In `Psychoanalysis
and Cultural Theory'., the topic of this essay has been defined thus: 'it is...
psychoanalysis after the feminist rereading of Lacan's rereading of Freud' (1).
However, it is necessary to discuss some of Sigmund Freud's original theories before
we can come to this conclusion. This is especially in the light of the recent
`Without Walls' programme: 'Bad Ideas of the Twentieth Century: Freudism'. The
title speaks for itself. If one is to defend psychoanalysis's place in
Cultural Studies, then one must be aware of the basic criticisms that have been
made of Freud's theory. Channel Four's `Without Walls' documentary
provocatively suggests that all of the phenomena encountered in Freud's work
are nonexistent: 'there may have been no results to generalise' (2).
It would be an understatement to say that the above quotation is
an `attack' on Freud's methods. If, as Frank Cioffi suggests, Freud
`unconsciously' fabricated the results of his test cases, then the place of
psychoanalysis in any cultural institution would have to be questioned.
Admittedly, the `Without Walls' offensive makes no direct reference to Cultural
Studies. Instead, it concentrates on dissecting psychoanalysis's influence on
America, where, the programme claims, as many as ten million people could be in
therapy. Peter Swales, an historian of' psychoanalysis, leads
2
the
offensive. At one point, he stops in a taxi outside the New York Psychoanalytic
Institute. The Institute, Swales claims, has had a pronounced influence on
American (hence Western), life. He portrays those inside as being part of a
secret Cabal, talking to each other in their own clandestine language, barring
outsiders from participating. Yet it could be argued that there is nothing very
strange about this, or very unique. One can recall Stuart Hall's account of how
Cultural Studies was regarded with the utmost suspicion by the other
disciplines at Birmingham (3), being removed to the temporary huts at the
periphery of the campus.
Swales
goes on to mention the case histories of Woody Allen and Marilyn Monroe, both
portrayed as those who have suffered at the hands of psychoanalysis. The
psychoanalyst is currently being portrayed as a monster in all kinds of media,
from those who did not enjoy `a nice Chianti' with Hannibal Lector in `Silence
of the Lambs', to Paul Britton, the psychoanalyst who entrapped an apparently
innocent man in the Rachel Nickell murder case. There are also worrying news
reports of `psychometric' tests, which are being used to
`hire and fire' people. Even Robbie Coltrane's portrayal of `Cracker' is from
un-problematic. This is only the perception of psychoanalysis in popular
culture, but one which any study of culture should not ignore. Distorted by
Cioffi into becoming the `screw Mommy, kill Daddy complex' (4), it is little
wonder that such a picture emerges.
3
Jacqueline
Rose presents a rather different historiography of psychoanalysis. She claims
that, in Britain at least, the work of Freud was disseminated rather slowly,
pointing out that the Pelican Freud did not appear until 1974. Her case would
appear to be that this is `a culture which has never yet been fully able to
heed its voice' (5). As the `Without Walls' programme readily admits, there is
very little, or no, `real' Freud in the variety of therapies available in
America. There, it has been bastardised into numerous `McFreud takeaways', each
with its own slight derivation from the practice of psychoanalysis. In the face
of such an onslaught, one very feeble defence of psychoanalysis could be that
it deserves a place in Cultural Studies on the grounds of such derivations. You
could, for instance, study the psychoanalytic films of Forties' Hollywood, such
as `Spellbound'. Study them and muse why such `absurd' ideas were ever taken
seriously.
Yet
it may be that such a response is only to be expected, and it may even be
desired. Jacqueline Rose argues that psychoanalysis is not a single
institution, and that there are disagreements within it (6). Psychoanalysis is
a far more complex body than Swales would have us believe. The theories of
Sigmund Freud have been continuously criticised and amended by other
psychoanalysts from the very beginning, Carl Jung being a notable critic. As
noted above, such
4
criticism
may even be welcomed, as Malcolm Bowie writes of Jacques Lacan:
`The
worst thing that could happen to psychoanalysis for him, is not that it should
be ignored or vilified but that it should be thought to be right, complete,
consummated, self-subsistent or unanswerable' (7).
Erich
Fromm provides an admirable defence of Freud. His argument is that Freud was
very much a figure of his age. Therefore, his theory cannot help but be tainted
by the prejudices of the time:
`A
society in which women were truly equal to men, in which men did not rule
because of their alleged physiological and physical superiority, was simply
unthinkable for Freud' (8).
Thus,
some of the flaws of psychoanalysis can be seen with the very great benefit of
hindsight. The new thinker can only express thoughts in the available
vocabulary, through the ideology of his culture. What his students need to do
is to amend those theories bound by old fashioned convention, without treating
his every word as sacrosanct, whilst recognizing at the same time that the
revision will inevitably be flawed for the same reasons.
