PARRHESIA, PHAEDRA, AND THE POLIS: ANTICIPATING PSYCHOANALYTIC FREE ASSOCIATION AS DEMOCRATIC PRACTICE.

This essay explores the mostly unexamined analogy of psychoanalytic free association to democratic free speech. The author turns back to a time when free speech was a matter of considerable discussion: the classical period of the Athenian constitution and its experiment with parrhesia. Ordinarily translated into English as "free speech," parrhesia is startlingly relevant to psychoanalysis. The Athenian stage-in particular, Hippolytus (Euripides, 5th century BCE)-illustrates this point. Euripides's tragic tale anticipates Freud's inquiries, exploring the fundamental link between free speech and female embodiment. The author suggests that psychoanalysis should claim its own conception of a polis as a mediated and ethical space between private and public spheres, between body and mind, and between speaking and listening communities. © 2015 The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, Inc.

Citation

Jill Gentile. PARRHESIA, PHAEDRA, AND THE POLIS: ANTICIPATING PSYCHOANALYTIC FREE ASSOCIATION AS DEMOCRATIC PRACTICE. The Psychoanalytic quarterly. 2015 Jul;84(3):589-624

Mesh Tags

PMID: 26198602

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