Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Society MA

Course

In Uxbridge

Price on request

Description

  • Type

    Course

  • Location

    Uxbridge

  • Duration

    1 Year

  • Start date

    September

About the Course How are our behaviours influenced by unconscious motives? Which conflicts lie at the heart of contemporary individual and social problems? What explains our cultural and ideological obsession with power and violence? The

Facilities

Location

Start date

Uxbridge (Middlesex)
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Kingston Lane, UB8 3PH

Start date

SeptemberEnrolment now open

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Reviews

Subjects

  • Social Theory
  • Logic
  • Truth
  • Approach
  • Access
  • Works
  • Accounts
  • Art
  • IT Development
  • Social Change

Course programme

Course Content

The course engages with the issue of the relation between the psychoanalytic and social fields by exploring how to think a psychoanalytic social theory. Unlike many approaches to theorising the social in relation to the psychoanalytic field, it does not approach this question by adding "psychoanalysis" to an already existing theory of the social world, nor by reducing the social to the psychic.

Rather, it questions how we can provide a specifically psychoanalytic account of social relations. In thinking the relation between psyche and sociality, it engages with the issues raised by the psychoanalytic and feminist accounts of sexuality. These issues are taken and further explored in an examination of psychoanalysis as social theory, particularly as developed by Slavoj Zizek.

This work enables us to consider social relations as real, imaginary and symbolic relations between subjects. The social in the psychoanalytic field is rethought as constituted in phantasmatic and symbolic relations between subjects. Rethinking the social relation in this way raises questions about the relation between social change and the clinic, bringing the question of sociality within the field of clinical practice. In this way, the social relation is re-inscribed in the psychoanalytic relation.

The relation between social change and the clinic is also explored through the aesthetic object. If we take seriously the proposition that the world is psychoanalytic, then we can take the aesthetic object and treat it psychoanalytically.

Unlike much work in this area, this course does not begin with the particular disciplinary formulation of the art object as a function of art history, art criticism or a clinical reading. Instead, it questions how we can provide a psychoanalytic account of the aesthetic object and what a psychoanalytic practice in the field of art might be. We can only do this by starting with the knowledge acquired in psychoanalytic clinical practice. Nonetheless the psychoanalytic field of art has its own autonomy. This course and the work of the students on it will contribute to the development of that autonomous field. The knowledge derived from the encounter with the cultural object has implications for the clinic. After all, when Freud could not solve the riddle of sexual difference he told us to go to the poets for enlightenment. Cultural practices can signal social change. A psychoanalytic understanding of these practices can raise questions for clinical practice.

Typical Modules

Foundations of Psychoanalytic Theory*
Main topics of study: the origin and development of psychoanalysissexuality and the unconsciousneurosis, perversion, psychosisthe foundations of psychoanalytic techniqueFreud's case-studiesthe second topographythe work of Melanie Klein, Donald W Winnicott, Jacques Lacanpsychoanalytic theories of psychosispsychoanalytic views on addictionthe so-called ‘new symptoms' in contemporary society.

Clinical Interventions in Psychoanalysis*
Main topics of study: the case-study of the Rat Manthe case-study of the Wolf Manparadigmatic cases in the psychoanalytic literaturedifferential diagnosisthe direction of the psychoanalytic treatmentinterpretation, transference and countertransferencethe position of the analystpsychoanalysis and suggestionprofessional case presentations and their clinical difficultiesa case of auto-erotic asphyxiapsychoanalytic theory development and clinical practice.

Symptom and Society*
Main topics of study: Freud's cardinal works on culture and societythe Lacanian concept of the objectrecent psychoanalytic developments on the issues of groups, social identity and community lifethe relationship between contemporary symptoms and the so-called ‘decline of the paternal function' within Western societysadismmurderthe representation of violence and the question of ethicspsychoanalytic interpretations of representations of violence (Pasolini's ‘SalóLars von Trier's ‘Dogville'Michael Powell's ‘Peeping Tom').

Research Methods in Psychoanalysis
Main topics of study: psychoanalytic epistemologiesknowledge and truth in psychoanalysisinduction, deduction and abductionthe logic of psychoanalytic discoverythe validation of psychoanalytic theory and practicehow to set up a psychoanalytic research projectlogical reasoning and the anticipation of certaintythe object and the subject in psychoanalysishow to access psychoanalytic resourceshow to develop a psychoanalytic argumentthe interface between theory and practice in psychoanalysis.

*These modules are also available as CPPD (Continuing Personal and Professional Development) courses. To find out more information and to apply, please click .

Additional information

Special Features

  • We have an international research reputation, with particular expertise in areas such as neuropsychology, psychoanalysis, developmental psychology and social psychology.
  • The Centre for Cognition and Neuroimaging jointly owns a 3-Tesla fMRI scanner dedicated to research, as part of the ‘CU BIC ’ collaboration with Royal Holloway, Roehampton and Surrey Universities.
  • Academics have published high-impact journal articles and books on a broad range of subjects and have received research funding from a variety of bodies, including the EU, the Commission for Racial Equality, the Nuffield Foundation, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Home Office, the Department of Health, The Wellcome Trust, The Leverhulme Trust and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

(degree convenor) specialises in the study of development and disorders of sexualityhistory of psychology, psychiatry and psychoanalysispsychology of transgression and eccentricity. Current research projects involve an exploration of the impact of individual choice on the de

Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Society MA

Price on request