Psychoanaliza i patriarchalizm. Uwagi na temat emancypacyjnego przesłania teorii Freuda w kontekście dziejów psychoanalizy w Polsce 1900–1939

Abstract

Psychoanalysis and patriarchalism. Comments on the emancipation claim of Freud’s theory within the history of psychoanalysis in Poland 1900–1939: The article is a polemic with how Eli Zaretsky captures the role of Freud’s psychoanalysis in transforming the self-knowledge of modern societies in his Secrets of the soul. According to Zaretsky, in Central European countries, Poland included, psychoanalysis then served in the democratization of social life and led to the destruction of the patriarchal order; while in Western countries it became medicated, becoming a tool of social control. The author considers both of these claims to be problematic. In the first case, this is due to the limited social impact of Freud’s theory until 1939, in the second, basing this theory on patients’ personal unconscious, it supported their release from the influence of tradition and served them in making free life decisions. This was because in the period up to 1939, in the countries of Central Europe, the second industrial revolution was not as advanced as in the developed countries of Western Europe and the United States. So only in these last countries has psychoanalysis become socially popular and one has witnessed the dynamic development of the psychoanalytic movement.