Jan De Vos

Psychologization and the subject of late modernity

Jan De Vos starts where other critiques on psychology end, presenting the argument that psychology is psychologization.This fresh and pioneering approach asks what it means to become the psychologist of ones own life. If something is not working in our education, in our marriage, in our work and in society in general we turn to the psy-sciences. But is the latters paradigm precisely not relying on feeding psychological theories into the field of research and action? This book traces psychologization from the Enlightenment to Late-Modernity, engaging with seminal thinkers such as La Mettrie, Husserl, Lasch and Agamben, whereby Jan De Vos teases out the possibilities and the limits of using psychoanalytic theory as a critical tool. Offering challenging and thought-provoking insights into how the modern human came to adopt a psychological gaze on itself and the world, this book will appeal to psychologists, sociologists and studies of culture.

Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism The Failure of a Critique of Psychological Politics

Christopher Lasch’s bestseller The Culture of Narcissism had, beyond doubt, a significant impact—it was even read in the White House. Today it is not only still frequently taught and referenced, there are also still empirical studies conducted which try to verify Lasch’s assertion of the preponderance of the narcissistic personality. This paper re-reads the book as a critique of psychologization processes, and this allows us to discern, besides the flaws in Lasch’s approach, a fundamental insight which goes largely unnoticed by both Lasch’s opponents and his proponents. Following this, the article will situate subjectivity within the matrix of psychology, science, psychoanalysis, and politics. In this way a critique of contemporary forms of psychologization—psychologization under globalization, as it were—is made possible.Christopher Lasch’s bestseller The Culture of Narcissism had, beyond doubt, a significant impact—it was even read in the White House. Today it is not only still frequently taught and referenced, there are also still empirical studies conducted which try to verify Lasch’s assertion of the preponderance of the narcissistic personality. This paper re-reads the book as a critique of psychologization processes, and this allows us to discern, besides the flaws in Lasch’s approach, a fundamental insight which goes largely unnoticed by both Lasch’s opponents and his proponents. Following this, the article will situate subjectivity within the matrix of psychology, science, psychoanalysis, and politics. In this way a critique of contemporary forms of psychologization—psychologization under globalization, as it were—is made possible.

Psychologization or the discontents of psychoanalysis

This article explores the possibility of a debate between psychoanalysis and the human sciences and, in particular, between psychoanalysis and psychology. Psychoanalysiss particular view on subjectivity values fiction (truth having the structure of fiction) as a constitutive dimension of personal and social reality. In contrast, the mainstream psy-sciences threaten to remain caught in the attempt to unmask things as they really are (eg, hard neurobiological reality), thus risking losing the subjective dimension as such. Drawing on examples of phenomena of psychologization (in Reality TV and in contemporary discourses of parent and child education), the author spells out the different, but eventually and necessarily intertwined, responses of psychoanalysis and psychology to modernity and modern subjectivity.

The psychologization of humanitarian aid: skimming the battlefield and the disaster zone:

Humanitarian aid’s psycho-therapeutic turn in the 1990s was mirrored by the increasing emotionalization and subjectivation of fund-raising campaigns. In order to grasp the depth of this interconnectedness, this article argues that in both cases what we see is the post-Fordist production paradigm at work; namely, as Hardt and Negri put it, the direct production of subjectivity and social relations. To explore this, the therapeutic and mental health approach in humanitarian aid is juxtaposed with the more general phenomenon of psychologization. This allows us to see that the psychologized production of subjectivity has a problematic waste-product as it reduces the human to Homo sacer, to use Giorgi Agamben’s term. Drawing out a double matrix of a de-psychologizing psychologization connected to a politicizing de-politicization, it will further become possible to understand psycho-therapeutic humanitarianism as a case of how, in these times of globalization, psychology, subjectivity and money are all interrelated.Humanitarian aid’s psycho-therapeutic turn in the 1990s was mirrored by the increasing emotionalization and subjectivation of fund-raising campaigns. In order to grasp the depth of this interconnec...

