Writings on Psychoanalysis

by Louis Althusser

With several never-before published writings, this volume gathers Althusser's major essays on psychoanalytic thought----documenting his intense and ambivalent relationship with Lacan, and dramatizing his intellectual journey and troubled personal life.

Genres: Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Psychology, Nonfiction

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Louis Pierre Althusser (1918–1990) was one of the most influential Marxist philosophers of the 20th Century. As they seemed to offer a renewal of Marxist thought as well as to render Marxism philosophically respectable, the claims he advanced in the 1960s about Marxist philosophy were discussed and debated worldwide. Due to apparent reversals in his theoretical positions, to the ill-fated facts of his life, and to the historical fortunes of Marxism in the late twentieth century, this intense interest in Althusser's reading of Marx did not survive the 1970s. Despite the comparative indifference shown to his work as a whole after these events, the theory of ideology Althusser developed within it has been broadly deployed in the social sciences and humanities and has provided a foundation for much “post-Marxist” philosophy. In addition, aspects of Althusser's project have served as inspiration for Analytic Marxism as well as for Critical Realism. Though this influence is not always explicit, Althusser's work and that of his students continues to inform the research programs of literary studies, political philosophy, history, economics, and sociology. In addition, his autobiography has been subject to much critical attention over the last decade. At present, Althusser's philosophy as a whole is undergoing a critical reevaluation by scholars who have benefited from the anthologization of hard-to-find and previously unpublished texts and who have begun to engage with the great mass of writings that remain in his archives.

Reviews

[Dennis Lundkvist · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The reality of the regions of the symbolic and of the structure of the symbolic as such is 'realized' in those characters who simultaneously inhabit and constitute the family milieu into which the child 'falls'. Saying that the child lives under the law of his parents, under the law of the rules 'realized' by their concrete behavior (gestures, attitude, attention, distractions, etc., including the maternal anticipation of which you do well to speak), is one and the same thing as saying that he lives under the law of the regional structures of the symbolic that exist in the form of his parents. To say that his parents are subjects of the symbolic does not mean that they are formal being. If they have an unconscious, it means in particular that their 'biological' existence is realized in the form of unconscious wishes and that the unconscious is one of the specific structures under which they live their 'biological' existence under the law of the symbolic. For them, the problem that the child will have to resolve is already resolved, and their already achieved solution is part of the given elements of the problem the child is going to have to solve." (p.72).

[Haider Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

An exceptional collection of essays and letters by Althusser that greatly clarify his understanding of psychoanalysis, as well as how he viewed and inherited methods/concepts from Lacan. Althusser's own positions on certain matters, it must be said, do not parrot Lacan; for instance, near the end of his second letter to his psychoanalyst, René Diatkine, he takes Lacan's dictum from the Rome Discourse and "The Instance of the Letter" ('the unconscious is structured like a language') and says “one would have to… say that the unconscious is structured like that “language [langage]” (which is not a langue) which is the ideological and that this resemblance of structures must be understood in a far more elaborate sense than in the case of the “resemblance” between the structure of the unconscious and that of language. It would be a matter of semblance would no longer be merely formal but would call into play affinities of matter (the imaginary) and of organizational structure (thus at a degree further toward the concrete). To be sure, it is not a matter of reinstating a new genesis-filiation; the structure of the unconscious is a structure other than that of the ideological” (76-77). Very helpful for understanding the rest of Althusser's oeuvre, especially his work on ideology! Though, of course, Althusser may be at times wanting (he is clearly NOT a psychoanalyst), this is nevertheless a useful collection of historical documents that help to piece together the intellectual history around Althusser, specifically his engagements with psychoanalysis.

[Zach · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mostly discusses psychoanalysis by analogy to his work on Marx, so there's nothing radically new that you get here. The collected writings make clear that Lacan's symbolic is really important to the work on ideology, specifically on how its always already there via the family. But editors could have done a better job at giving context to the texts later in the book. The political implications of Althusser's early support of Lacan and the context around the closing of the EFP are both a bit hard to glean if, like me, you don't know the history intimately.

[Arbab Taimoor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Althusser needs a great concentration, his works are beyond the sphere of lame research. This excerpt is the one part of the book, where he wrote about the psychological impacts of Lacan and Freud. How these concepts have influenced societies and norms.

This excerpt is a must-read writing. Do read it with all depth and you will slowly get to know about the real essence of it.