ABSTRACT
This chapter traces three central themes in Freudian psychoanalysis: the nature of the unconscious, the formation of selfhood and the structure of the social order more generally. The major theorists in social and political theory who have engaged with psychoanalysis have similarly drawn on Sigmund Freud. According to Freud, unconscious desire is the organizing principle of all human thought, action, and social relations. Freudian psychoanalysis vividly demonstrates that the conscious knowledgability of human actors is 'bounded' by repressed psychical structures, by the 'dynamic' unconscious. Freud's work, in short, is concerned not only with the vicissitudes of desire which exist in any given society, but also with the unconscious processes that work against domination and social power. The nature of the unconscious carries a number of important implications for the analysis of subjectivity and social relations: most significantly, that the conscious knowledgeability of human actors is 'bounded' by repressed psychical structures.
