Criticism as self-analysis

An Introduction and Brief Overview of Psychoanalysis

“…Some critics accused Freud of being overly focused on sex and of exaggerating the influence of the unconscious mind. Others argued that psychoanalysis lacked scientific validity and was based on anecdotal evidence rather than empirical data [13]. Ultimately, even his students challenged him and began their own schools of thought, which we will discuss later [13].…”

“…Others argued that psychoanalysis lacked scientific validity and was based on anecdotal evidence rather than empirical data [13]. Ultimately, even his students challenged him and began their own schools of thought, which we will discuss later [13]. Nevertheless, Freud's influence on psychology and culture cannot be overstated.…”

Reply to my commentators – Thinking with Forrester: Dreams, true crimes, and histories of change

“…Yet it contains many stories of people attempting to change themselves. Tansley was one of many who had, as Clive Barnett puts it, ‘a personal disposition towards self-analysis’ (Barnett, forthcoming) Tansley had both absorbed and written about Freud's third ‘blow’ to men's self-love and, like the other Cambridge men prone to self-analysis, was aware he was not quite awake to himself. Barnett's close engagement with John's discussion of Wittgenstein's relation with Freud tackles a question the book leaves hanging: ‘why, beyond a simple accounting of intellectual influences’, do connections between Wittgenstein and Freud actually matter?…”

“…In this way it can be acknowledged that settler-colonial ignorance is symptom only: it is linked to problems that cannot be cured only by knowledge of Canada's buried legacies of toxic mining and Indigenous genocide, however horrific, meticulous, and conclusive the evidence. Analysis offers not a cure but a nudge to ‘a possible process’ (Phillips, cited in Barnett, forthcoming) of change that, to truly address our deepest and most intractable problems, does not only involve listening to painful conflicts and the difficult making and sustaining of relations over time, but will ultimately entail living science, living life, differently.…”

Working Through Working Through:

“…At various points during the pandemic, the archivists invited panellists to write about eventsfor example, government communications, guidance, and regulationsprovoking them to work through in their writing the pressures they were facing, the claims being made on them, their circumstances and interests, and justifications for their actions. We analysed this writing for how people encountered epidemiological terms, concepts, and subject positions (Clarke and Barnett, 2023b), and how people worked through the ethical dilemmas generated when government rulescommunicated only in general termsmet particular situations (Clarke and Barnett, 2023c).…”