The Emotional Tie: Psychoanalysis, Mimesis, and Affect

The eight essays collected here extend the author’s re-evaluation of the philosophical underpinnings of psychoanalysis and thereby develop his arguments for increased attention to the role of affect - of the emotional tie, in our conceptions of the psychoanalytic subject. The author analyses the political and ethical implications of Freud’s work in the first part ‘Freudian Politics’. In the second section, ‘From Psychoanalysis to Hypnosis’, he shows what might be gained by reinstating hypnosis as central to psychoanalytic questioning. The third section, ‘The Unconscious and Philosophy’, examines Freud’s relation to a tradition of philosophical interpretation. The author devotes special attention to where the unconscious fits, how it comes to be a mode of explanation, within such an interpretation. This book will appeal to anyone interested in the relations between philosophy and literature and in psychoanalytic theory generally. It may also be of interest to practising analysts.