The Psychoanalytic Individuation Process as a Mode of Subjectivation in Neoliberal Contexts

• Main Author: Maria Carolina Araujo Antonio
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidade Estadual de Londrina 2020-12-01
• Series: Mediações: Revista de Ciências Sociais
• Online Access: http://www.uel.br/revistas/uel/index.php/mediacoes/article/view/39692

This article seeks to understand the process of construction of a mode of subjectivity which are implicit in the conception of subject of desire produced by Lacanian psychoanalytic theory and operationalized by psychoanalysts in the therapeutic process. Through the analysis of data collected in ethnography carried out in Lacanian institutions, the objective here is to apprehend how these psychoanalysts conceive the articulation between theory and clinic, and how this articulation results in a specific conception of person that guides the production of psychological realities. The therapy directs the management of life / health through concepts such as structural lack, singularity and responsibility, which are mobilized by psychoanalysts and incorporated by analysands in the way they understand themselves. The relationship between psychoanalysis and the neoliberal thought system is argued, through the notion of the person present in Western societies, such as the autonomous and free individual in constant search for satisfaction. Psychoanalysis appears not only as a reflection of the social context in which it is inserted, but as a space for the elaboration its agency mechanisms. Thus, through ethnography, the individuation processes present in the mode of subjectivity inherent in neoliberal contexts are evidenced.