Social Science and Psychoanalysis: Marriage or Infection?

Psychoanalysis has persistently offered social science the benefits of psychological explanation of social phenomena. These have not always been gratefully received. Such interdisciplinary transfer of knowledge has been described as an infection as well as a reluctant suitor. The study extracts certain general principles to observe in making a contribution to another discipline: comparing the underlying assumptions (e.g., levels of observation); taking account of the issues in the other discipline; taking account of the issues in the home discipline; establishing two-way traffic. The paper will consider some ways in which bridges have been made between the two disciplines, using four psychoanalytic concepts. Their correlation with a social science concept, 'culture', is attempted.