From: Vunch <Vunch-AT-aol.com> Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 10:56:24 EDT Subject: Re: subject/self In a message dated 98-04-17 07:56:15 EDT, you write: << "In the discourse of psychoanalytic psychotherapy the subject is a self which is an object." >> I think you avoiding Foucault's emphasis on the power relation behind the interpretation. "Object relations" is a temr that is used by psychoanalysts commonly to describe the relationships that a patient has, or anyone for that matter. The term is obviously deprecatory. The discourse of psychoanalysis is always over the head and behind the back of the "subject" and so we can hardly speak of a subject anymore. The idea of a subject connotes a sense of autonomy, free will, self-control, etc... However, the language of psychoanalysis is decidedly distorting, as is any power discourse. If the self is an object, it can hardly be a subject. I applaud your intention to fuse the subject-object of our self, but I disagree that what is going on in power relations is such a fusion, instead, I feel that pure objectification and its attendant oppressiveness is more the reality. I have always read Foucault as intimating the pervasiveness of strategic thinking and the uses of power.
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