Toward a Social Psychoanalysis

Reviews / Votes

Now that 'the political turn' in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy has been added to 'the relational turn', it is nothing short of wonderful and liberating to read this panoptic collection of Lynne Layton's work. For those of us struggling to realise the potential of our field, Lynne is the outstanding writer on how the social and the clinical interweave. We sit at her feet. She is also the go-to theorist on how psychoanalysis can still function as the best and most alert approach to critiques of the sorry political state of 'the West'. Lynne's compassion, dedication, and knowledge of the relevant history are exemplary. Students and more seasoned practitioners, in clinic and in academy, will want to keep the book close at hand.

Andrew Samuels is founder of Psychotherapists and Counsellors for Social Responsibility,UK and author of The Political Psyche

In Towards a Social Psychoanalysis, Layton demonstrates her formidable scholarship, her incisive cultural critique, her clinical acumen, and her activist spirit. Over the last few decades, Layton has been devoted to integrating psychoanalysis with social justice. This book represents the pinnacle of that work. This is a profound query into, and rewriting of, the fundamentals of psychoanalysis, in search of cultural and political engagement. Highly readable and sophisticated, the book is interdisciplinary in scope and always immediate in its address to human suffering. In these dark times, this is essential reading. Layton inspires us to action and ameliorates our isolation and despair.

Sue Grand is faculty in the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy & Psychoanalysis and author of The Reproduction of Evil: A Clinical & Cultural Perspective

Toward a Social Psychoanalysis is an exciting and much needed contribution to the current awakening to the task of theorizing the social and political unconscious as embraced by the founders of psychoanalysis. Packed with wonderful insights, this masterful work offers an accessible and stimulating guide through the complex matrix of contemporary social theory and relational psychoanalysis, enabling a confrontation with the urgent problems of race, class and gender as they affect patients in psychotherapy and society as a whole. Clinicians and academics alike will find this book indispensable.

Jessica Benjamin, author of Beyond Doer and Done To: Recognition Theory, Intersubjectivity and the Third

Lynne Layton's brilliant essays hold the key to understanding how we have become the people we are in this society and to begin to imagine the people we might yet become in a more just and decent world. Challenging longstanding therapeutic models that divorce the psychic from the social, she connects the contours of our seemingly private and personal passions to the public process and practices of neoliberalism and racialized capitalism. I know of no single book that does as much to equip us with the tools we need to confront and correct the calculated cruelty and belligerent brutality of our time.

George Lipsitz, author of The Possessive Investment in Whiteness

Lynne Layton has been among the most important and prolific psychoanalytic political writers of our time. She shows in understandable yet nuanced language the way psychoanalytic thinking can play a crucial role in understanding and healing our current personal and societal ills. Finding these marvelous papers collected in one place is a boon to students, practitioners, historians, and the general intellectual audience as we fight against the dark forces that presently threaten our society.

Philip Cushman, psychology professor, psychotherapist, and author, has recently published Travels With the Self: Interpreting Psychology as Cultural History (Routledge).

This book records the unique journey of a socially engaged psychoanalyst as she charts the unthinkable consequences of power relations both in society and in the consulting room. Writing with passion, honesty and rigour, Lynne Layton undertakes a fascinating exploration of the conflicts and struggles, both psychological and political, of neoliberal citizens in their encounters with racism, classism, sexism and other social forces.

Professor Paul Hoggett, Co-founder of the Climate Psychology Alliance and the Centre for Psycho-Social Studies, UWE, Bristol.

We owe a great debt of gratitude to Lynne Layton for the work that she has done of many years to develop a social psychoanalysis that speaks across gender, sexuality, race and class. This hugely important volume should be required reading not only for any therapist or analyst in training but for anyone interested in the complex relation of the social and psychoanalytic.

Valerie Walkerdine is Distinguished Research Professor, Cardiff University, UK

Lynne Layton's newest book adroitly braids historical narrative, rigorous theory, and clinical vignettes into a necessary compendium for the psychoanalytic work we must do today, both in the privacy of the consulting room and in the public realms of social praxis. Layton's work shows how unconscious normative processes recreate structural inequities, locking psyche and society into fruitless repetition: psychoanalysis without social analysis can then only stumble clinically and remain ethically dubious. A probing critique and clinical companion, this book will help reshape how we think about psychoanalysis, making it an agent for the kind of change our discipline urgently needs.

Francisco J. Gonzalez, MD, Co-Chair, Community Psychoanalysis Track, Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California

Lynne Layton has written a brilliant and exciting set of interrelated essays that span her fascinating career, putting to rest any lingering doubts about whether the Freudian tradition can be at once individually and collectively liberating. With her notion of the normative social unconscious, Layton coherently links psychoanalysis with progressive critiques of class, race and gender biases in sociology and anthropology; simultaneously, she solidifies the intellectual foundations of growing contemporary interest in psychosocial studies. Last but hardly least, she brings a self-reflexive lens to the therapeutic process itself as it enacts cultural as well as childhood influences.

Lynn S. Chancer, Professor and Executive Officer, Ph.D. Program in Sociology, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York "Now that 'the political turn' in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy has been added to 'the relational turn', it is nothing short of wonderful and liberating to read this panoptic collection of Lynne Layton's work. For those of us struggling to realise the potential of our field, Lynne is the outstanding writer on how the social and the clinical interweave. We sit at her feet. She is also the go-to theorist on how psychoanalysis can still function as the best and most alert approach to critiques of the sorry political state of 'the West'. Layton's compassion, dedication, and knowledge of the relevant history are exemplary. Students and more seasoned practitioners, in both clinic and academy, will want to keep the book close at hand."

