CHAPTER 6
What Remains: Psychoanalyses, Deconstructions, and Feminisms

Section 2
Post(al)-Psychoanalysis

What remains of psychoanalysis after "the Freudian concept of trace" is "radicalized and extracted from the metaphysics of presence which still retains it" (Der78 229)? Given my reading of the "mainstyle" Freud, my attempt to problematize the supposed unease of certain Freudian concepts within logocentric closure, to disturb these supposedly disturbing origins, it would seem that I might argue that little remains of psychoanalysis proper or "mainstyle" Freudian theory after this process of radicalization and extraction. What could possibly remain of a Platonic discourse of "castration-truth" after such a process? This process might be considered a posting of psychoanalysis, and the product of such a process might be called "post-psychoanalysis." With any such posting the question becomes whether that which is being posted is being rejected outright, or whether it is in some significant way being retained yet altered, as with the definition of "post-Marxism" in The Routledge Critical Dictionary of Postmodern Thought:
The term "post-Marxist" can be applied in two specific ways: to those who have rejected Marxist beliefs, and to those that have attempted to open up Marxism to more recent theoretical developments such as poststructuralism, postmodernism, feminism and the various new social movements (such as the Greens) that have risen to prominence in the latter decades of the 20th century. In the terminology of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, arguably the leading theorists of post-Marxism, this would equate to being either POST-Marxist of post-MARXIST. (338).
If I were to post psychoanalysis, it would be a post-PSYCHOANALYSIS rather than a POST-psychoanalysis: it would not assume that psychoanalysis could, let alone should, simply be rejected or left behind. Any POSTing of psychoanalysis would have to assume that the process of POSTing could somehow simply step outside of psychoanalysis, that psychoanalysis was somehow not interior to the process, interior to the POSTing and that which POSTs–somehow not part of the "convergent competition" (Der90 72) and general theoretical contamination that makes up the field of jetties, of the "states of ‘theory,’" and that does not allow for distinct boundaries to be drawn between jetties. Moreover, what Derrida says about the relationship between what he sees as the "mainstyles" of Marxism and deconstruction might also apply to psychoanalysis and deconstruction:
Deconstruction has never had any sense or interest, in my view at least, except as a radicalization, which is to say also in the tradition of a certain Marxism, in a certain spirit of Marxism. There has been, then, this attempted radicalization of Marxism called deconstruction…. If this attempt has been prudent and sparing but rarely negative in the strategy of its references to Marx, it is because the Marxist ontology, the appellation of Marx, the legitimation by way of Marx had been in a way too solidly taken over [arraisonnées]. They appeared to be welded to an orthodoxy…. But a radicalization is always indebted to the very thing it radicalizes. (Der94 92)
Just as "this attempted radicalization of Marxism" is called "deconstruction" by Derrida, his "attempted radicalization" of Freudian theory, of the Freudian concept of trace, might also simply be called "deconstruction." If to radicalize the Freudian concept of trace is simply to adopt a Derridean concept of trace, and if Derrida’s process of extraction leaves behind only Freudian concepts that are "without exception" (Der78 197) part of the history of metaphysics of presence, then would not this process of radicalization and extraction simply be a posting of psychoanalysis? What debt would a radical "technology of iterability" or a "cyborg-analysis" have to Freud? to "mainstyle" or oedipal psychoanalysis? What debt is incurred to Freudian theory by its being that which is radicalized? Is the Freudian concept of trace radicalized or merely replaced by the Derridean concept of trace? Wouldn’t there have to be some relationship beyond that which radicalizes and that which is radicalized in order for their to be a debt? There would have to be, if not a common spirit, than a commonality of spirit.

In its attempt to radicalize psychoanalysis, Derrida’s strategy of references to Freud have not been as "prudent and sparing" as they were to Marx. He does not hesitate to note his "theoretical reticence to utilize Freudian concepts, otherwise than in quotation marks" since they, "without exception, belong to the history of metaphysics" (Der78 197). Yet there are also moments when Derrida seems too ready to be indebted to Freud. In "Scene," Derrida’s reading of Freud’s Project does not question the origin of Qh and the effect of this origin on the supposed "scene of writing." He also does not question the origin of quantity in the w system of Freud’s apparatus. In "Speculate," he treats the "pp" or primary process as something other to the PP or pleasure principle, and as "essentially rebellious" (Der87 344), rather than as in many ways identical to the PP and as the product of an original identity: what Freud calls the perceptual identity. Derrida does not take seriously what was for Freud the origin of origins: what I have called his oedipal phylo-"genetics." In this sense Derrida represses a certain spirit of Freud that is anathema to the spirit of deconstruction. And this repression calls for further analysis and working through–which I have tried to do here.

