Bungacast /530/ Urgent and Immediate and Impossible ft. Christie Offenbacher & Ricky Levitt
Jan 27, 2026
Ricky Levitt, a New York psychoanalytic researcher, and Christie Offenbacher, a practicing psychoanalyst and SVA faculty member, discuss the so-called social turn in psychoanalysis. They debate whether attempts to fix broad social problems through therapy are immediate, urgent, or overreaching. They question professional limits, political claims, and how psychoanalytic concepts get translated into social cure-all claims.
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Social Turn Reframes Psychoanalytic Aims
- The social turn in psychoanalysis reorients theory toward social forces and proposes new clinical techniques to address them.
- Christie Offenbacher warns this risks ignoring psychoanalysis's core methods and aims.
Theory And Technique Shift Together
- Reformers push theoretical revisions to define mechanisms by which social facts show up in the psyche.
- They also propose technical changes in clinics and institutes to broaden psychoanalysis's reach.
Reformers Overwrite Psychoanalytic History
- The social turn often attacks a straw-man version of psychoanalysis focused on individual adaptation.
- Many social concerns had already been incorporated into mainstream psychoanalytic thought.