CRITIQUE ON THE COUCH New Directions in Critical Theory New Directions in Critical Theory Amy Allen, General Editor New Directions in Critical !eory presents outstanding classic and contemporary texts in the tradition of critical social theory, broadly construed. !e series aims to renew and advance the program of critical social theory, with a particular focus on theorizing contemporary struggles around gender, race, sexuality, class, and globalization and their complex interconnections. For a complete list of titles, see page !"#. CRITIQUE ON THE COUCH Why Critical Theory Needs Psychoanalysis Amy Allen Columbia University Press New York Columbia University Press Publishers Since $%&' New York Chichester, West Sussex cup . columbia . edu Copyright © "#"$ Columbia University Press All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in- Publication Data Names: Allen, Amy, author. Title: Critique on the couch : why critical theory needs psychoanalysis / Amy Allen. Description: New York : Columbia University Press, "#"#. | Series: New directions in critical theory | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identi%ers: LCCN "#"##"#&"' (print) | LCCN "#"##"#&"( (ebook) | ISBN )*&#"'$$)&+#& (hardback) | ISBN )*&#"'$$)&+$, (trade paperback) | ISBN )*&#"'$,,"*$( (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Psychoanalysis—Political aspects. | Critical theory. Classi%cation: LCC BF$*,.(.S+, A,, "#"# (print) | LCC BF$*,.(.S+, (ebook) | DDC $,#.$)/,— dc"' LC record available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / "#"##"#&"' LC ebook record available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / "#"##"#&"( Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid- free paper. Printed in the United States of America Cover design: Lisa Hamm Cover image: Digital composite Contents Acknowledgments vii Introduction: Why Critical !eory Needs Psychoanalysis (Now More !an Ever) " ". Kleinian Realism: Between the Intrapsychic and the Intersubjective #$ #. A System of Scars: !e Problem of Ego Integration %$ &. Beyond Developmentalism: Psychoanalysis and the Critique of Progress '( ). !e Cure Is !at !ere Is No Cure: Psychoanalysis and the Idea of Progress "#" %. Transference: Psychoanalysis and the Methodology of Critique "%" Conclusion: From !eory to Praxis "'% Notes !"# Bibliography !$% Index !&& Acknowledgments began the research that would eventually become this book during the !""#– !"$" academic year, which I had the good fortune to spend as a I Silberger Scholar at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. Many thanks to the entire BPSI community for their warm welcome, and especially to Bonnie Smolen and Dawn Skorczewski for generous support and encouragement; Jack Beinashowitz, Martha Fisch, Cary Freidman, Richard Gomberg, Dan Mollod, Harry Penn, and Sharon Roberts for allow- ing me to attend their classes for analytic candidates; Joel Whitebook for insightful and challenging comments on my !"$" Silberger Lecture; and Crystal Feimster for her friendship and camaraderie. Originally, I planned to write a very di%erent book, one that would argue that the future of critical theory depended on a return to the insights of the early Frankfurt School, in particular the interrelated Freudian and Nietzs- chean critiques of the rational ego and of historical progress found in Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment. A&er several years of work, I realized that the scope and ambition of such a project might well defeat me, and that even if I were to succeed in 'nishing such a book, it would be much longer than anyone might be willing to publish, let alone read. So, I decided to split the project into two books, one focusing on ques- tions of history and progress, and the second concentrating on the recep- tion of psychoanalysis in critical theory. (anks to the Humboldt Foun- dation for the research grant that funded my initial work on this project in viii ’ Acknowledgments !"$" and !"$! and to the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenscha&en in Bad Homburg for hosting me during my research stays in Frankfurt. Above all, thanks to my editor at Columbia University Press, Wendy Lochner, for her ongoing faith in this project and its author. (is book began to take its current shape as a series of three lectures delivered to the School of Philosophy and Art History at the University of Essex in !"