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Toward a Social Psychoanalysis: A Conversation with Lynne Layton

(Interviewed by Elizabeth A. Corpt, Private Practice)

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Dialogues at the Edge of American Psychological Discourse

Abstract

Lynne Layton, in her interview, discusses the various structures of relational psychoanalysis and places them in conversation with larger social, political, and cultural processes to demonstrate that psychoanalysis often reproduces the very conditions that create the ills we wish to treat. Through her scholarship, Layton exposes the hidden moral and political discourses that live behind the technologies of the DSM-5 and evidenced-based treatments and examines the impact of mass consumerism, neoliberal culture, and social media on the therapeutic relationship. She also examines the ubiquitous presence of power and politics in the context of psychological processes that shape the very connections between the psychic and the social. She invokes political and psychological questions alongside one another by utilizing the revolutionary edge of psychoanalytic discourse.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Lynne Layton

Authors
  1. Lynne Layton
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Correspondence to Lynne Layton .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Lesley University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

    Heather Macdonald

  2. Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA

    David Goodman

  3. Lesley University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

    Brian Becker

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Layton, L. (2017). Toward a Social Psychoanalysis: A Conversation with Lynne Layton. In: Macdonald, H., Goodman, D., Becker, B. (eds) Dialogues at the Edge of American Psychological Discourse. Palgrave Studies in the Theory and History of Psychology. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59096-1_9

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