Description
Book SynopsisWhy do some people still choose psychoanalysis -- Freud's so-called talking cure -- when numerous medications are available that treat the symptoms of psychic distress so much faster? Roudinesco tackles this difficult question, exploring what she sees as a "depressive society": an epidemic of distress being addressed only by an increasing reliance on prescription drugs.
Trade ReviewWritten in an accessible style and designed to persuade nonspecialists of the continuing validity of the Freudian field, Why Psychoanalysis merits attention by all those who have a personal or professional stake in mental health. American Imago A courageous book. -- Marc Auge Le Monde Bubbling with energy. Elle (Paris) Roudinesco foresees the establishment of a human science where the figure of the Socratic master is internalized, allowing for an ongoing and creative reworking of individual and social meaning. This vision emerges as the important and elegant outcome of Why Psychoanalysis? -- Stephen E. Sternbach Psychoanalytic Quarterly
Table of ContentsPart I. The Depressive Society 1. The Defeat of the Subject 2. The Medications of the Mind Part II. The Great Quarrel Over the Unconscious 3. The Soul Is Not a Thing 5. Frankenstein's Brain Part III. The Future of Psychoanalysis 4. Behavior-Modification Man 6. The "Equinox Letter" 7. Freud Is Dead in America 8. A French Scientism 9. Science and Psychoanalysis 10. Tragic Man 11. Universality, Difference, Exclusion 12. Critique of Psychoanalytic Institutions