Psychoanalysis and Culture

Written in a readable, accessible style, with plenty of up-to-dateexamples Psychoanalysis and Culture provides a brilliantintroduction to key issues in the area of application ofpsychoanalytic theories to culture. The author argues that wecannot grasp the complexity of contemporary global issues withoutunderstanding some of the unconscious processes which underliethem. After introducing some major modern and postmodernpsychoanalytic approaches, Minsky offers a broad-ranging critiqueof Lacan's theory of culture and the unconscious. She explores arange of crucial and topical questions: how should we explainwomen's historical subordination and what is now often seen as acrisis in male identity? What constitutes 'masculinity' apart frompower and control? How important is the father, actually andsymbolically in children's development in the context oflone-parent families? Why is contemporary culture often still soviolent and destructive? Why is consumer culture so attractive toso many and why is it so difficult to put limits on economic growthin the interests of preventing environmental disaster?
This book will be of great interest to students and scholars insociology, women's studies, cultural studies, psychology andhistory as well as psychoanalytic studies. It will also appeal tothe general reader interested in the psychology of culturalchange.