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It is generally recognised that the application of psychoanalytic ideas outside the consulting room is fraught with problems. Many analysts are aware of the dangers of pathologising, reductionism and over-simplification, which cumulatively can lead to an intellectual arrogance that is deeply resented by both non-analysts and analysts alike. It therefore follows that any hazardous excursion into the public domain requires a great deal of 'psychoanalytic' tact.
Thus, I approached Partisans in an Uncertain World in a somewhat sceptical frame of mind. I was quickly made aware (p. 6) that, with the aid of psychoanalytic theory, Paul Hoggett's recurring theme was to demonstrate that 'the political is thoroughly and deeply personal', and this seemed to me to be a daunting and perhaps over-ambitious task.
However, I also found myself drawn to the author's emphasis on the 'personal' and his attempt to define it in analytic terms, i.e. to trace what it means to be human, how the mind comes to be constructed and how we become social beings. I was intrigued to find out how the author set about selecting ideas from object-relations theory, which he favours, in order to elaborate and reconstruct Freud's famous dictum: 'Where "It" was, "I" shall be'.
As I read on and became better acquainted with Hoggett's style, his specialised language and his plentiful and vivid illustrations, I warmed considerably to this book. I also became increasingly enthusiastic about the possibility of a fruitful marriage between the worlds of internal and external reality.
Hoggett sets out to review and articulate some fundamental concepts arising mainly from the work of Winnicott, Klein and Bion. He then proceeds to follow through the implications of these clinical discoveries to achieve a more dynamic understanding of 'social reality'. Therefore, his aim, as he sums it up, is to 'take psychoanalysis beyond the consulting room into the world of culture, politics, group and organizational life' (p.