Journal Facts

Journal
Auto/Biography
ISSN
0967-5507
Volume
13
Issue
2

Article Facts

Title
Review Article: The Troubles with Psychoanalysis
DOI
10.1191/0967550705ab031ra
Author
Shelley Day Sclater (University of East London, UK, S.D.Sclater at uel.ac.uk)
Pages
161-173

Article Links

Review Article: The Troubles with Psychoanalysis

Shelley Day Sclater (University of East London, UK, S.D.Sclater at uel.ac.uk)

DOI: 10.1191/0967550705ab031ra

Abstract

This paper reviews a series of short books on ideas in psychoanalysis. Its main focus is the relevance of psychoanalytic ideas to auto/biographical practices. It discusses some common ambivalences about psychoanalysis and its applications to understanding life stories. Does psychoanalytic thinking give us unique access to hidden truths about human lives and human nature? Or is psychoanalysis just a useful language for exploring the vicissitudes of stories? Or could it be a novel language that we can use to invent new stories, or new dimensions to stories? The paper concludes that, for many auto/biographers, the great value of psychoanalysis lies, not in enabling us to reveal the `real' selves of our subjects, but as a tool to create new spaces for thinking about both selves and stories.

References

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