfhood. Furthermore, I believe that, despite the laudable politics of many postmodern writers to promote a greater diversity of nonpathologized sexual experience, the atrophied views of agency and selfhood depicted in the postmodern writings reviewed in this essay cannot support an approach that is concerned with clinical treatment or with describing processes of psychological transformation. A case vignette is provided illustrating the main arguments of the paper.

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Metadaten
Author:Jennifer McCarroll
Parent Title (English):Psychoanalytic Dialogues Vol. 09 (1999), pp. 505-530.
Document Type:Articles
Language:English
Year of first Publication:1999
Release Date:2017/11/20
Format:xerox upon request / Fotokopie auf Anfrage
IdNo:McCarroll_J_1999
Erich Fromm's Library and Erich Fromm Archive:Articles / Artikel
Licence (German):
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