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Claudia Lapping Routledge, London, 2011, 197pp., hardcover, £85.00/digital; £80.00/£28 (Paperback), ISBN: 978-0-415-47925-7/0415479258
There have been numerous attempts to link discourse analysis and psychoanalytic theory over the past two decades, be it within the remit of postcolonial or cultural studies, or under the auspices of discursive psychology. It has proved difficult to find a mid-way between the epistemic push-and-pull of these two approaches. Such attempts have often resulted in the assimilation of psychoanalytic ideas into the terms of rhetorical or textual analysis. Billig's (1999)Freudian Repression is perhaps the signal example of such a re-writing of Freudian notions within the vocabulary of discursive psychology. A particular challenge comes into view here: how might the properly psychoanalytic dimension of Freudian concepts be retained in such contexts, how might we avoid compromising their unique explanatory value, especially given the post hoc tinkering typically required of a post-structuralist sensibility?
Added to these problems is the fact that psychoanalytic – and particularly Lacanian – excursions into the domain of discourse theory tend to result in forms of theoretical abstraction less than conducive to the work of applied empirical analysis. The work of Ernesto Laclau signals a vital bridge here, and it is no surprise that the early sections of Claudia Lapping's excellent Psychoanalysis in Social Research make extended reference to Laclau in suggesting a series of psychoanalytic directions for psychosocial research. That Lapping writes from within psychosocial studies helps. This discipline, an ever-rejuvenating articulation of the sociological and the psychical, is at home both with forays into theory, and the requirements of empirically-based research projects. The crucial link between Laclau and Freudian theory identified by Lapping is the notion of overdetermination. The book's second chapter features a wonderfully textured account o