$) as one of their summer minicourses. Many thanks to Fabian Freyenhagen, Jörg Schaub, Timo Jütten, and all of the Essex philosophers for the kind invitation, the warm hospitality, and the generous yet rigor- ous discussion of my work in its nascent form. In addition, I am grateful to audiences and organizers of a variety of con- ferences, lectures, and other venues where material for this book was pre- sented over the last decade, including the following: the Colloquium on Phi- losophy and the Social Sciences in Prague, the Goethe University in Frankfurt, the Psychoanalysis Study Group at Dartmouth College, the Psychoanalysis and Critical (eory Workshop at the New School for Social Research, the Australasian Society for Continental Philosophy, the Princeton Political (eory Graduate Student Conference, the Villanova Philosophy Graduate Student Conference, the Department of Philosophy at Concordia University, the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, the Oakley Center for the Humanities at Williams College, the Institute for Philosophy at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana in Mexico City, the Center for Contemporary Critical (ought at Columbia University, the Foley Institute for Public A%airs at Washington State Uni- versity, the Critical (eory Roundtable, and the Centre Marc Bloch in Berlin. Martin Saar and Kristina Lepold did me the tremendous honor of orga- nizing a workshop discussing the penultimate version of the manuscript at the storied Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt in November !"$#. Heartfelt thanks to them and to all of the workshop participants for the con- structive and illuminating discussion, which helped me to re'ne and clar- ify the 'nal dra&. In addition to those mentioned above, thank you to the following friends and colleagues for fruitful and inspiring discussions of the ideas contained herein: Robin Celikates, Benjamin Fong, Rainer Forst, Katia Genel, Fed- erica Gregoratto, Bernard Harcourt, Bonnie Honig, Axel Honneth, Clau- dia Leeb, Robyn Marasco, Inara Luisa Marin, David McIvor, Johanna Acknowledgments ’ ix Meehan, Brian O’Connor, Isaac Arial Reed, Eva von Redecker, Duarte Rolo, Irena Rosenthal, Jana Sawicki, Yannik (iem, and Jamieson Webster. I owe a special debt to those generous souls who read and gave me feed- back on the entire manuscript (a true labor of love if there ever was one): María Pía Lara, Noelle McAfee, and Mari Ruti. To Mari, who has forgot- ten more about Lacan than I will ever know, I fear my debt is unpayable. Still, I must express my undying gratitude for her generous reading of my work, for hours and hours of mind- opening intellectual discussions, for inspiring me to rethink my approach to writing, and much, much more. (anks to the following Penn State graduate students for valuable research assistance and insightful discussions: Jerome Clarke, Benjamin Randolph, Wayne Wapeemukwa, and Nicole Yokum. As ever, I’m grateful to my family: Chris, Clark, Oliver, Isabelle, and Eloise. Earlier versions (in some cases much earlier versions) of parts of the fol- lowing chapters have appeared in print before: “Are We Driven? Critical (eory and Psychoanalysis Reconsidered,” Critical Horizons $+, no. , (November !"$)): -$$– !. (parts of chapter $); “Psychoanalysis and the Cri- tique of Progress,” in Debating Critical !eory, ed. Julia Christ, Kristina Lepold, Daniel Loick, and Titus Stahl (London: Rowman & Little'eld Inter- national, !"!") (parts of chapter -); “Progress and the Death Drive,” Par- rhesia !+ (December !"$+): $– $# (parts of chapter ,); and “Psychoanalysis and the Methodology of Critique,” Constellations !-, no. ! (June !"$+): !,,– ), (parts of chapter )). All of this material has been substantially revised and expanded for inclusion here. CRITIQUE ON THE COUCH Introduction Why Critical Theory Needs Psychoanalysis (Now More Than Ever) heodor Adorno’s famous claim that “in psycho- analysis nothing is true except the exaggerations” is, to be sure, itself an exaggeration.! T And yet it captures something important about the "rst generation of the Frankfurt School’s approach to psychoanalysis, an approach that has been decisively rejected by at least the most prominent members of the sec- ond and third generations. Indeed, perhaps more than anything else the early Frankfurt School was de"ned both theoretically and institutionally by its attempt to bring Marxism and Freudian psychoanalysis together in the service of a critical theory of advanced capitalist societies.# Such a the- oretical fusion was deemed necessary to enable critical theory to come to terms with the failure of communist revolutions in Europe, the rise of fas- cism, and the horrors of the Holocaust— in short, the descent of the cul- ture of enlightenment into barbarism. Perhaps the greatest exaggeration of Freudian psychoanalysis— the height of its speculative excess— is the theory of the drives, particularly Freud’s late conception of the fundamental antagonism between life and death drives, Eros and $anatos. For early critical theorists, including Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Herbert Marcuse, even this exaggeration contained an important grain of truth. As Martin Jay argues in his classic study of the early Frankfurt School, !e Dialectical