Notes on a Controversy: The Question Of lay Analysis

Abstract

The question of lay analysis was one of the most important problems of pre-war psychoanalysis. The controversy began in the late 1910s and ended some 20 years later, in the late 1930s, without being resolved. The 1927 discussion on lay analysis marked the height of the controversy. This discussion also proved to be an important turning point, particularly when two rival attempts were made to settle the dispute. Making a contribution to the history of psychoanalysis, this paper provides a detailed analysis of this controversy in terms of Bourdieu's work on symbolic capital. The author examines why the problem of lay analysis was never resolved, and links an explanation of this question to the inherent discursive dynamics of the debate. Psychoanalytic institutionalization, it is argued, goes hand in hand with an accumulation of symbolic capital, setting in motion processes of formalization of psychoanalytic discourse and of social distancing between speaker and listener.