On Identity and the Political in Psychoanalysis

Bibliographic Data

ID9232212
AuthorsFrancisco J González (0000-0002-6311-1950, corresponding author), Francisco González (0000-0002-1461-5474, 582 Market Street, Suite 305 San Francisco, CA, 94104 [email protected])
Year2023
Volume92
Issue4
Pages567-598
Publication date2023-10-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Psychoanalytic Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0033-2828 • E-ISSN: 2167-4086
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00332828.2023.2286979
PMID38095863
OpenAlexW4389727949
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited23

Weaving subjective musings with theoretical speculation, this paper explores various themes on the question of identity. I consider identity as identification with a social location, where that social location is a function of groups. As such, identity is inherently contingent, a relational affair, a soft assembly. Though not a particularly psychoanalytic concept, identity is currently being tasked with considerable work in psychoanalysis: functioning as a hinge between the dual registers of the personal and social unconscious. Like any symptom, the term identity both obscures and indexes, signaling the urgent need for a radical revision of theory. The more we use the contingency of identity-how we find ourselves identified (by others as much as by ourselves) in this place and time, whatever this might be-rather than its fixity, thought to transcend place and time, the more that the concept of identity can be used in a specifically psychoanalytic way to help us explore the terrain of the political, which I distinguish from the terrain of politics proper. These ideas are employed to consider the current moment in psychoanalytic organizational life, which takes place under the sign of a fundamental paradigm shift (that is to say: catastrophic change)

Aesthetics · Conceptualization · Contingency · Epistemology · Id, ego and super-ego · Identity (music) · Identity formation · Political science · Politics · Psychoanalysis · Psychoanalytic theory · Self-concept · Social group · Social identity approach · Social identity theory · Sociology · Unconscious mind · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · Law · Philosophy · Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics · Psychology · Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications · Social Psychology

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