Misery, dialectics and liberation

Abstract

This article argues that Freud did not accept the sphere of ‘psychology’ as something given that could be known objectively. Nor did he see it as something unitary that would be the same always and in any person. Instead, he provided valuable insights into the human nature of misery as something historical, into the dialectical process through which we can understand misery as something condensed in symptoms, and into the relationship between understanding and liberation. We argue that psychoanalysis needs to be recreated by us as a tool of radical work on subjectivity in order to overthrow of existing conditions. We argue for a dialectical understanding of psychoanalysis as a tool and result; this tool is the result of the theoretical elaborations of Freud and followers, who enabled us to use it for radical work in the clinic and with liberation movements. It makes possible ‘revolutionary subjectivity’, a ‘revolutionary subject’.