From Milgram to Zimbardo: the double birth of postwar psychology/psychologization

Milgram’s series of obedience experiments and Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment are probably the two best-known psychological studies. As such, they can be understood as central to the broad process of psychologization in the postwar era. This article will consider the extent to which this process of psychologization can be understood as a simple overflow from the discipline of psychology to wider society or whether, in fact, this process is actually inextricably connected to the science of psychology as such. In so doing, the article will argue that Milgram’s and Zimbardo’s studies are best usefully understood as twin experiments. Milgram’s paradigm of a psychology which explicitly draws its subject into the frame of its own discourse can be said to be the precondition of Zimbardo’s claim that his experiment offers a window onto the crucible of human behaviour. This will be analysed by drawing on the Lacanian concepts of acting out and passage à l’acte. The question then posed is: if both Milgram and Zimbardo claim that their work has emancipatory dimensions — a claim maintained within mainstream psychology — does a close reading of the studies not then reveal that psychology is, rather, the royal road to occurrences such as Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib? The drama of a psychology which is fundamentally based on a process of psychologization is that it turns its subjects into homo sacer of psychological discourse.Milgram’s series of obedience experiments and Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment are probably the two best-known psychological studies. As such, they can be understood as central to the broad pr...

The metamorphoses of the brain : neurologisation and its discontents

What are we exactly, when we are said to be our brain? This question leads Jan De Vos to examine the different metamorphoses of the brain: the educated brain, the material brain, the iconographic brain, the sexual brain, the celebrated brain and, finally, the political brain. This first, protracted and sustained argument on neurologisation, which lays bare its lineage with psychologisation, should be taken seriously by psychologists, educationalists, sociologists, students of cultural studies, policy makers and, above all, neuroscientists themselves.

The deadlock of Husserl’s life-world: from a critique of psychologism to psychologization

Edmund Husserl’s seminal work The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy deals extensively with psychology. He even titled his Prague lecture of November 1935—which served as the basis of the book—The Crisis of European Sciences and Psychology. Husserl’s work is undoubtedly one of the most important critical assessments of psychology. Husserl criticized not only psychology’s methods (i.e., for mimicking the hard sciences), but also the very place of the discipline. His argument can be condensed as follows: the objectivization of science engendered a problematic subjectivity which, in turn, created a need for a psychology. The very paradox of this, viewed from the perspective of the interwar period, led Husserl to declare a crisis of the sciences and, especially, of psychology. Surprisingly, until now Husserl’s critique and defiance have been rarely discussed within the psy-sciences. This paper aims to reopen the debate, beginning with the concept of the life-world, the main concept developed in Crisis. However, as will be argued, that very concept is also the place where Husserl refrains from a radical critique of psychology and where his supposed phenomenological vantage point eventually facilitates the transition from psychologism to psychologization.Edmund Husserl’s seminal work The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy deals extensively with psychology. He even titled his Prague lecture of November 1935—which served as the basis of the book—The Crisis of European Sciences and Psychology. Husserl’s work is undoubtedly one of the most important critical assessments of psychology. Husserl criticized not only psychology’s methods (i.e., for mimicking the hard sciences), but also the very place of the discipline. His argument can be condensed as follows: the objectivization of science engendered a problematic subjectivity which, in turn, created a need for a psychology. The very paradox of this, viewed from the perspective of the interwar period, led Husserl to declare a crisis of the sciences and, especially, of psychology. Surprisingly, until now Husserl’s critique and defiance have been rarely discussed within the psy-sciences. This paper aims to reopen the debate, beginning with t...

