A People's History of Psychoanalysis

Florent Gabarron-Garcia, Shuli Branson

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Paperback

Forthcoming
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French

Pluto Press UK
18 September 2025

Social & cultural history; Psychology; Psychoanalytical theory (Freudian psychology); History of medicine

Series: People's History

It has been decades since Freud fell out of favour, not only in mainstream psychiatry but also in radical thought, where both he and Lacan were accused of sexist and class biases. A People's History of Psychoanalysis refuses to accept this growing depoliticization of a formerly revolutionary field.

Florent Gabarron-Garcia shatters the comfortable narrative of psychoanalysts as armchair theorists placidly interpreting family complexes sheltered in their consulting rooms. Recalling Freud's radical moments (such as his promotion of free clinics in Weimar Germany), or lesser-known figures including the Marxist Feminist psychoanalyst Marie Langer, his new history delves into how revolutionary ferment has cross-fertilized the exploration of the unconscious.

A People's History of Psychoanalysis is for those who wish to resist the conformist, therapist-centered, and repressive management of madness under contemporary capitalism.

By: Florent Gabarron-Garcia
Translated by: Shuli Branson
Imprint: Pluto Press UK
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 129mm, Spine: 18mm
ISBN: 9780745349602
ISBN 10: 0745349609
Series: People's History
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 18 September 2025
Audience: General/trade , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Introduction I. Freud looks to the East. Vera Schmidt and Psychoanalysis in the Land of the Soviets II. Wilhelm Reich, from the Vienna Polyclinic at Sexpol in Berlin III. The future of Freudian pessimism IV. Marie Langer: from Vienna in the 1930s to Latin America in the 1970s V. Of the Catalan municipality at the La Borde clinic VI. Revival of revolutionary psychoanalysis in Germany: the Heidelberg experience Conclusion: For another psychoanalysis

Florent Gabarron-Garcia is a psychoanalyst, psychologist and doctor in psychopathology. He lectures at University Paris 8. After teaching philosophy in high school, he trained in institutional analysis at the La Borde clinic, later working in the psychiatric hospital and in the CMPP. He is a member of the editorial board of the journal Chimères, founded by Deleuze and Guattari. He currently lives in France. Shuli Branson is an anarchist writer, translator, editor, and teacher, currently living on unceded Lenape land (so-called New York). She is the author of Practical Anarchism, also published by Pluto Books. Shuli translated The Abolition of Prison by Jacques Lesage de la Haye, and edited Surviving the Future: Queer Abolitionist Strategies. She hosts the podcast, The Breakup Theory, conversations on ending things and collective liberation, and is a member of the worker-writer collective CAW Journal.