The Therapeutic Space of Psychoanalysis

Michel Foucault provides a framework for understanding how psychoanalytic space can be either oppressive or liberating for the analysand. In his writings on the history of madness, he contends that Freud's classical psychoanalysis was oppressive because it transferred the controlling power of the asylum to the consulting room. Foucault contrasts the space of this classical power to modern disciplinary space, which is organized to promote the efficient deployment of power. By extending his ideas about disciplinary space to therapeutic settings, we can see ways that psychoanalysis can be a very regimented practice. Foucault also attempts to show how our knowledge of ourselves can be constricting when we attempt to understand human nature in terms of knowledge based on spatial representation. However, he claims that we can overcome this limiting image of ourselves through Lacanian psychoanalysis, which challenges self-conceptions originating in childhood. By creating “heterotopias,” or “other spaces,” we can open ourselves to new possibilities that transcend the dichotomy of physical reality and

subjective experience, allowing us to break free from constraining self-images. These notions of alternative, emancipatory therapeutic space are illustrated by the views of a range of psychoanalysts.