Why Psychoanalysis?

Elisabeth Roudinesco, Rachel Bowlby

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French

Columbia University Press
10 March 2004

Psychology; Psychoanalytical theory (Freudian psychology); Psychiatry

Series: European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism

"Why do some people still choose psychoanalysis-Freud's so-called talking cure-when numerous medications are available that treat the symptoms of psychic distress so much faster? Elisabeth Roudinesco tackles this difficult question, exploring what she sees as a ""depressive society"": an epidemic of distress addressed only by an increasing reliance on prescription drugs.

Far from contesting the efficacy of new medications like Prozac, Zoloft, and Viagra in alleviating the symptoms of any number of mental or nervous conditions, Roudinesco argues that the use of such drugs fails to solve patients' real problems. In the man who takes Viagra without ever wondering why he is suffering from impotence and the woman who is given antidepressants to deal with the loss of a loved one, Roudinesco sees a society obsessed with efficiency and desperate for the quick fix.

She argues that ""the talking cure"" and pharmacology represent not just different approaches to psychiatry, but different worldviews. The rush to treat symptoms is itself symptomatic of an antiseptic and depressive culture in which thought is reduced to the firing of neurons and desire is just a chemical secretion. In contrast, psychoanalysis testifies to human freedom and the power of language."

By: Elisabeth Roudinesco
Translated by: Rachel Bowlby
Imprint: Columbia University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 203mm, Width: 135mm, Spine: 13mm
Weight: 213g
ISBN: 9780231122030
ISBN 10: 0231122039
Series: European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism
Pages: 184
Publication Date: 10 March 2004
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Elisabeth Roudinesco teaches at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. She is the author of twelve other books, including Jacques Lacan (Columbia 1999) and Revolution and Madness: The Lives and Legends of Theroigne de Mericourt.Rachel Bowlby is a professor of English at the University of York. She has written Carried Away: The Invention of Modern Shopping(Columbia 2001); Feminist Destinations and Further Essays on Virginia Woolf; Just Looking: Consumer Culture in Dreise, Gissing, and Zola; Still Crazy After All These Years: Woman, Writing, and Psychoanalysis; and Shopping with Freud.

Reviews for Why Psychoanalysis?

Written in an accessible style and designed to persuade nonspecialists of the continuing validity of the Freudian field, Why Psychoanalysis merits attention by all those who have a personal or professional stake in mental health. * American Imago * A courageous book. -- Marc Auge * Le Monde * Bubbling with energy. * Elle (Paris) * Roudinesco foresees the establishment of a human science where the figure of the Socratic master is internalized, allowing for an ongoing and creative reworking of individual and social meaning. This vision emerges as the important and elegant outcome of Why Psychoanalysis? -- Stephen E. Sternbach * Psychoanalytic Quarterly *