Psychoanalysis and the Acquisition of Knowledge

Abstract

From the myth of Prometheus to the trial of Galileo, history and literature are replete with examples of the clash between institutionally-bound power structures which exploit ignorance and ignore reality, and those that attempt to develop some movement towards scientific and personal truth. Within society as we know it, the genius or messiah figure and the establishment are bound together in an attempt to establish a relationship which can be of constructive relevance to both. The challenge of incorporating new and disruptive, though not necessarily disintegrative thought on the one hand, is contrasted with an uncompromising attack upon those who would lay claim to the previously exclusive rights of the established organisation and the power which accrued from them. Psychoanalysis today is joined in the battle with internal and external prohibitions against the acquisition of knowledge, which may in time point towards the truth of human personality, behaviour and existence.