Origin stories, invention of genealogies and the early diffusion of Lacanian psychoanalysis in Argentina and Spain (1960–1980)

Sergio E. Visacovsky

pp. 227-256

in: Joy Damousi, Mariano Ben Plotkin (eds), The transnational unconscious, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009

Abstract

As with most expert knowledge, psychoanalysis is thought of by followers as a theory and clinical practice with universal reach, immune to the effects that the specific characteristics of national, regional or urban environments can cause. The differences, it is maintained, arise from the different interpretations of Freudian theory produced by the psychoanalytical community, or from the personal characteristics of analysts and patients that can generate different styles of treatment or transmission. Against these wishes, studies on the transnational diffusion of consumer goods, lifestyles, cultural products, knowledge, images and beliefs have shown the crucial importance that local conditions of reception. In other words, the diffused and received objects do not remain unaltered; instead they are necessarily accepted and provided with a sense according to the local predominant types of cultural interpretation.¹ The types of knowledge defined as "expert" — like psychoanalysis — do not escape the same rule even though their legitimate cognitive aims are universal. They are, above all, social practices rooted in cultural traditions and networks of ineanings,² placed, interpreted and appropriated in singular contexts.

Cited authors

Freud Sigmund