Psychologization: Psychoanalysis' (Double) Political Appointment with History – The Accoyer Amendment Revisited

Pseudo-activity was Žižeks harsh judgment of JA Miller, who led the opposition against the French amendment Accoyer. Is the French “furor agitandi”, which denounces out loud what they see as “Lacanian-bashing”, a fight in the wrong arena? The buzz indeed seems to serve to cover up the socio-political dimension, and this becomes clear when one discerns the social forces that lie behind the amendment: psychologization and psychiatrization, the perfect partners of post-politics. What threatens psychoanalysis is not an anti-psychological discourse, but on the contrary psychological discourse as such. The French resistance seems to have missed this political appointment with its Golem. This leads to the question: do the current events point to another missed moment, that of Freud missing the political meeting with modernity?

Which materialism? Questioning the matrix of psychology, neurology, psychoanalysis, and ideology critique

Juxtaposing the materialistic claims of the neurological turn in the psy-sciences in conjunction with the seemingly opposed virtual turn in society more broadly, this article explores the quadruple matrix of psychology/psychoanalysis/neurology/ideology critique. Assuming the challenge of materialism (“il faut absolutement etre materialiste”), the various vicissitudes to which the components of the matrix are subjected to as they become trapped within the materialist–virtual vortex, are explored. It is argued that the failure to adopt a true materialist stance causes the various components of the matrix to collapse into one another. The central question of the paper: “can a psychoanalytic materialistic perspective offer a way out?” is answered, largely via a critical dialogue with Adrian Johnston, by arguing that psychoanalysis deals with a decentred materiality, a materiality of the object a.Juxtaposing the materialistic claims of the neurological turn in the psy-sciences in conjunction with the seemingly opposed virtual turn in society more broadly, this article explores the quadruple matrix of psychology/psychoanalysis/neurology/ideology critique. Assuming the challenge of materialism (“il faut absolutement être materialiste”), the various vicissitudes to which the components of the matrix are subjected to as they become trapped within the materialist–virtual vortex, are explored. It is argued that the failure to adopt a true materialist stance causes the various components of the matrix to collapse into one another. The central question of the paper: “can a psychoanalytic materialistic perspective offer a way out?” is answered, largely via a critical dialogue with Adrian Johnston, by arguing that psychoanalysis deals with a decentred materiality, a materiality of the object a.

From La Mettrie’s voluptuous machine man to the perverse core of psychology

Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709—1751) solved the problem of Cartesian dualism by denying the res cogitans any substance as such. He thus provided science with a basic paradigm which is still respected today. For La Mettrie, all aspects of the soul have to be considered as aspects of the res extensa: man is a machine. However, the emptying of the res cogito is not without a remainder. A zero level of subjectivity is left behind. This paper argues that it is through this remainder that modern subjectivity is structurally linked to the academic and, moreover, psychological gaze. It is further argued that the paradoxes of this modern stance are what prompt La Mettrie to put forward his voluptuous subject, his attempt to escape the abyss of the zero level of subjectivity. In this way, La Mettrie’s naturalized and scientific hedonism contains the germs of Marquis de Sade’s appropriation of the Enlightenment project. Hence this paper attempts to explore the extent to which La Mettrie’s L’homme machine, a key text in 18th-century materialism, has led to a perverse disposition in the modern psy-sciences.Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709—1751) solved the problem of Cartesian dualism by denying the res cogitans any substance as such. He thus provided science with a basic paradigm which is still respected today. For La Mettrie, all aspects of the soul have to be considered as aspects of the res extensa: man is a machine. However, the emptying of the res cogito is not without a remainder. A zero level of subjectivity is left behind. This paper argues that it is through this remainder that modern subjectivity is structurally linked to the academic and, moreover, psychological gaze. It is further argued that the paradoxes of this modern stance are what prompt La Mettrie to put forward his voluptuous subject, his attempt to escape the abyss of the zero level of subjectivity. In this way, La Mettrie’s naturalized and scientific hedonism contains the germs of Marquis de Sade’s appropriation of the Enlightenment project. Hence this paper attempts to explore the extent to which La Mettrie’s L’homme machine, a key t...