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[D]emocratic work… requires the creation and activation of potential spaces in which inclusive, dialogic encounters across entrenched lines of difference might take place. The inclusiveness of these processes not only fulfills democratic norms of respect but is a psychological necessity. …interaction and cooperation across lines of discord…are less occasions for social unity or political consensus and more opportunities for individuals and groups to mirror viable otherness and solicit a viable rearrangement of spaces that have caused and continue to perpetuate patterns of misrecognition. (McIvor, 2016, p.121)
If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.
My core thesis, threading through several publications (Bermúdez, 2018, 2019; Bermúdez & Kramer, 2016) is that if contemporary psychoanalysis aspires to contribute to addressing our socio-political and ecological challenges, we must develop an enlarged repertoire of theory and practice. My project aligns with the distinguished Harvard Law School Professor, Lawrence Lessig (Lessig, 2019), who has eloquently and creatively argued that repairing our dysfunctional democratic project is the “first problem” that must be fixed if there is to be any hope in effectively addressing all the other problems. I've developed the conviction that unless we co-create democratic processes and structures that authentically facilitate a citizenship that is engaged, informed, imaginatively deliberating together about the existential challenges we face, and having a meaningful impact on political decision-making, we will remain stuck in systemic dysfunction. However, I do believe that psychoanalysis has, over the course of its long history and multiple streams, generated both theory and practice that hold great promise for a socio-political contribution (Danto, 2005). In the next sections, I will outline some pieces of an emergent socio-centric psychoanalysis and suggest an emergent path forward.
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