Extended Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis is a method, set by Freud in 1900, intending to cure people who suffer from hypnotic states (or similar). It was theorized at first as an individual psychology (yet by 1920, this view proved to be a limited dead-end).

In his last writings Freud declared,
"We have to bridge the gap between individual and mass psychology, so that we can treat peoples as we do the individual neurotic.  If things are different, then we are unable to advance one step further on our way, either in psychoanalysis or in mass psychology."

Moses and Monotheism, 1938

During one century, Freud's disciples likewise went through a first phase of  'Shrinking', which is the well-known metaphore for immature Psychoanalysis.

Yet, in 1930, he was writing, "If the development of civilization has such a far reaching similarity to the development of the individual, ... may we not be justified in reaching the diagnosis that, under the influence of cultural urges, some civilization, or some epoch of civilization - possibly the whoe of mankind - have become neurotic?"

But, for treating peoples as individual neurotics, Freud made notice:  "As regards the therapeutic application of our knowledge, what would be the use of the most correct analysis of social neurosis, since no one possesses authority to impose such a therapy upon the group?  But, ..., we may expect that one day, someone will venture to and back upon pathology of cultural communities."

This aporia (no one / someone) was duely assumed by the inhibited shrinks - until the questionable authority upon groups could be addressed.   

Eventually, this need for an Extended Psychoanalysis was fulfilled in 1985 when Theaux's practice systematised plural psychoanalysis, and called it the PLURAL ANALYSIS technique ( PLAN ) where the psychoanalyst does not alter the collective psychology of the group.

From this new perspective, Psychoanalysis shows its relation to Cybernetics, according to a certain set of formulas. It also allows the application of  its social benefit in relation with a computerised Nature, thus reflecting that Freud's intuition was the dawn of an Ecological awareness.

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© William Theaux 1949-1999