The history of attitudes toward Freud's adoption of free-associative discourse, as well as toward the significance of the clinical significance of the free-associative method, is critically reviewed. It is argued that, if one takes the re-inviting of repressed contents back into self-consciousness to be the defining process of psychoanalysis as a discipline (distinguishing it even from those psychotherapies that are based on psychoanalytic models of the mind), then free-associating is indeed the sine qua non of the psychoanalysis process. It is further suggested that whereas Freud's notion of libidinality radically subverts Cartesian dualism, our thinking about the significance of free-associative discourse has too frequently lapsed into the mistaken assumption that free-associating should only be about what “comes to mind.” In this context, a way of free-associating with the “bodymind” is described as an addendum to customary psychoanalytic practices. This augmented method remains faithful to Freud's practice of allowing the voice of sensuality to “join the conversation,” at the same time that its clinical implementation incorporates some of the wisdom concerning “breathwork” that comes from the yogic procedures for cultivating awareness.
The notion of a boundary as it pertains to psychoanalysis is explored, and the distinctiveness of psychoanalysis as a healing science that is ethical and amoral is discussed. The difference between such a science and psychotherapies, which are committed to ideological ideals of maturation and adaptation, is elucidated. Five characteristics of psychological boundaries are discussed, and the significance of each individual's >encounter< with the incest taboo is elaborated, in terms of the dynamic formation of the repression barrier. In this context, the strict ethicality and moral neutrality of psychoanalytic practice is understood in terms of the emancipative way in which free-associative discourse works and plays along the repression barrier.
Freud's pre-1914 texts demonstrate why he consistently asserted that his free-associative method was the sine qua non of his discipline. Prior to 1914, Freud's theorizing was intimately and inextricably connected to his lived experience with the discovery of this method. After 1914, he became more speculative in this thinking and writing; his models of the >mental apparatus< and its functioning drew increasingly on conceptual sources other than his experience with free association. The four fundamental coordinates of his discipline (the methodical disclosure that self-consciousness is repressive, the nonlinear >time of the mind,< the significance of our sensual embodiment or libidinality, and the formation of the repression barrier by the incest taboo) are all closely tied to free-associative experience. By contrast, post-1914 theoretical preoccupations (from object relations to the structural-functional model, and other formulations generated after Freud's life) are comparatively divorced from such experience. These conceptual edifices imply a conventional depiction of the theory–practice relationship, which is radically challenged by free-associative discourse. The notion of praxis is introduced as contesting the prevailing depiction of practice as an application of theory, and as serving to rescue psychoanalysis from the somewhat >sterile debates< over its scientific status and over the relevance of metapsychological speculation to clinical treatment. Against the normative ideology of theory and practice, the lived experience of free-associative discourse, with its potential for change and healing, can only be understood in terms of this notion of praxis, and this justifies Freud's claim to have initiated >a critical new direction in science.<
Reassessing Wilhelm Reich’s Mass Psychology: Libidinality, Authoritarianism and the Rise of Fascism
(2021)
Explanations for the contemporary rise of fascistic attitudes and activism solely in terms of historical, political, and socioeconomic determinants, because they tend to assume the individual is a >rational actor< , are often limited in their capacity to account for the significance of individual enchantment with, and passion for, authoritarian movements. The article argues for the urgent need for greater understanding of the psychodynamic allure of fascist and authoritarian politics. In this context, Wilhelm Reich’s 1933 essay, >The Mass Psychology of Fascism<, is reassessed. It is suggested that he presents a valid and profoundly significant thesis when he points to the connections among the attraction and ardor for fascism, societal oppression of sexuality, and the individual’s libidinal inhibitions, conflicts, and frustrations. But his essay needs substantial correction and modification in three respects: (1) His ideas about >natural sexuality<; (2) his assumptions about matriarchal bliss; and (3) his pervasive heteronormativity or homophobia. The critique of these three aspects is primarily theoretical but also touches on Reich’s life history to the extent that it contextualizes his blind spots. Finally, it is suggested that, in subsequent psychoanalytic writings on the dynamics of authoritarianism and the rise of fascism (from Theodor Adorno and Erich Fromm, to Christina Wieland and Jonathan Sklar), far too little attention has been paid to the libidinal underpinnings of these phenomena, to which Reich’s thesis should draw our attention.