The Dramatic Meaning of Madness in Psycho(analy)sis: The Ear-Rationality of Treating Illusion as Reality

Ruse and new triumph of madness: the world that thought to measure and justify madness through psychology now must justify itself before madness, since in its struggles and agonies it measures itself by the excess of works like those of Nietzsche, of Van Gogh, of Artaud. And nothing in itself, especially not what it can know of madness, assures the world that it is justified by such works of madness.

Conceptually rooted in biology, medicine, and the natural sciences, contemporary psychology continues in its quest to scientifically measure and explain the human psyche. A science and pathology-driven psychology understands differences among people as the result of neuropsychic deficiencies, diseases, and disorders that are inscribed in the empirical language of our diagnostic and statistical manuals such as, for example, the DSM-IV. Infused with a medical ideology, the various meanings of madness are subsumed by psychology's biomedical notions of psychosis; madness as a complex social phenomenon is, unfortunately, understood and interpreted within the organizing conceptual framework of symptomatology, etiology, and psychopathology. In the larger picture, our biomedical traditions, beliefs, and values provide the largely unquestioned articulation of our professional standards in the learning and practice communities. Indeed, a