Abstract
There is no precise way of specifying what psychoanalysis is, and the answer to what it is lies in who one reads, or what one thinks one wants to do with this body of knowledge. This lack of precision seems to be a good thing as the pursuit of a stable and resolute body of knowledge of the unconscious does not sound sustainable or desirable. However, a lack of conceptual precision within, and especially between, ‘schools’ of psychoanalytic thought is not the same as saying that anything goes, and that we can make psychoanalysis mean whatever we want it to. And on a surprisingly large number of topics there is considerable agreement and consensus among the many theoretical approaches within psychoanalysis.
This is a substantially revised and extended version of a paper first presented at the WISER Symposium ‘Rethinking the Social: Psychoanalytic Perspectives’, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 25–26 August 2005.
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© 2012 Grahame Hayes
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Hayes, G. (2012). Desire in the Time of AIDS. In: Gülerce, A. (eds) Re(con)figuring Psychoanalysis. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230373303_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230373303_9
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