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Thursdays, 6.30-8.30pm
Tutor: Keith Barrett BA PhD
Psychoanalysis was initiated by Freud, then transformed by a series of powerful creative figures who both extended and deepened its range, opening new intellectual horizons as they applied its methods to new problems and new fields. We will focus on four leading innovators, carefully examining their criticisms of Freud and the manner in which they modified his theories and therapeutic practice. In this way, the course will give an overview of the development of psychoanalysis across its first century and into the beginning of its second. While intended to be accessible to beginners, it will also stimulate those who already have some knowledge of the field.
(The course is self-contained – as is ‘Introducing Freud at the Freud Museum’ which precedes it in the autumn term. The two courses can be taken in either order, or as ‘stand alone’ modules, but complete beginners wanting a thorough introduction to psychoanalysis should take ‘Introducing Freud’ first, then follow on with the present course.)
Week 1: Jung (1): Introduction to the course: The nature and status of psychoanalysis. The conflict between Freud and Jung over the foundations of psychoanalysis. Freud’s ‘Totem and Taboo’ versus Jung’s ‘Symbols of Transformation’.
Week 2: Jung (2): Freud’s relation to Schopenhauer and Jung’s relation to Nietzsche, and how this leads to Jung’s theory of ‘individuation’ and the self, versus Freud’s conception of the ego and the ‘personal’ unconscious. Jung’s ‘Personality Types’ and the requirement of the ‘training analysis’ for all analysts.
Week 3: Jung (3): Jung’s view of development across the life-cycle: his interpretation of Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’. The function of religion, and of art, according to Jung and Freud. Relationships and sexuality in the Jungian perspective.
Week 4: Klein (1): Klein’s approach to the psychoanalysis of children versus the approach of Anna Freud. The beginnings of the Kleinian revolution in psychoanalysis: the world of the infant within the child. The challenge to the Freudian conception of the Oedipus complex.
Week 5: Klein (2): Klein’s interpretation of Freud’s ‘Eros’ and ‘Thanatos’, and her view of how these conflicting forces play themselves out in the inner world of the very young child. The ‘Paranoid-Schizoid position’ and the ‘Depressive position’. Klein’s ‘Envy and Gratitude’. Klein and Bion.
Week 6: Klein (3): Klein’s view of sexuality and gender, and her critique of Freud’s view of the difference between the sexes. ‘Penis envy’ and ‘Womb envy’: a ‘mother centred’ psychoanalysis, as opposed to the ‘father centred’ psychoanalysis of Freud. Karen Horney’s critique of Freud. The Kleinian view of art and of society.
Week 7: Winnicott (1): Winnicott’s critique of Klein: the crucial importance of the early environment in the development of the infant. ‘Primary maternal preoccupation’, ‘Holding’, ‘Handling’ and ‘Personalization’ in early development. The ‘true self’, the ‘false self’, and ‘going on being’.
Week 8: Winnicott (2): Winnicott’s concept of the ‘Transitional Object’: transitional phenomena and the ‘intermediate area of experience’. Winncott’s understanding of art, culture and religion. Play and the nature of psychotherapy.
Winnicott, Bion and Beckett.
Week 9: Winnicott (3): A Winnicottian view of the difference between the sexes. Gender and science; science versus art; the two cultures and their relation to sexuality. The nature of psychoanalysis, and psychotherapy, and their relation to science and to art.
Week 10: Lacan (1): The Lacanian revolution: the function of speech and language in psychoanalysis, and the fateful significance of the ‘mirror stage’. How the unconscious is ‘structured like a language’.
Week 11: Lacan (2): Lacan’s three ‘orders’: the imaginary, symbolic and real. The primacy of the symbolic: psychoanalysis as the study of our relationship to language. The Lacanian understanding of neurosis and psychosis.
Week 12: Lacan (3): ‘The meaning of the phallus’: Lacan’s view of sexuality and gender. A return to a ‘father centred’ psychoanalysis? Irigaray’s critique of Freud and Lacan. Jacqueline Rose on Lacan and Klein. Lacan on Love.
