For and Against Psychoanalysis by Stephen Frosh. Published by  Routledge, London, 1997;  271 pages; £12.99

In For and Against Psychoanalysis, Stephen Frosh locates contemporary psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic theory within epistemological, therapeutic and socio-political contexts. In so doing, he aims to examine its efficacy as a means of learning, a clinical method and a theoretical instrument - this latter with particular

reference to the deconstruction and understanding of gender identity, sexuality and racism. He expounds a critical view of psychoanalysis, particularly in relation to its potentially normalizing tendencies, but also in terms of its lack of accountability and relative failure (at least as measured by research so far) as a clinical treatment. He also uses psychoanalysis as a perspective from which to scrutinize Western empiricism and positivism - the limits and limitations of the ‘rational’ as thrown into high relief by the ‘science’ of the irrational. This is essentially a theoretical work that can probably be of equal value within academic and psychotherapeutic contexts.

For and Against Psychoanalysis is clearly written but never simplistic. Frosh's theoretical standpoints absolutely belie the stark polarizations implicit in the title. He is master of the third unexpected twist of the dialectic to complicate, sophisticate and surprise, in a way not unlike the workings of the unconscious itself. For example, in the first section on ‘Knowledge’, at times he appears to be propounding a sceptical view of psychoanalysis as a research instrument (too subjective, too variable, too deeply interpersonal, too ‘slippery’). Nonetheless, his final conclusions - that ‘real knowledge involves emotion at its core’ and that ‘…there is no ‘unbiased’ part of the mind which could be called upon to act as neutral observer of events’ (p. 71) - serve notice on the value of empirical rationality as the basis of research in the human sciences.

Similarly, in the central section on ‘Psychotherapy’, the logic of his style and cool clarity of his arguments are belied by his pen