The Althusser-Lacan Correspondence as Ground for Psycho-social Studies

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.