System-Integration and its Discontents: A Reconsideration on what Sociology can Learn from Psychoanalysis

Abstract

Sociology and psychoanalysis have one common insight - that they can conceptualize the objective, symbolically general forms of human interaction. However, thf!Y can never grasp the private experience, feelings and unconscious meanings of the individual "as they really are. In psychoanalysis this is most outspoken - the real and imaginary spheres in which we all live are to a great extent outside the symbolical. Thus, I think sociology in general and 'critical' sociology and the sociology of knowledge in particular have something to learn from psychoanalysis. My point in this article is simpfy to reconsider what sociology can learn from psychoanalysis. In doing so, I am not trying to construct a new 'synthesis'. This article treats three basic features: how sociology and psychoanalysis share basic assumptions on sociabiliry; how they both have interacted with the modernization of society; finally how my discussion can be related to the difficult project of a 'critical theory'.