Freud, Psychoanalysis, Social Theory : The Unfulfilled Promise

Discusses the reasons for the decline of the cultural influence of psychoanalysis. Freud, Psychoanalysis, Social Theory explores the parallel decline of psychoanalysis which, as psychoanalysts themselves testify, has lost its position as a vital source for innovative cultural analysis and critique, and mainstream social science, which has for methodological reasons similarly abandoned larger interpretive goals. Theory in all domains faces a central paradox: it is easier for societies to absorb and contain the multiple perspectives and disparate intentions of people acting in the context of different social locations than it is for theorists from any perspective to explain credibly how it happens. Weinstein uses the conflicts between and among the many competing visions of psychoanalytic theory to suggest how this paradox might yet be resolved.