Table Of Content

MANAGED LIVES An inherent tension exists in the history of psychoanalysis and its applications between the concepts of freedom and security. In Managed Lives, this tension is explored from the point of view of therapeutic experience. Set against the background of Freud’s contested legacy, the book examines ways of managing oneself under psychiatric supervision, in the analytic encounter and in the emotional and moral contexts of everyday life. Through a series of detailed case studies, Steven Groarke addresses therapeutic experience as a formation of managed society, examining the work of Donald Winnicott on types of management, Colin Murray Parkes on bereavement and Anthony Giddens on the sociological appropriation of psychoanalysis. Managed Lives forms an original critical analysis of contemporary managerial culture and its self-reflexive project, as well as presenting the idea of management as a source of inner security and vital morality. Presented in three parts, the book addresses: ● the criterion of maturity; ● the reflexive norm; ● the managed society. Together, the book’s arguments provide a fresh and challenging perspective on post-Freudian uses of faith, the risks of critical rationality and the difficulties of living an ethical life under modern conditions. Managed Lives is ideal for academics and research students working on psychoanalytic studies, social theory and mental health studies, as well as students and trainees taking courses in psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, counselling, social work and health and social care. Steven Groarke is a reader in Social Theory at the University of Roehampton, a psychoanalyst of the British Psycho-Analytical Society and a member of the International Psychoanalytical Association. He currently works in private prac- tice in London. This page intentionally left blank MANAGED LIVES Psychoanalysis, inner security and the social order Steven Groarke First published 2014 by Routledge 27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex BN3 2FA and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2014 Steven Groarke The right of Steven Groarke to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Groarke, Steven. Managed lives : psychoanalysis, inner security and the social order / Steven Groarke. pages cm 1. Psychoanalysis. 2. Self-management (Psychology) 3. Social sciences-- Philosophy. 4. Social sciences and psychoanlysis. I. Title. BF173.G7197 2013 150.19'5--dc23 2013019594 ISBN: 978-0-415-69219-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-415-69220-5 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-88015-0 (ebk) Typeset in Times by GreenGate Publishing Services, Tonbridge, Kent TO MY MOTHER AND IN MEMORY OF MY FATHER WITH LOVE AND THANKS Nah ist Und schwer zu fassen der Gott. Wo aber Gefahr ist, wächst Das Rettende auch. Hölderlin, ‘Patmos’ (1803) CONTENTS Preface ix Acknowledgements xiii PART I The criterion of maturity 1 1 The Winnicottian typology of management 10 The Freudian critique of culture 11 The primary maternal frame 15 Catastrophic disillusionment 20 Social management 24 2 Reclamation and the unthinkable 31 The failure–dissociation model 32 Therapy as an act of faith 35 The redress of psychoanalysis 39 The exigency of return 44 The paradox of reclamation 49 Holding 51 3 Society’s permanent task 59 Revaluation of the value of war 60 The calculus of security 63 The antisocial imagination 67 Leave-taking 74 vii CONTENTS PART II The reflexive norm 79 4 Norms and facts 84 Communities of care 84 Rules of method 89 The Durkheimian norm 97 Social medicine and health surveys 100 5 Illness and identity 107 Needs and norms 108 Family-centred model of treatment 110 Awareness that something is wrong 117 A duty to the dead 120 6 Vulnerability and trauma 126 The predictive–preventive strategy 127 The calculation of risk 131 Traumatic grief 135 The case of Henry 142 PART III The managed society 149 7 Basic security 154 Social facts and reflexive norms 155 The crisis of trust 161 The social logic of identity 165 Faith and knowledge 171 Normative orders of conduct 175 8 The regulated life 182 Coping with anxiety 184 The narrative frame of reference 189 Utopian realism 195 The re-moralization of the social 200 Conclusion: The difficult task 210 References 218 Index 239 viii PREFACE This is a book about forms of therapeutic experience; it is about ways of managing oneself in the psychoanalytic encounter, under psychiatric supervision, and in the emotional and moral context of everyday life. Set against the background of Freud’s contested legacy, we focus on the way in which some of our most intimate experiences are constituted and framed by therapeutic norms and val- ues. The principal aim of the book is to determine and to critique the therapeutic underpinning of normative theories in a series of related disciplines and practices. This in turn involves linking the administration of normality, as a defining fea- ture of managed society, to the difficulty of living an ethical life under modern conditions. More than therapy itself, we focus on the role of therapeutic experience in general as a formation of managed society. And while the argument is set out in a series of case studies, the book is primarily a theoretical critique of managed lives. The first part of the book considers the norm as an expression of life itself, the idea of normative vitality as a psychosomatic experience. The second part discusses the reflexive norm in bereavement studies and psychiatric supervision. The third and final part of the book focuses on the reflexive project of self-regulation as a twofold process of normalization and re-moralization. In each case, I aim to draw out the irreducible antinomy of security and freedom in the post-Freudian context of secularized or secularizing modernity. A century after the publication of The Interpretation of Dreams and Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, we have assimilated Freud to any number of interpretations and settings. And with the passing of the so-called ‘age of Freud’, the important question now is what psychoanalysis has become as a normative conception of our world. It is important not to assume that the controversies surrounding Freud are simply a matter for the endless wrangling of the psychoanalytic schools. That we are indebted to Freud, heir to a legacy of radical ideas and unsettling techniques, is evident in the ongoing modifications and appropriations of psychoanalysis. This is a debt which is no less apparent in the adamant refusal to credit the doctrine of the unconscious mind; in the resistance to the central concepts of psychoanalytic theory; and even, perhaps especially, in respect of the deliberate denigration and dismantling of the Freudian interpretation. ix