At
the centre of Freud's reasoning was the' Oedipus Complex. This is of interest
to Cultural Studies even without the rereading of Lacan and others. Oedipus is
Freud's theory of the socialization of the subject. With the father's
prohibition of incest, as Terry Eagleton writes, comes the subject's first
acceptance and recognition of
5
authority
(9). This leads to the creation of the `Superego', the stern conscience which checks
all our actions. In the same tone, Freud has a rather pessimistic view of
civilization. Within his model, the subject faces almost continual repression
with little reward. The ego has to balance the `pleasure principle' with the
`reality principle'. Our natural inclination is to pleasure, but frustration
arises when we realise that pleasure is not a necessity for survival. As
Eagleton quotes Freud,'the motive of human society is in the last resort an
economic one' (10). If the ego becomes too repressed under such an ominous
burden, then it faces the danger of neurosis. The aim of psychoanalysis is to
cure that neurosis. According to Freud, we all suffer from repression. There is
the possibility that Freud was influenced by Marxism, especially when we discover
that he `looked with evident favour upon attempts to abolish.. . the
institutions of nationhood and property' (11). Even if, as Richard Wollheim
writes, Freud had no coherent social theory (12), he is worth a place in
cultural studies for the few cultural pronouncements he did make. After all, he
did attempt to question the whole value of civilization itself (13).
Robert Young gives a more detailed account of psychoanalysis' encounter
with Marxism. As Young writes, psychoanalysis has merged, on various occasions,
with other
6
bodies
of thought in Cultural theory, but `liaisons have tended to be short and not
always sweet' (14). For instance, James Donald arranged the series of ICA talks
present in `Psychoanalysis and Cultural Theory' partly because of a discernible
hostility to psychoanalysis from `the British intellectual left' (15), in 1987.
In his introduction, he notes the role of Juliet Mitchell in the rehabilitation
of psychoanalysis. At first sight, a marriage between Feminism and psychoanalysis
does not seem possible, considering the prejudices that Fromm observed against
women in Freud's work. As late as 1968, according to Young, women still viewed
Freud as one of the worst patriarchs (16). It required Jacques Lacan's
Structuralist and Post-Structuralist rereading of Freud to provide a crossing
point.
Lacan's
version of the Oedipus Complex involves the child recognising sexual
distinction with the entry of the father. This distinction is denoted by the
`Phallus':
`It
is only by accepting the necessity of sexual difference. . . that the child,
who has previously been unaware of such problems, can become properly
"socialized' (17).
As
Eagleton writes, the child goes through a post-structuralist anxiety. Instead
of there being absolute, concrete signifieds, the child has to cope with the
realization that there is only an endless chain of signifiers. Something can
only mean by being what it is
7
not:
'This potentially endless movement from one signifier to another is what Lacan
means by desire,' (18). Desire is dependent on a lack, which it is always
trying to succumb.
For
Freud, there is a desire for non-existence, a state of being where the ego can
no longer be harmed. Lacan's emphasis is different, for the original lost object
which is desired is the mother's body. However, this is a point at which Lacan
is criticised, rather than embraced by feminism. As Jacqueline Rose writes, the
French deconstructionist feminist and analyst, Luce Irigaray, attacks Lacan
because `the Freudian account is seen to cut women off from an early and
untroubled psychic unity' (19). This Vision of a psychic unity with the mother
is a popular one for feminists, and one which some would like to re-establish.
Lacan has also been censured by feminists due to the `phallocentrism' of his
arguments. However, he would argue that the phallus is only an empty signifier
of' difference.
The
theory of difference is one of the attractions of psychoanalysis to feminism.
It overthrows the Freudian concept of women: the Oedipus complex is no longer
seen as a way of putting women in their allotted space. With Lacan, there is no
`coherent ego' (20), thus a more complex subjectivity is allowed. While this
does create difficulties, as Jacqueline Rose writes (namely that the long
sought for female `subject' is lost), it does have
8
many
other advantages. It allows each individual woman to be recognised in her
own right, and not just part of some group of `women' with no distinguishing
features between them, an blemish which has occurred in past feminist practice.
It allows those on the margins more of a role and voice, such as black and
lesbian feminists.
There
is also the potential for other marginal groups to articulate their concerns.
