Psychoanalysis and the Ungovernable Self: Further Explorations

The author explores the idea that psychoanalysis is a process that facilitates, for some patients, the emergence of an ungovernable self. To make this case, Agamben's notion of the ungovernable self and its relation to potentiality-actuality, excess, and inoperativity are explained in light of psychosocial development. It is argued that the seeds of the ungovernable self lie within the parent-infant space of speaking and acting together, wherein good-enough parents' personalizing attunements to infants' assertions facilitate children's sense of singularity that is not contingent on social-political apparatuses. This space of suchness provides a secure base for children's transition to political spaces. From here, the argument shifts to the psychoanalytic process, which (1) affirms the singularity of the individual while engaging in inquiry into and exploration of the patient's life; (2) possesses a key premise of the excess of the "unconscious"; and (3) fosters the exercise of ungovernable selves.