E-Book Overview
Betty Cannon is the first to explore the implications of Sartrean philosophy for the Freudian psychoanalytic tradition. Drawing upon Sartre's work as well as her own experiences as a practicing therapist, she shows that Sartre was a "fellow traveler" who appreciated Freud's psychoanalytic achievements but rebelled against the determinism of his metatheory. The mind, Sartre argued, cannot be reduced to a collection of drives and structures, nor is it enslaved to its past as Freud's work suggested. Sartre advocated an existentialist psychoanalysis based on human freedom and the self's ability to reshape its own meaning and value. Through the Sartrean approach Cannon offers a resolution to the crisis in psychoanalytic metatheory created by the current emphasis on relational needs. By comparing Sartre with Freud and influential post-Freudians like Melanie Klein, Otto Kernber, Margaret Mahler, D.W. Winnicott, Heinz Kohut, Harry Stack Sullivan, and Jacques Lacan, she demonstrates why the Sartrean model transcends the limitations of traditional Freudian metatheory. In the process, she adds a new dimension to our understanding of Sartre and his place in twentieth-century philosophy.
E-Book Content
Sartre and Psychoanalysis An Existentialist Challenge to Clinical Metatheory Betty Cannon University Press of Kansas For Hazel E. Barnes Teacher and Friend © 1991 by the University Press of Kansas All rights reserved Published by the University Press of Kansas (Lawrence, Kansas 66045), which was organized by the Kansas Board of Regents and is operated and funded by Emporia State University, Fort Hays State University, Kansas State University, Pittsburg State University, the University of Kansas, and Wichita State University Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cannon, Betty. Sartre and psychoanalysis : an existentialist challenge to clinical metatheory / Betty Cannon. p. cm. Includes bibliographicalreferencesand index. ISBN 07006-0445-6 I. Psychoanalysis. 2. Sartre, Jean Paul, 1905-1980. 3. Existential psychotherapy. I. Title. RC506.C29 1991 6i6.89'i7—dc20 9012993 CIP British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 The paper used in this publication meets the minimumrequirementsof the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials 739.48-1984. Contents Preface Abbreviations Used in Citing Sartre's Works 1 Introduction 2 Sartre versus Freud: Two Approaches to Metapsychology The Nature of the Dispute Similarities and Differences between Freudian and Existential Psychoanalysis Freudian Metapsychology: Psychobiological and Neurophysiological Forces Sartrean Metapsychology: Consciousness as the Pursuit of Value The Implications for Psychotherapy 3 Sartre and the Post-Freudian Drive Theorists: A Crisis in Psychoanalytic Metatheory The Nature of the Crisis The Discovery of New Relational Needs by Post-Freudian Drive Theorists Sartre's View of the Other as Subject and Object A Sartrean Perspective on Developmental Theory The Implications for Psychotherapy ix xviii I 16 16 18 25 35 51 61 61 66 80 IOI 112 vi Contents 4 Sartre and the Post-Freudian Relational Theorists: Toward a Psychoanalytic Theory of the Self What Is the Self? Relations with Others and the Creation of a "Self": Three Post-Freudian Views Sartre's Concept of the Self "Pure Reflection": A Sartrean Approach to the Self in Psychotherapy The Implications for Psychotherapy 5 Sartre's Later Philosophy and the Sociomaterial World: A New Dimension for Existential Psychoanalysis The Sartrean Dialectic and Existentialist Therapy Praxis, Need/Desire, and Sartrean Developmental Theory The Practico-Inert: Serial Alterity and Negative Recip