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The Psychology Clinic

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24.01.2022 My piece at Overland: https://overland.org.au//torture-psychology-and-the-neoli/

24.01.2022 I have a recent publication here, on the topic of so-called neuroenhancement as it applies to problems of love. http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract The article is paywalled, but a link to the draft on which it was based can be found here: https://melbournelacanian.wordpress.com//love-technology-/... The article was a response to several pieces by a group of Oxford philosophers, who argued for neurochemicals (such as oxytocin) to be used to improve ailing love affairs, and for other chemicals to be used to end allegedly pathological love (such as affairs, or unrequited love). Looking back, the Oxford authors offer a defence of 'medicalisation' of love, but the medical model they are working from is rather different to that of earlier forms of medicine. No longer is the clinician's aim that of simply remedying pathology.The end of the pathology would constitute a limit to the clinical intervention. Now, the aim is 'enhancement', which is, in principle, amenable to limitless intervention. It is a model much more in keeping with contemporary political and economic approaches (austerity, technocracy) and reflected in the peddling of 'neuroenhancement' (for love, cognition, mood) and universal mindfulness (in clinics, schools, workplaces), etc. All medicine is a kind of technology of power, but 'enhancement' technology corresponds to a different power, and different ideology, to that of the old (and much-maligned) medical model.

24.01.2022 Here's a presentation from David Ferraro given in Sydney, October 2015, entitled 'The Happiness Industry": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYueQ2OG5YA

19.01.2022 Here is the latest publication, this time in an academic journal, and therefore paywalled (unfortunately). It is entitled 'Psychology in the Age of Austerity', and its basic thesis is that the most socially corrosive elements of neoliberal political economy - competition, individualism,the notion each of subject as his own entrepreneur, authoritarianism, cost-effectiveness, quantitative reductionism - have been internalised in mainstream, Anglophone psychology over the past 3...-4 decades. What passes for mainstream research and practice is a form of neoliberal governmentality, and examples of this abound, especially in Australia, where the main 'advocacy' and research groups only every advocate and research that which is cheap, generic and authoritarian. The article can be found here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ppi.1369/full Here is an excerpt, contrasting psychoanalysis with the current fad of pseudo-scientific quick fixes: 'A juxtaposition of the two paradigms and the two epochs shows the profundity of the paradigm shift supplementary to economic change. Psychoanalysis is oriented to unconscious desire and enjoyment (jouissance) as opposed to CBT’s emphasis on correct thought and self-mastery. Analysis posits its material as discourse, by definition, intersubjective and involving an exchange between individuals (see, for example, Benveniste, 1971) as opposed to the contemporary cognition, a private and intrasubjective phenomenon. The old method was strictly non-directive and participants were encouraged to say whatever they wished (free association). The new method is highly directive and the speech of participants is conditioned by homework tasks designed to inculcate correct thinking, behaviour, and self-observation. The old method, along with the common factors approach, emphasized the transferential basis for therapeutic effects, whereas the new method places the stress on isolable techniques, applicable to anybody and amenable to administration by a computer programme. The old subject presupposed by psychology was woven from the introjected elements of others, and, therefore, intrinsically relational; the new is monadic, assumed to be unified, and is addressed by procedures designed to manage or militarize this supposed unity. The old treatment explored forms of desire and enjoyment in relation to moral prohibitions, while the new itself indoctrinates subjects with its own moral regimen, as a system of protocols for thought (whether in the form of acceptance, critical positivity ratios, correction of distorted cognitions, etc.) '

17.01.2022 http://melbournelacanian.wordpress.com//ordinary-psychosis/

15.01.2022 Coinciding with the current Centrelink debacle and its implications for debt, state control and individual responsibility, here is David Ferraro's latest publication, a psychoanalytic examination of neoliberal economics and its effects on subjectivity: https://melbournelacanian.wordpress.com//the-ties-that-un/

14.01.2022 The recent mental health reforms promoted by Coalition MP Sussan Ley have received support from some quarters, including Beyond Blue and the Fairfax media. There are many in the medical and psychological fraternity who are concerned about them, however, and the following article raises some of the issues nicely: http://drben.com.au/?p=758

10.01.2022 Here's a review on a book that examines the alliance between 'The Happiness Industry' and political and business interests: http://www.independent.co.uk//the-happiness-industry-by-wi

08.01.2022 Many stories have emerged in recent days about the extensive level of complicity between US APA psychologists and CIA torture programs. Some psychologists - especially those who follow the common factors approach, tend to see all psychotherapeutic approaches in terms of meta-factors, rendering them all somewhat equivalent. Whilst there is a kernel of truth to this, we should not be blind to the important differences in theory and praxis. For instance, it is hardly a coincidence that the evidence on torture shows that it was supported by the instrumental, 'technique'-based psychologists (positive psychologists, cognitive-behaviourists) and opposed by the psychoanalysts (and to a lesser extent, the humanists): http://www.nytimes.com//psychologists-shielded-us-torture-

01.01.2022 Dear colleagues, In 2016, the Lacan Circle of Melbourne will be presenting introductory seminars elaborating on fundamental concepts in psychoanalysis. These se...minars will occur every month, prior to the Lacan Circle's study days. (A calendar of events can be found here). The seminars will assume no prior knowledge, and questions and discussion are encouraged. The seminars will run as follows: 1. Freud and the Genesis of Structure 2. Psychoanalytic Concepts during and after the Great War 3. The Treachery of Images 4. Lacan's Return to Freud 5. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis 6. The Fall of the Object 7. Post-Oedipal Psychoanalysis 8. Tying the Knot: Sexuation, Sinthome, and the 'late' Lacan If you wish to attend, please register your interest by email to David Ferraro ([email protected]).

01.01.2022 Presentation by David Ferraro on the film 'Hereditary', and grief and loss in psychoanalysis: https://www.facebook.com/events/389205711559543/

01.01.2022 For those in the helping professions: https://melbournelacanian.wordpress.com//why-psychologist/

01.01.2022 https://melbournelacanian.wordpress.com//obsessional-neur/