Parrhesia, Phaedra, and The Polis

Anticipating Psychoanalytic Free Association as Democratic Practice

Bibliographic Data

ID9230499
AuthorsJill Gentile (0000-0002-6117-1781, Co-chair of the Independent Track and faculty member at New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis and a faculty member and supervisor at the Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity in New York., corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume84
Issue3
Pages589-624
Publication date2015-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Psychoanalytic Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0033-2828 • E-ISSN: 2167-4086
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/psaq.12021
PMID26198602
OpenAlexW1905435858
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited22

This essay explores the mostly unexamined analogy of psychoanalytic free association to democratic free speech. The author turns back to a time when free speech was a matter of considerable discussion: the classical period of the Athenian constitution and its experiment with parrhesia. Ordinarily translated into English as "free speech," parrhesia is startlingly relevant to psychoanalysis. The Athenian stage-in particular, Hippolytus (Euripides, 5th century BCE)-illustrates this point. Euripides's tragic tale anticipates Freud's inquiries, exploring the fundamental link between free speech and female embodiment. The author suggests that psychoanalysis should claim its own conception of a polis as a mediated and ethical space between private and public spheres, between body and mind, and between speaking and listening communities

Active listening · Analogy · Art · Constitution · Democracy · Epistemology · Free association (psychology) · Literature · Politics · Psychoanalysis · Psychoanalytic theory · Sociology · Hannah Arendt's Political Philosophy · Law · Philosophy · Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics · Psychology · Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications

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