Parrhesia, Phaedra, and The Polis: Anticipating Psychoanalytic Free Association as Democratic Practice

Gentile, Jill

doi:10.1002/psaq.12021

Cited by 12 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 23 publications

(15 reference statements)

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“…(In fact, I believe that our historic tendency to refer to “free association” as such has obscured its natural resonances with our democratic privilege and free speech practice.) As I argue elsewhere at greater length, free association and free speech, despite their differences, share much beyond that essential, if aspirational, adjective free (see Gentile, 2015, in press). Both free association and free speech require genuine human collaboration and compromise.…”

Section: Experimentation and Enlightened Speechmentioning

confidence: 91%

What is special about speech?

Gentile

2016

Psychoanalytic Psychology

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Sigmund Freud sustained a commitment to his scientific dream for psychoanalysis, but remained more conflicted about his “liberal” dream, his quest for individual emancipation born of truth-seeking discourse. Yet both dreams drew inspiration from an Enlightenment ethos of experimentation, with a quintessentially human ingredient: free speech. The American Founding Fathers, prior to Freud but similarly influenced by Enlightenment roots, also sustained an ethos of experimentation with free speech—the exercise of which was seen as essential to human (individual and collective) liberty. While most arguments defending the special status of speech appeal to the tenets of Enlightenment philosophy, neither psychoanalysis nor democracy has a well-articulated theory of why speech is accorded a privileged status. But both did establish fundamental rules that instantiated a bounded space of ambiguity for the unbounded exercise of free speech and truthful discourse. By so doing, psychoanalysis and democracy, by enabling the primacy of speech, both joined experimental and hermeneutic aspects, scientific and liberal dreams, and empiricist and emancipatory truths; and both remain mutually relevant despite having seldom been treated as such.

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Section: Experimentation and Enlightened Speechmentioning

confidence: 91%

What is special about speech?

Gentile

2016

Psychoanalytic Psychology

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“…As we will discuss later, the desire for our speech to be recognized is always ambiguous and comes with a cost. As Gentile (2015) puts it:We (as speakers) both fear and desire that we have a listener, that we will be heard, that we will hear ourselves for a first time. And we (as listeners) might (if not must) hear that which we would prefer to remain shrouded in silence—unsurprised, protected.…”

Section: Agency’s Coming-into-beingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In psychoanalytic therapy, revelatory speech does not concern the beautiful, kosher side of life, but rather its shame-loaded, guilt-inducing aspects. This is hardly surprising, given that full speech results from free association that demands saying whatever comes to mind, without censoring unflattering, shameful, or banal content (Gentile, 2015). As such free association “invites a conversation that is (ideally) unreservedly candid, exposing desire and fantasy, forbidden or at least inhibited by social mores and convention” (Gentile, 2015, p. 593).…”

Section: Agency’s Coming-into-beingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is hardly surprising, given that full speech results from free association that demands saying whatever comes to mind, without censoring unflattering, shameful, or banal content (Gentile, 2015). As such free association “invites a conversation that is (ideally) unreservedly candid, exposing desire and fantasy, forbidden or at least inhibited by social mores and convention” (Gentile, 2015, p. 593). Taking up responsibility for one’s speech acts and the (forbidden) desire and fantasy they expose, is thus inevitably a painful and anxiety-inducing matter, given that “what is feared the most is saying something that might be true” (Meganck & Inslegers, 2020).…”

Section: Agency’s Coming-into-beingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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For one can always start something new: An Arendtian-psychoanalytic reflection on patient agency.

Acke¹,

Meganck²

2022

Psychoanalytic Psychology

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In this study, we explore the etymology and history of "agency," link it with relational psychoanalytic literature, and examine how it can be understood within Lacanian psychoanalytic theory and practice. Building on its history, we find that "agency" embodies a binary distinction between the person as an actor, on the one hand, and as a being who is subject to determining structures, on the other. This binary approach, however, limits the debate concerning agency. Arendt's concept of "action," which builds on the same etymological stem as "agency" (i.e., "agere"), allows for nuance in the concept and moves it beyond its otherwise binary understanding. Through this conceptual work, we draw three conclusions regarding patient agency: (a) agency can only come about in relation to others; (b) initiating a new beginning in speech acts and actions already implies agency; and (c) one must be willing to take responsibility for the consequences of one's actions to be able to feel agentic. Lastly, we relate these three conclusions to Lacanian psychoanalysis, in particular to the notions of alienation and separation, full speech, and guilt.

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“… 9 Relevant to this movement beyond a coercive doer/done-to paradigm, but beyond my scope here to elaborate, is that the opening of a third space implicates what I see as a feminine dimension of truth and insists on a too often neglected conversation about gendered space and anatomical/sexual difference, one I would aim to explore with the analyst in this fantasied consultation (for elaboration, see Gentile 2015a,b, 2016a,b). …”

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confidence: 99%

What Can I Say? Contested Words and Contested Thoughts in the Contemporary Moment

Garfinkle¹,

Gentile²,

Litowitz³

et al. 2019

J Am Psychoanal Assoc

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The unusual set of writings you are about to read comes from a panel that Lynne Zeavin and I put together for the APsaA meeting in February 2019 titled "What Can I Say? Contested Words and Contested Thoughts in the Contemporary Moment." Our idea for the panel arose in response to a moment, some years back, that was both quintessentially psychoanalytic and extremely painful. It was at the APsaA spring meeting in Austin in 2016, during the clinical plenary. In the comment period--after the plenary presentation and the two discussions that followed (I was one of the discussants)--an audience member said forthrightly: "I am greatly distressed. I think the plenary speaker and discussants should be made aware of the damage they have caused by their use of the term homosexual. The history of this word, and the oppressive uses to which it has been put, both inside and outside of psychoanalysis, make it unusable, except as an instrument to do further harm."

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Parrhesia, Phaedra, and The Polis: Anticipating Psychoanalytic Free Association as Democratic Practice

Cited by 12 publications

References 23 publications

What is special about speech?

What is special about speech?

For one can always start something new: An Arendtian-psychoanalytic reflection on patient agency.

What Can I Say? Contested Words and Contested Thoughts in the Contemporary Moment

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