Luca Micaloni
Luca Micaloni: Sapienza Università di Roma, Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche (luca.micaloni@uniroma1.it)
Repressed Needs and the Deformation of the Public Text. Habermas on Psychoanalysis as a Resource for Critical Social Theory
Abstract: In this paper I will discuss an important passage that led Jürgen Habermas, at the end of the 1960s, to turn to psychoanalytic categories as a reservoir of methodological and diagnostic resources for the Critical Theory of Society. Firstly, I will show how Habermas conceives of psychoanalysis as a relational process designed to repair damaged symbols and to enable the subject to acquire narrative self-reflection free from censorship and internal constrictions; in this context, I will underline that this communicative model extends from intersubjective communication to intra-subjective communication between instances and functions of the human mind. Secondly, I will argue that, initially, the communicative framework is also the underpinning of a critique of social institutions: neurotic repression and constraint are ultimately produced by the conflict between individual drives and social opportunities for satisfaction, and institutional arrangements can be normatively evaluated according to their degree of repressiveness or communicative fluidity. Finally, I will emphasise that, according to Habermas, the peculiarity of psychoanalytic interaction is hardly transferable to the broader contexts of socialisation and to the relationship between individuals and institutions, and can therefore be a valid aid to, but not the basis of, social critique.
Keywords: Habermas; Critical Theory; Psychoanalysis; Communication; Repression.