In the End Is Love: A Comment on Psychoanalytic Epistemology

Summary:

Reflections on the epistemological status of psychoanalysis in the context of contemporary sciences are expressed in this article. The peculiar psychoanalytic focus on singularity is considered as having the same function as the symptom in science. In this context, the notions of love and forgiveness are elaborated in terms of their being both the end and the aim of the psychoanalytic process. Lacanian and Kohutian ideas are recruited in order to articulate a mission for psychoanalysis that raises an alert, thus preventing it from degenerating into a technocracy of the unconscious. Besides, the strong bonds between truth and love are highlighted as well,which psychoanalysis needs to maintain if it wishes to resist both the illusion of the neutrality of values and the temptation of mere intellectual curiosity.