THE GENERATION OF PSYCHOANALYTIC KNOWLEDGE: SOCIOLOGICAL AND CLINICAL PERSPECTIVES PART ONE:‘GIVE ME A CONSULTING ROOM …’1

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper examines the contradiction between the advances of psychoanalysis over the near century since Freud invented it, and its apparent divergence from the procedures of the other sciences. It argues that developments in the sociology and history of science since the 1960s enable the different dimensions of scientific activity to be more objectively identified. The work of Bruno Latour is discussed, focusing on his account of the laboratory as the key site of scientific discovery, and leading to a comparison between the laboratory and the psychoanalytic consulting room. However, significant differences between laboratory‐based science and psychoanalysis are also pointed out. The most important of these is the degree to which the control of the outside world routinely sought by normal sciences is made impossible and undesirable for psychoanalysis by its distinctive commitment to the autonomy of its human subjects.

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