It is related to what Octave Mannoril writes about decolonization, to the
Freudian concept of narcissism in the case of American blacks:'They are
violently rejecting the universalism of the liberals, and it is in their
uniqueness as blacks that they want to be recognized' (21). Psychoanalysis has
also been used by feminists to create new interpretations of literary texts,
because, traditionally, the novel has been one place where women have been
allowed a creative voice. However, Young introduces Shoshana Felman's critique
of psychoanalytic literary criticism (22). Felman sees this as problematic, for
many of psychoanalysis' concepts derive from literature, most obviously the
Oedipus complex. Since there is nothing that the discipline can learn from the
novel, such an analysis would be theoretically valueless. There is a
possibility though that there could be an analysis based on the
`interimplication' of the two. Terry Eagleton is similarly dismissive at past
attempts at a psychoanalytic
9
literary
criticism:'Psychoanalytical criticism.., can do more than hunt for phallic
symbols' (23).
A
much more successful application of Lacanian psychoanalysis has been the study
of film, especially with the attempt of `Screen' to establish film theory in
Britain (24). It has also provided another technique with which to study
popular culture, as Constance Penley proves in her entertaining account of
`Star Trek' fandom (25). Perhaps no higher confirmation of psychoanalysis'
place in Cultural Studies can be the revelation that Stuart Hall himself has
used it (26). Althusser certainly revealed the possibilities of such an
analysis in his famous essay, `Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses'
(27). Psychoanalysis has probably played a liberating role, in that it has
gotten us to vocalize what we would otherwise had kept hidden. It legitimated
the facing of the `absurd' (28), and actively encouraged the creation of new
thought. Thus we are more able to question the ideology of the day, allowing
much more potent critiques of colonialism and patriarchy.
10
FOOTNOTES
(1) Donald,
James, 'Psychoanalysis and Cultural Theory', (London, 1991) p.
2.
(2) Cioffi,
Frank, 'Without Walls', (London, 1993).
(3) Hall, Stuart, `The Emergence of Cultural Studies and the Crisis of the
Humanities', October, 53 (1990) p.13.
(4) Cioffi, Frank, 'Without Walls'.
(5) Rose, Jacqueline, `Femininity and its Discontents', Sexuality in the
Field P. 1O3
(6) Rose, `Femininity', P. 93
(7) Bowie, Malcolm, 'Lacan', (London, 1991) p.196.
(8) Fromm, Erich, 'Greatness and Limitations of Freud's Thought', (London,
1980) p.6.
(9) Eagleton, Terry, 'Literary Theory', (Oxford, 1989) p.156.
(10) Eagleton, 'Literary Theory', p.151.
(11) Wollheim, Richard, 'Freud', (London, 1971) p.233.
(12) Wollheim, 'Freud', p.219.
(13) Woliheim 'Freud', p.220.
(14) Young, Robert, `Psychoanalysis and Political Literary Theories',
Psychoanalysis and Cultural Theory, (London, 1991) p.139.
(15) Donald, 'Psychoanalysis', p.2.
(16) Young, `Political Literary Theories', p.149.
(17) Eagleton, 'Literary Theory', p.165.
(18) Eagleton, Literary Theory, p.167.
(19) Rose, `Femininity', P.102
(20) Rose, `Femininity', P.93
11
(21) Hannoni, Octave, `Psychoanalysis and the Decolonization of Mankind',
Freud: The Man, His World, His Influence, (London, 1972) p.95.
(22) Young, `Political Literary Theories', p.143.
(23) Eagleton, 'Literary Theory', p.179.
(24) Donald, 'Psychoanalysis', p.2.
(25) Penley, Constance, `Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and the Study of
Popular Culture', Cultural Studies, (London, 1992) pp.479-500.
(26) Donald, 'Psychoanalysis', p.3.
(27) Eagleton, 'Literary Theory', p.171.
12
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BOOKS
Bowie,
Malcolm, 'Lacan', London, 1991.
Donald,
James, ed., 'Psychoanalysis and Cultural Theory', London, 1991.
Eagleton,
Terry, 'Literary Theory', Oxford, 1989.
Fromm,
Erich, 'Greatness and Limitations of Freud's Thought', London,
1980.
Gallop, Jane, 'Feminism and Psychoanalysis', Hong Kong, 1983.
Grossberg
et al., ed., 'Cultural Studies', London, 1992.
Miller,
Jonathan, ed., 'Freud: The Man, His World, His Influence', London,
1972.
Wollheim,
Richard, 'Freud', London, 1971.
ARTICLES
Hall,
Stuart, `The Emergence of Cultural Studies and the Crisis of the Humanities',
October, 53 (1990).
DOCUMENTARIES
Jones,
Michael, `Bad Ideas of the Twentieth Century: Freudism', Without Walls, Channel
Four 1993.
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