Psychoanalysis: a useful historical tool.
MacKenzie, Laurel
Joy Damousi & Robert Reynolds (eds), History on the Couch:
Essays in History and Psychoanalysis, Melbourne University Publishing,
2003
Almost ten years ago, Sally Alexander commented that
'[f]eminist history has been slow to draw on psychoanalysis--which
is odd given the--to some extent--shared preconceptions of
psychoanalysis and the women's movement' (p. 225). Indeed not
only feminist history, but the field of history as a whole, has tended
largely to avoid using the tools of psychoanalysis. The benefit to be
gained from using these tools of analysis, and the ways in which they
might be applied, form the theme of Damousi and Reynolds' book.
Rather than focussing on a single branch of psychoanalytic theory and
its application to historical analysis, this collection highlights the
diverse nature of the field of psychoanalysis, employing aspects of
psychoanalytic thought from classic Freudian analysis, to followers of
Klein and the ego psychologists, to the writings of Heinz Kohut, Donald
Winnicott and Cornelius Castoriadis, to Jacques Lacan and Slavoj
Zizek's Lacanian analyses.
Without placing psychoanalysis as an overreaching explanation, the
first section of the book sets it up as a useful tool that is
inextricably part of modern identity. Past and present, public and
private, are shown to be intertwined through explorations of the
historical relation of the mad to the sane, dreams to public life and
psychoanalysis to modernity itself. This last is a theme that re-appears
in articles throughout this collection, and is an essential theorisation in correcting erroneous ideas that history and psychoanalysis are
unrelated.
Criticisms of the use and relatedness of history and psychoanalysis
are also raised in the first section of this book. Reynolds argues the
usefulness of both psychoanalytic and nonpsychoanalytic approaches, in
looking at the relation between psychoanalysis and Queer theory.
Similarly Maggie Nolan argues that psychoanalysis is more useful when
seen as a tool among many, rather than as the sole explanatory force for
individual or social motivation. This lends a nice balance to the
uncritical explanations of psychoanalytic praxis that inform the other
articles of the book--especially as Nolan uses psychoanalysis' own
tools and language to criticise the discourse itself.
One of the tensions between psychoanalysis and history comes from
the fact that, unlike history, psychoanalysis often stresses
atemporality. Many of the articles in the second section of this
collection address this point, arguing that psychoanalysis lets us see
useful patterns in (especially personal) history that the linear nature
of traditional historiography can sometimes elide. Judith Brett utilises
the theories of Melanie Klein and followers of object relations theory
to argue that childhood is not consigned to the past, but consists of
some patterns that can be found in the present also. Christopher Forth
delves deeply into psychoanalytic theory, especially the phenomenon of
'othering' in his examination of discourses of health and how
they affect the construction of the 'phallic body', and how
this affects lived experience.
Although the premise of this book is to rectify the omission of
psychoanalysis from history, I found some of the biographical section
made it hard to see how psychoanalysis could relate to history in a
broader sense. The third section, the most complex of the book, amended
this amply in its examination of individuals' relation to national
identities, and how these inform each other.
Miriam Dixon looks at questions of especially Australian national
identity, asking where this comes from, and how a cohesive national
identity persists. She utilises aspects of Kleinian theory, as well as
the works of Erik Erikson, Castoriadis and Dorothy Dinnerstein to look
at themes of splitting versus integration and the formation of the
social imaginary. This complex article draws widely on object relations
theory to explain and analyse national identity, but the process by
which the national/social is transmitted to individuals remains
unclear--this could be a problem inherent in the theory itself, as she
describes the process as 'inexplicable' (p. 128). Marjorie
O'Loughlin's analysis of a similar question in chapter eleven
solves this problem by looking at individuals' attachment to place,
which ties embodied experience to national identity.
O'Loughlin's piece is an ultimately rewarding discussion of
the applicability of a fusion of object relations theory with a
phenomenological account of lived experience to a reading of
people's attachment to place as a major aspect of national
identity. This article returns psychoanalysis applicability to lived
experience. By fusing phenomenology and object relations theory,
O'Loughlin demonstrates that psychoanalysis need not, after all, be
separated from day-to-day experience.
In chapter twelve Nicola Nixon employs Zizek's Lacanian
analyses of the national imaginary to examine ways in which the Balkan
conflict has been portrayed by Western commentators as an escalation of
tribal warfare. Zizek's favourite reversal, whereby the symbolic
invades the real, is seen here in an article dense with political
analysis and informed by psychoanalytic strategies for revealing
manipulated images.
The final section in this book stresses the reliance on narrative
common to both history and psychoanalysis, looking at the different ways
in which narratives in psychoanalysis and history inform and influence
each other. In chapter thirteen, Christina Twomey describes lost history
as recovered by the publication of the stories of victims of
post-traumatic stress disorder, following their internment in Chinese
prison camps. Since the time of Sigmund Freud, psychoanalysis has been
known as the talking cure. Twomey points out that the publication and
recognition of these people's stories simultaneously effects this
cure and allows otherwise unknown history to be recorded. Rose
Lucas' exploration, in chapter fifteen, of Margaret Attwood's
Alias Grace was my favourite chapter of this book, centring on the theme
of how discourses of literature and psychoanalysis are both centrally
concerned with the construction of a narrative.
This collection works extremely well as an anthology. It
demonstrates well that the very fragmentary nature of psychoanalysis
itself allows different theorisations and readings to emerge, readings
that allow us to learn more from history and restore psychoanalysis to
its deserved place as a useful tool of analysis, one which is not a
historical curiosity but irrevocably part of the modern world.
Other works mentioned: Sally Alexander, 'Feminist History and
Psychoanalysis', in Becoming a Woman: And other Essays in 19th and
20th Century Feminist History, Virago, London, 1994.
LAUREL MACKENZIE
Gender Studies Program
Department of History
University of Melbourne
