Psychoanalytic sociology is the research field that analyzes

society A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Soci ...

using the same methods that

psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...

applied to analyze an individual. 'Psychoanalytic sociology embraces work from divergent sociological traditions and political perspectives': its common 'emphasis on unconscious mental processes and behavior renders psychoanalytic sociology a controversial subfield within the broader sociological discipline' (as with psychoanalysis in academic

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between ...

). Similarly, sociatry applies

psychiatry Psychiatry is the specialty (medicine), medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders. These include various maladaptations related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions. See glossary of psych ...

to society itself.

History

Freud

'The desire to establish a link between psychoanalysis and sociology appears very early on in Freud's work. The articles "Obsessive Actions and Religious Practices" (1907b) and " 'Civilized' Sexual Morality and Modern Nervous Illness" (1908d) are evidence of this'. Though the latter article was 'the earliest of Freud's full-length discussions of the antagonism between civilization and instinctual life, his convictions on the subject went back much further': however the 'sociological aspects of that antagonism form the main subject' in 1908. The same mode of approach was also employed by Freud in his book ''

Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego A group is a number of persons or things that are located, gathered, or classed together. Groups of people * Cultural group, a group whose members share the same cultural identity * Ethnic group, a group whose members share the same ethnic ide ...

'' (1921), where he argued that 'crowd psychology, and with it all social psychology, is parasitic on individual psychology'. ''Civilization and Its Discontents'' in 1930 formed however his fullest sociological study, wherein he 'anchored his analysis of social and political life in a theory of human nature very much his own'. Indeed, in 'works, from

Totem and Taboo ''Totem and Taboo: Resemblances Between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics'', or ''Totem and Taboo: Some Points of Agreement between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics'', (german: Totem und Tabu: Einige Übereinstimmungen im Seelenl ...

(1912-1913a) to Moses and Monotheism (1939a), Freud analyzed the events that presided over the foundation and modification of social links, the advent of civilization, and the rise of its current discontents';Enriquez
/ref> while James Strachey described ''The Future of an Illusion'' (1927) as 'the first of a number of sociological works to which Freud devoted most of his remaining years'.

Freudians

'Many of the early analysts were Marxists ...

Reich ''Reich'' (; ) is a German noun whose meaning is analogous to the meaning of the English word "realm"; this is not to be confused with the German adjective "reich" which means "rich". The terms ' (literally the "realm of an emperor") and ' (lit ...

, Paul Federn and Otto Fenichel the most notable among them', and were fully prepared, in Erich Fromm's words, to at least '"try to explain psychic structure as determined by social structure"'.

Theodor Adorno Theodor is a masculine given name. It is a German form of Theodore. It is also a variant of Teodor. List of people with the given name Theodor * Theodor Adorno, (1903–1969), German philosopher * Theodor Aman, Romanian painter * Theodor Blue ...

's essays on psychoanalysis, reappropriated Freud's work and applied it to

social phenomena Social phenomena or social phenomenon (singular) are any behaviours, actions, or events that takes place because of social influence, including from contemporary as well as historical societal influences. They are often a result of multifaceted pr ...

, and in particular in his ''Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda'' (1951), he outlined a theory of

social psychology Social psychology is the scientific study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people or by social norms. Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the ...

. In 1946, Fenichel considered that '"Comparative sociology of education" is a new scientific field of the greatest practical importance', as well as concluding in general that it is 'experience, that is, the cultural conditions, that transforms potentialities into realities, that shapes the real mental structure of man by forcing his instinctual demands into certain directions'. From a different angle, the early Lacan argued that 'any "concrete psychology" must be augmented by a reference to ethnology, history and law'; and later drew on ' Lévi-Strauss's structural anthropology... orwhat will be termed

the Symbolic The Symbolic (or Symbolic Order of the Borromean knot) is the order in the unconscious that gives rise to subjectivity and bridges intersubjectivity between two subjects; an example is Jacques Lacan's idea of desire as the desire of the Other, ...

Post-Lacanian Lacanianism or Lacanian psychoanalysis is a theoretical system that explains the mind, behaviour, and culture through a structuralist and post-structuralist extension of classical psychoanalysis, initiated by the work of Jacques Lacan from the ...

s would continue to explore such sociological areas as 'the superego as the moment of common cultural binding', or the way 'the social bond, the Law binding us, is...a bond of the impossibility of obedience ''or'' disobedience'.

1960s and the Left

The 1960s saw a radical sociopsychoanalysis exert wide popular influence under the guidance of a number of different thinkers. David Cooper attempted to explore 'in terms of Freud's discovery...the social function of the family as an ideological conditioning device'.

R. D. Laing Ronald David Laing (7 October 1927 – 23 August 1989), usually cited as R. D. Laing, was a Scottish psychiatrist who wrote extensively on mental illnessin particular, the experience of psychosis. Laing's views on the causes and treatment o ...

'has adapted

Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology), a French playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and lite ...

's existential psychoanalysis.. s heanalyzes the concept of alienation': looking at the 'analysis of alienation in sociological and clinical senses', Laing concluded grandly that 'Alienation as our present destiny is achieved only by outrageous violence perpetrated by human beings on human beings'. Norman O. Brown examined a 'politics made out of delinquency...even as the crime, so also conscience is collective'. Herbert Marcuse explored how in late modernity " repressive desublimation is indeed operative in the sexual sphere...as the by-product of the social controls of technological reality, which extend liberty while intensifying domination".

Lacanians

Duane Rousselle has developed an interventionist approach to sociological theory by highlighting the centrality of the claim made by the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan that "discourse is what constitutes a social bond."

Feminist contributions

Nancy Chodorow Nancy Julia Chodorow (born January 20, 1944) is an American sociologist and professor. She began her career as a professor of Women's studies at Wellesley College in 1973, and from 1974 on taught at the University of California, Santa Cruz, unti ...

's work has been of significance within feminist understandings, in particular ''The Reproduction of Mothering and The Power of Feelings''. 'Although Chodorow uses a psychoanalytic approach, she rejects the instinctual determinism of the classic Freudian account in favor of a more nuanced, social psychological approach that incorporates recent developments in object relations theory'. Jessica Benjamin has also been influential in this project of linking social theory to psychoanalysis, as with ''The Shadow of the Other''. Juliet Mitchell however has criticised the way 'Benjamin's injunction is made within a psychosocial, not a psychoanalytical framework'.

Criticism

Freud early warned of any 'attempt of this kind to carry psychoanalysis over to the cultural community...that it is dangerous, not only with men but also with concepts, to tear them from the sphere in which they have originated and been evolved'.Freud, ''Civilization'' p. 338 Others have since observed that 'efforts to link sociology and psychoanalysis have yielded varied results....

ome Ome may refer to: Places * Ome (Bora Bora), a public island in the lagoon of Bora Bora * Ome, Lombardy, Italy, a town and ''comune'' in the Province of Brescia * Ōme, Tokyo, a city in the Prefecture of Tokyo * Ome (crater), a crater on Mars Tran ...

intoxicated by the success of analysis, have indiscriminately applied psychoanalytic concepts to social reality and have succeeded only in bastardizing psychoanalysis (making it a management tool) and disfiguring social processes'.