For a history of psychoanalysis’ politics: institutionalization, formation and the analysts’ political stance

Abstract

The political history of psychoanalysis is approached as a movement around psychological ideas and practices not in order to draw a historiography of such movement, but to sketch a historically valuable narrative in regards to certain institutional aspects of psychoanalysis, which show the way through which it has taken political actions within its institutionalization. Based on the psychoanalysts’ political stances and their theories, we outlined some intersections among them, analyzing three authors, Paul Federn, Otto Fenichel, and Ernest Jones, and then analyzing the constitution of the psychoanalytical movement and the Freudian cause propaganda. Our hypothesis is that, despite the different stances and political forces that exist within psychoanalysis, they have converged towards the defense of one cause. Thus, the constitution and expansion of the psychoanalytical movement becomes clearer during its first five decades towards a seeming unification