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Beginning with the Frankfurt school, there have been many intriguing and powerful efforts to combine psychoanalysis with progressive (usually Marxist) social theory to develop a more complete understanding of our modern capitalist society, as well as to develop new ideas about social change. But using a theory whose essence is valuing the truth of the individual's unconscious to analyze social dynamics often proves unconvincing. Ian Parker's new book is part of this tradition — both in offering insights about the world in which we live (and practice) as well as often applying psychoanalysis to social phenomenon in a less than successful manner.
In Lacanian Psychoanalysis, Revolutions in Subjectivity, Ian Parker deplores the use of psychology to advance the agenda of capitalism. He argues that models of therapy are ideologically driven and tend to perpetuate alienation in the patient. In contrast, Parker wants to show how the contributions made by psychoanalysis, and especially Jacques Lacan, permit an analysis of power relations in our society. He claims that Lacan's view of psychoanalysis provides an alternative to the ideals of conformity that are pervasive in the mainstream practice of psychotherapy and psychiatry. Parker supports Lacan's perspective that is “suspicious of the forms of happiness cultivated in a deceptive reality” (p. 7). He contends that:
Lacan stripped out the particular contents of vulgarized Freudian theory, thereby blocking any attempt to extrapolate the “meanings” elaborated by one subject to another, or to all others in what would amount to a false universal and moralizing version of psychoanalysis. (p. 12)
Parker intends his book to be an introduction to Lacan, while also making the connection between Lacanian psychoanalysis and radical political movements, such as Marxism and Feminism. But, such a connection is not necessarily made clear by Parker, except in the subversive aspect that all