The couch and the clinic

Author: Park D.

Source: Cultural Studies , Volume 18, Number 1, January 2004 , pp. 109-133(25)

Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

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Abstract:

This paper examines the discourse produced by psychiatrists and psychoanalysts who wrote for non-professional audiences. As professionals who reached out beyond their professions, their writing raises questions about the authority they invoked. The two factions in this popular psychology, psychiatry and psychoanalysis, staked out cultural authority using systematically different types of appeals. The psychiatric approach involved a 'pure' professionalism, invoking psychiatry's similarities to medicine. The psychoanalytic approach involved an explicit dissociation from medical authority, and claimed a difference from medical expertise as a mark of intellectual transcendence. What becomes clear is that these standpoints were constructed through discourse as types of strategic positionings. Concluding notes address the idea that Antonio Gramsci's labels of 'organic' and 'traditional' are not only types of intellectuals; they are also stakes in the game amongst competitors for cultural authority. This insight is then applied to broader considerations regarding public intellectuals.

Keywords: public intellectual; professionalism; psychiatry; psychoanalysis

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0950238042000181638

Affiliations: 1: Lake Forest College, IL, USA

Publication date: 2004-01-01

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