The Althusser–Lacan Correspondence as Ground for Psycho‐social Studies

Abstract

This article discusses a possible dialogue between Marxism and psychotherapy based on the letters between Louis Althusser and Jacques Lacan, exchanged between 1963 and 1969. This dialogue forms the ground for a dialogue between what has come to be known as the “critical tradition” and the “clinical tradition” which, in turn, becomes the ground for imagining what could be called “psycho‐social studies”. From the letters, this article explores three thematic angles: the angle of the “old” as Foucauldian askesis; the angle of the “beyond” as Marxian/Freudian theoretical form, or, put another way, the angle of the “break” as internal transition from ideology to science; and the angle of the “forbidden” as the Lacanian Real. In doing so, the article reflects on how these three angles could create conditions and conduits for a dialogue between post‐metaphysical understandings of Marxism and psychotherapy.