Sociology and the Psychoanalytic Method
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9580928 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Gregory Zilboorg (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1939 |
| Volume | 45 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 341-355 |
| Publication date | 1939-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Journal of Sociology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0002-9602 • E-ISSN: 1537-5390 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/218307 |
| OpenAlex | W2093993681 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 9 |
Successively influenced by geography and demography, anthropology, biology, and economic determinism, sociology found its major orientation at the beginning of the present century in psychology, after Comte turned away from pure philosophy and became increasingly preoccupied with the analysis of social functioning. Freud's first contributions, which appeared at this time, had an early influence on sociology and anthropology. In spite of this, the contributions of psychoanalysis to sociology at present extend little beyond the awareness that a new psychology has been born and that it can be applied to the understanding of social phenomena. There are two main reasons for this: first, objections to Freudian theories, especially to his theory of instincts, are still being raised; second, the impression was gained, because Freud applied to social phenomena the same methods of investigation as he did to individual neuroses, that the social reactions of the individual are direct criteria for the reactions of society as a whole. This assumption does not present a complete picture, and Freud never intended that his method of parallelism be carried to these extremes. Although the infiltration of psychoanalytic ideas into sociology has not been productive so far, sociology is sufficiently mature to adopt the methods of contemporary psychological science, and the latter already possesses a wealth of empirical data and a well-systematized set of scientific hypotheses. Among the latter, the phenomenon which Freud called the return of the repressed is of particular importance to sociology. Society itself provides outlets for the return of the repressed, for every society represents the crystallized function of the majority of repressive forces of its members and must provide adequate outlets or it will become functionally useless. One is led to a somewhat paradoxical conclusion: one must study the individual in society in order to understand society as a whole, but in order to understand the dynamics of social life, one should look not for the characteristics of the individual's socialized reactions but for those outlets which society offers for the return of the repressed. Utilization of this methodological suggestion depends upon the complete discarding of evaluative preconceptions, of which fact no one is more aware than Freud himself
Determinism · Epistemology · Freudian slip · Instinct · Psychoanalysis · Psychoanalytic theory · Social science · Sociology · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Representations and Identity
| Unique citing works | 9 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.43 |
| Citation span | 2005 - 2011 (7) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 9 |