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This article proceeds from my continued exploration of the relations between the subjective and the collective, and from the assumption that the subject, and subjectivity itself, are always a reflection, an iteration, an embodied instantiation of the social universe in which they emerge. In this article, I turn to what the philosopher Giorgio Agamben calls states of exception, those times and places where the law and the norm are suspended, such as we have seen most recently in the context of the COVID pandemic, but is always the case sometimes, in some places, most often regarding particular groups of people. I examine, as examples, two particular exception categories, a status in the Israeli legal code called present/absent, and our modern concept of childhood. I use the notions of present/absent and of childhood to think about what we call in psychoanalysis "the unconscious," the unconscious as a subjective/collective terrain where what is socially excepted and forbidden becomes that which is psychologically dissociated and disavowed. And I reflect on how a social-theory driven perspective on subjectivity can both complicate and deepen our ability to address the intricacies of human experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contemplates the tension between apathy and hope, between the dystopic and the utopian as drivers of the human condition, and our theories about it. I look, more specifically, at how these two tendencies manifested in the aftermath of WWI; the dystopic in Freud's invention of the death drive, the utopian in Ernst Bloch's exploration of hope. I argue that our present poses a challenge similar to that posed by WWI; a collapse of the frameworks around which subjectivities and societies are organized, and a potential for the development of both better and worse outlooks. I argue that as was the case then, psychoanalysis has crucial theoretical and ethical choices to make. I suggest that rather than follow Freud's death driven fatalism, we should seek inspiration in Bloch's view of hope as a driving force of human experience and destiny. I contemplate these ideas as I record events taking place in the world and in my practice during the weeks just before and after the 2020 elections in the US. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neo-liberalism is now a dominant ideology and sociopolitical-economic organizing principle. Following Nancy Hollander’s (this issue) illuminating foray into its psychological demi-monde, and in full agreement with the understanding that the subject contains and reflects the social, my commentary aims to elaborate on neo-liberalism’s subjective and intersubjecrive correlates. I also raise some more general questions about the relations between the subjective and the social, and our ways of thinking about them. I begin in exploring the value attached to caregiving and attachment. Attachment as goods exchanged and as investment. I follow by highlighting the slippage between ethical and economic meanings in terms such as “value,” “debt,” “guilt,” and “redemption,” a slippage that points to the the probable co-emergence of ethics and markets. Leaning on Foucault’s notion of homo economicus and on the psychoanalytic concept of libidinal economy, I outline some questions about the psychology of the homo economicus of neo-liberalism. I question what seems to me a nostalgic sentiment that runs through neo-liberalism as well as recent psychoanalytic theories, suggesting that this similarity demonstrates how psychoanalytic thinking itself reflects the current order of things. Finally, I wonder whether, under this ideology, we are encountering not only a new kind of subjectivity but also the end of subjectivity as a fundament of human life. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores an open frontier between psychoanalysis and critical theory, the relations between subjective experience and collective history. Its drive is a concern with the question of freedom: How might contemporary psychoanalysis help us think about freedom? How could it, as a practice, help us to be free? On the theoretical level, the paper follows the critique of psychoanalysis offered by Foucault and Adorno, particularly the latter's close reading Ferenczi in Negative Dialectics and his notion of 'the spell.' I employ their critique in order to articulate the dilemma psychoanalysis faces vis-a-vis the notion of freedom in social context. I argue that, unlike traditional psychoanalytic discourse, relational psychoanalysis can address this dilemma in a generative way. I find this prospect in the readiness of relational psychoanalysis to realize the potential inherent in the psychoanalytic setting: the creation of a mutually constituted intersubjective space. I tell the story of a young woman for whom love seems impossible, and of a psychoanalytic expedition that finds her ability to love being held hostage. I suggest that what appears in one register as gender and sexual trouble appears in another as a dilemma of attachments and loyalties: my patient's ability to love is spellbound, trapped in a subjective-collective no man's land between her desire to be for herself and the unconscious demands of collective heritage. I argue that for psychoanalysis to be a practice of freedom, it must address the ways in which subjective experience answers to social forces and collective history. I question in this context the relations between freedom, guilt, and responsibility. Re-engaging Adorno, I agree that selfhood may always involve a guilty betrayal of others but argue against him that we must allow this guilt to be reconciled with living. I suggest, in conclusion, that theory is the bearer of collective responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

My reply to the commentaries first addresses the question of the relations between psychoanalytic theory and practice. Drawing on the ancient Greek concept of theoria, I expand on this question by evoking a third register, that of psychoanalysis as a collective that theorizes and practices in a particular socio-historical context. I argue for a view of psychoanalysis as a collective residing at the intersection of general discourse, social power, and subjectivity, a position that should be consciously considered as part of its ethos and its ethics. I examine in this context Stern's notion of clinical philosophy and the potential for a variety of dialogues between clinical psychoanalysis and critical theory. I look at the unique possibilities offered in this domain by relational psychoanalysis, and argue that mining these possibilities may require that we explore new kinds of theoretical narrative. Looking at the history of the psychoanalytic theoria, I raise the question of theoretical and clinical activism. Given its discursive and social position, what is the responsibility of psychoanalysis vis-a-vis individuals and societies? How might it address what Kafka refers to as collecting and uncollecting? I conclude in turning to psychoanalysis' own collective trauma, the destruction during World War II of its German-speaking centers, and the theoretical-political shifts that followed, as its central European pioneers became exiles in the now dominant centers of the United States and the United Kingdom. I suggest that our collective trauma might hold some clues for our contemporary limitations, and potentials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the author's response on several questions raised about his article "An Other in Psychoanalysis." The author focuses on the notion of ambivalence between the general and particular as a theoretical and ethical perspective in psychoanalytic thought and practice. He argues for a theoretical and clinical position of ambivalent activism, and raises a question of otherness as something internal and external to the subject in Emmanuel Levinas's philosophy and in psychoanalysis.

The article examines some of the basic premises of psychoanalysis using the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, particularly his critique of ontological thought and knowing. The author argues that, viewed through Levinas's notions of the other and of ethics, traditional psychoanalysis depicts an ethically problematic discursive position since it conforms to social-knowledge-power structures. In addition, he also describes the development of psychoanalytic awareness to the concerns of otherness.