Contenu du sommaire : « Psy et société »

Michèle Bertrand, Bernard Doray, Psychoanalysis, Social Science and Society : A Global Perspective A broad consideration of psychoanalysis and the social sciences in France can be seen as a labyrinth formed by five different approaches : the freudologues, the clinical sociologists, the structuralistic shortcuts, the psychograph and the psychoanalysts who carefully avoid therapeutic concerns. Today, the incentive to bridge the gap between psychoanalysis and the social sciences has almost disappeared. There are, however, new poles of initiative such as the new clinic in the study of pauperization, which is informed both by sociology and psychoanalysis.

Olivier Douville, The Relationship between Anthropology and the Clinic Clinical questions concern both what the clinic has to offer and how each clinical psychoanalyst apprehends new modalities of reception of subjectivities in space and time. The importance of contemporary anthropology is evident in relation to the suffering of patients most often represented as missing something (without a home, citizenship, community). It is in this context that psychoanalysts and anthropologists can reestablish contacts broken by false hopes and misunderstandings, but rich in provocations and reciprocal exchanges.

Richard Rechtman, Some Aspects of the Psychatric Management of Violence From its inception, psychiatry has been confronted with the question of violence. This is so not only because violence is a clinical problem, but also because its social recognition depends on its capacity to protect society against "dementedness". However, at the present time the function of clinical psychiatry seem not so much to protect society against madness, but rather to protect those who are "mad" against the dangers represented by society. The social function of psychiatry with respect to violence has thusly evolved parallel to the evolution of the society itself.

Eugène Enriquez, The Other — Similar to Us, or an Enemy ? Everyone perceives the other within him or herself. Symbolically, each of us is part of a chain linked to a collection of institutions in relation to which a debt is owed. For example, some citizens are more privileged than others and thereby perceive them as threatening. From this perspective, the fear aroused by foreigners is even more understandable. It is possible that contemporary societies evoke the image of the threatening foreigner in order to raise such fears.

Jean-Pierre Lebrun, The Morbid Utopia of the Century 's End In the past, humanity conceived of itself as the children of God, or even as gods. Today we are the children of science. The consequences of this change are many and important. Firstly, the legitimacy of our chosen authorities is a crucial question for democratic modes of political organization. Most importantly, this is a crisis concerning the notion of reference. The challenge is to be able to call into question the limits previously imposed without thinking ourselves freed from the notion of limit itself.

Fabrice Müller, Durkheim, Weber and the Normativity of Knowledge The positions of Durkheim and Weber with respect to the definitions of normativity in relation to the process of knowledge seem diametrically opposed. Durkheim refused any normative premise in the consideration of social facts. Weber thought it impossible to avoid the influence of value judgements in research. However, in practice neither was able to maintain his methodological premise intact. One must conclude that sociological knowledge cannot avoid this double normative orientation.

Laurent Bazin, Ethnological Reality and Industrial Phenomena : A Programatic Perspective Although a solid tradition of industrial and urban anthropology exists in the development of ethnology concerning far-flung cultures, the ethnology of France is marked by its folklorist origins. Consequently, it tends to fall back on description at the expense of analysis. Study of Northern mining regions reveals how an anthropological approach capable of analyzing contemporary social and cultural transformations could be elaborated