Frosh, Stephen (2022) Psychoanalytic Judaism, Judaic Psychoanalysis. European Judaism 55 (1), pp. 71-85. ISSN 0014-3006.
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Abstract
In this article I will briefly review some thinking on the relationship between Judaism and psychoanalysis before making the claim that there is something about Jewish ‘lived ethics’ that is directed towards interruption by otherness – and that this speaks to a progressive mode of psychoanalytic consciousness. The article begins with a summary account of some major trends in the co-location of psychoanalysis and Judaism, relating particularly to: the origins of psychoanalysis; antisemitism directed towards, and within, psychoanalysis; links between Jewish mysticism and psychoanalysis through notions of ‘tikkun’ and reparation; hermeneutics and interpretation; and the transmission of knowledge through intense personal relationships. Psychoanalytic interpretation has also been applied to some Jewish (especially Biblical) texts. I have been arguing recently that there is something ‘barbaric’ in Judaism that is also present in psychoanalysis, and that this offers possibilities for decolonial activism and solidarity. But there are many complexities, including the tendency to understand religion in ‘Christian’ terms as a set of beliefs, rather than in Jewish terms as primarily a set of practices. The article then offers an account of Jewishness as rooted in ambivalence and contradictory ties – and particularly as a way of being that is fundamentally interrupted by otherness. I give an example of this and try to show that what one author I draw on calls ‘the backward pull of love and accidental attachment’ is constitutive of Judaism and of psychoanalysis as well. As such, it is a powerful ethical claim to say that ‘Judaic’ psychoanalysis exists.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedited version of the article. The definitive publisher-authenticated version is available online at the link above. |
| Keyword(s) / Subject(s): | Psychoanalysis, Judaism, religion, otherness, ethics |
| School: | Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences |
| Depositing User: | Stephen Frosh |
| Date Deposited: | 22 Jul 2020 08:47 |
| Last Modified: | 01 Mar 2024 01:10 |
| URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/32596 |
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