ABSTRACT
These questions have to be faced by those critically-minded psychologists who have employed Freudian terminology, or that of Freud’s follower Lacan (see, for example, Urwin 1984, 1986; Walkerdine 1984, 1987, 1991). Critical psychologists of development who are interested in psychoanalysis have had to make choices between various readings of Freud or of Lacan. Alternative readings may be made of the original texts, and there are numerous subsequent and secondary commentaries. Several different approaches to change and its regularities in human life may be identified within Freud’s own writings and in those of Lacan. Some converge with orthodox developmentalism as that term is being used in this book. Others present challenging alternatives to that orthodoxy. Whether these critical psychologists have made the correct choices or not is an issue to which I return towards the end of this chapter, after clarifying these alternatives.
