Changes in culture and in psychoanalysis: our contemporary times question us

Abstract

The paper states the need for a permanent discussion over the theoretical foundations of our task and of the analytic working method and technique in order to reformulate and update concepts, with the aim of keeping our discipline alive, without disregarding what is most specific of it. The writer underscores the importance of considering the incidence on psychoanalysis of the changes that vhave occurred, in our socio-cultural context, in particular. The paper considers the notions of the unconscious and the psychic conflict as Freud’s most significant proposals, which remain the bedrock for different later theoretical suggestions, regardless of all the reformulations needed. These concepts sustain the psychoanalytic view of the subject, its perspective regarding the different pathologies, as well as our attitude towards the practice. The paper points as the main instruments of the method: the
setting, the transference and the work of interpretation. These are the cornerstones of the work of analysis in the clinic, where the
major changes resulting from the cultural changes in our present world will be reflected. The aim of analysis would be to create the necessary conditions for the experiences which have left a mark in the psyche to be processed. The most pathological part is that which does not change, that which repeats in the symptoms, the behaviors, the acts and the bonds, without giving rise to some degree of elaboration at the level of psychic life.