which stubbornly resists premature closure.It does not, then, come as a great surprise that one of the more pointed This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
Employing Lacan's conception of desire, this paper explores the distinction between self and subjectivity as it emerges in the psychoanalytic situation. Challenging the notion of the self as a singular, coherent, and bounded entity, I demonstrate, through a review of Dora's case, that the "Freudian subject" is a cast of characters, a loose net of contextual, contradictory, and shifting identifications enveloping not a discrete core, but its very absence.
A close examination of Naso's (1992) commentary on my article (Loewenstein, 1992) reveals contradictions which point to its author's lack of a clear philosophical commitment. While Naso's statements appear to be informed by a relativistic perspective his argument is constrained by an unarticulated positivistic viewpoint. Naso's criticism of my style, which he describes as metaphoric and evocative, is examined. Contrary to Naso's claim, scientific style does not possess a privileged access to psychoanalytic life history. Moreover, the meanings and affective valences of historical events are not fixed and static, as Naso implies, but contextual and dynamic.I am pleased to have an opportunity to engage with Naso (1992) in a dialogue about the narrative dimension of psychoanalytic life histories, but I find his commentary on my article (Loewenstein, 1992) fraught with contradictions, which stem, I believe, from his epistemological confusion and ambivalence. Initially, Naso appears to be versed in the intellectual revolution brought on by relativism. A more careful reading of his commentary reveals, however, that his thinking is still markedly constrained by his unarticulated, but nevertheless omnipresent, positivistic perspective. In his response, as I would like shortly to demonstrate, Naso is engaged in a process of doing and undoing. He makes statements that are informed by a relativistic viewpoint, but then negates these insights with contradictory, positivistic assertions. His critique thus lacks a clear philosophical commitment.Requests for reprints should be sent to Era A. Loewenstein,
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