Andrew Samuels, founder of Psychotherapists and Counsellors for Social Responsibility,UK and author of The Political Psyche

"In Toward a Social Psychoanalysis, Layton demonstrates her formidable scholarship, her incisive cultural critique, her clinical acumen, and her activist spirit. Over the last few decades, Layton has been devoted to integrating psychoanalysis with social justice. This book represents the pinnacle of that work. This is a profound query into, and rewriting of, the fundamentals of psychoanalysis, in search of cultural and political engagement. Highly readable and sophisticated, the book is interdisciplinary in scope and always immediate in its address to human suffering. In these dark times, this is essential reading. Layton inspires us to action and ameliorates our isolation and despair."

Sue Grand, faculty in the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy & Psychoanalysis and author of The Reproduction of Evil: A Clinical & Cultural Perspective

"Toward a Social Psychoanalysis is an exciting and much needed contribution to the current awakening to the task of theorizing the social and political unconscious as embraced by the founders of psychoanalysis. Packed with wonderful insights, this masterful work offers an accessible and stimulating guide through the complex matrix of contemporary social theory and relational psychoanalysis, enabling a confrontation with the urgent problems of race, class, and gender as they affect patients in psychotherapy and society as a whole. Clinicians and academics alike will find this book indispensable."

Jessica Benjamin, author of Beyond Doer and Done To: Recognition Theory, Intersubjectivity and the Third

"Lynne Layton's brilliant essays hold the key to understanding how we have become the people we are in this society and to begin to imagine the people we might yet become in a more just and decent world. Challenging longstanding therapeutic models that divorce the psychic from the social, she connects the contours of our seemingly private and personal passions to the public process and practices of neoliberalism and racialized capitalism. I know of no single book that does as much to equip us with the tools we need to confront and correct the calculated cruelty and belligerent brutality of our time."

George Lipsitz, author of The Possessive Investment in Whiteness

"Lynne Layton has been among the most important and prolific psychoanalytic political writers of our time. She shows in understandable yet nuanced language the way psychoanalytic thinking can play a crucial role in understanding and healing our current personal and societal ills. Finding these marvelous papers collected in one place is a boon to students, practitioners, historians, and the general intellectual audience as we fight against the dark forces that presently threaten our society."

Philip Cushman, psychology professor, psychotherapist, and author of the recently published Travels With the Self: Interpreting Psychology as Cultural History

"This book records the unique journey of a socially engaged psychoanalyst as she charts the unthinkable consequences of power relations both in society and in the consulting room. Writing with passion, honesty and rigour, Lynne Layton undertakes a fascinating exploration of the conflicts and struggles, both psychological and political, of neoliberal citizens in their encounters with racism, classism, sexism, and other social forces."

Professor Paul Hoggett, Co-founder of the Climate Psychology Alliance and the Centre for Psycho-Social Studies, UWE, Bristol

"We owe a great debt of gratitude to Lynne Layton for the work that she has done of many years to develop a social psychoanalysis that speaks across gender, sexuality, race and class. This hugely important volume should be required reading not only for any therapist or analyst in training but for anyone interested in the complex relation of the social and psychoanalytic."

Valerie Walkerdine, Distinguished Research Professor, Cardiff University, UK

"Lynne Layton's newest book adroitly braids historical narrative, rigorous theory, and clinical vignettes into a necessary compendium for the psychoanalytic work we must do today, both in the privacy of the consulting room and in the public realms of social praxis. Layton's work shows how unconscious normative processes recreate structural inequities, locking psyche and society into fruitless repetition: psychoanalysis without social analysis can then only stumble clinically and remain ethically dubious. A probing critique and clinical companion, this book will help reshape how we think about psychoanalysis, making it an agent for the kind of change our discipline urgently needs."

Francisco J. Gonzalez, MD, Co-Chair, Community Psychoanalysis Track, Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California

"Lynne Layton has written a brilliant and exciting set of interrelated essays that span her fascinating career, putting to rest any lingering doubts about whether the Freudian tradition can be at once individually and collectively liberating. With her notion of the normative social unconscious, Layton coherently links psychoanalysis with progressive critiques of class, race, and gender biases in sociology and anthropology; simultaneously, she solidifies the intellectual foundations of growing contemporary interest in psychosocial studies. Last but hardly least, she brings a self-reflexive lens to the therapeutic process itself as it enacts cultural as well as childhood influences."

Lynn S. Chancer, Professor and Executive Officer, Ph.D. Program in Sociology, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York

"This book convincingly puts the case for a much-needed social psychoanalysis. It is a timely publication, highly relevant theoretically and clinically to our times. It should be read by all psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, counsellors, community, and social work professionals who are genuinely committed to putting the best interest of their clients and community first. Layton powerfully shows that social history and the social context into which we are born and develop are part of our unconscious and often not analysed in ourselves as practitioners and thus in our clients. She invites us to think about and grapple with the social embeddedness of ourselves and our clients, including our identifications in terms of class, race, gender, culture and sexuality, among others, which can and are unhelpfully enacted consciously and unconsciously in our work with clients, trainees, supervisees, and colleagues."

Frank Lowe, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist and Head of Social Work, Adults & Adolescents Tavistock Clinic, London, UK