Yet there are also those times when Derrida does see psychoanalysis as the perfect "object" of analysis, loving and missing Lacan in some respects similarly to the way Lacan loved and missed hysterics (see "For the Love of Lacan," Der96 39-69). Despite the greater debt Derrida seems to feel to Freud in comparison to the one he feels to Lacan, he seems to have been more ready than he was with Lacanian psychoanalysis (and Marxism) to put Freudian theory in the position of that which must be radicalized: that which must be analyzed with respect to a repression, and that whose resistances must be worked through. The reasons he resists putting Marxism in this position seem quite different from the reasons he resists putting Lacanian psychoanalysis there. It is almost out of respect for the radicalism he finds in Marxism, as much as his desire to avoid its orthodoxy, that Derrida resists what Michael Sprinker calls "the long-awaited direct encounter between Derrida and Marxism" (Spr99 1). With Lacan it is for Derrida more a matter of "love"–which both Freud and Lacan stressed is always ambivalent–and "Le facteur de la vérité" at times reads more as a critique of Lacanian "castration-truth" than a deconstruction. Since I argue my "mainstyle" Freudian theory is also a "castration-truth" discourse, it is more difficult for me to find the commonality of spirit, of a radical or "otherwise" spirit, between psychoanalysis and deconstruction beyond the "analysis of a repression," which I have attempted to show as potentially both radical and conservative.

Certainly, any technology of iterability that claimed to simply post psychoanalysis would be haunted by specters of Freud. The "certain spirit" of Freudian theory, the spirit of the radical Freud, would be what I have called the "otherwise" Freud. And certainly this spirit haunts my reading of "mainstyle" Freudian theory. I would associate this radical specter of Freud with those moments when he asks questions, forms hypotheses, in a non-reductive "face to face" (Levinas) with the Other. Freud’s "analysis of repression" (without the indefinite article) would be a significant aspect of this radical specter. It is when Freud answers the questions of this analysis with an "analysis of a repression," with a division of repression into primal and secondary–where the former is the immobile text of phylo-"genetics" and "castration-truth" and the latter is an "interdiction of translation"–that he represses his radical spirit. I hope my reading of "mainstyle" psychoanalysis will be read as a de-repression or "de-sedimentation" (Derrida)–a process of disturbing the origins of psychoanalysis, disturbing the sediments of this specific repression–where the importance of phylogeny and translation to Freud are taken seriously, rather than a repression itself of Freud’s radical spirit.

Yet too often the establishment spirit of "mainstyle" Freudian theory is repressed (anticathected) when the radical spirit is brought to the fore (hypercathected), as in Barratt’s Psychoanalysis and the Postmodern Impulse. In order to avoid the criticism of reducing Freudian theory to an establishment or conservative spirit, and in recognition of the interiority of Freudian theory to my own "analysis of a repression," and the radical "Legend of Freud," the radical spirit of his theory Freud himself would often marginalize, I will problematize any simple posting of psychoanalysis for my Derridean "technology of iterability" or "cyborg-analysis" by adding an "al" in parentheses to "post": post(al)-psychoanalysis. I am interested in naming the theoretical discourse I will use as both a theoretician and a clinician doing what is presently called simply "psychoanalysis." The problem with "technology of iterability" or simply "deconstruction" is that these names of jetties, of "mainstyles," would not make any debt to psychoanalysis conspicuous and would seem, therefore, to be repressive to some extent themselves. "Postmodern Psychoanalysis" would make the debt too high, and would not take seriously the conflict between most definitions of postmodernism and the "extremely Platonic" aspects of Freudian "castration-truth." Post(al)-psychoanalysis would suggest a simple posting of psychoanalysis, but it would also privilege a reading as post-PSYCHOANALYSIS rather than as POST-psychoanalysis since the adjective of "postal" suggests a retaining of psychoanalysis. Though "postal" is undecidable itself, since we don’t know which type of postal relay is being referred to here, putting it into the terms of postal relays itself suggests a Derridean bent. The adjective, therefore, suggests a post-PSYCHOANALYSIS, but a psychoanalysis as it might be radicalized via a deconstructive reading.

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Copyright 2000 by Eric W. Anders