ABSTRACT
Social class, which shaped everything Sigismund Freud ever said or did, had to be concealed under a Harry Potter-like ‘invisibility cloak’ lest it was noticed by the passing ‘Snatchers’ and ‘Death Eaters’. Classical psychoanalysis played a significant role in suppressing class issues and turning working-class identity into a taboo subject, so much so that even many people are reluctant to discuss class ‘personally and interpersonally’. A more mundane method of suppressing class is to make sure that psychology ignores extra-psychological factors of development. Freud’s analysis usually oscillated between two levels: the intra-psychology of the individual and the inter-psychology of small groups such as the family. Postpsychology’s attitude towards Freudianism is not a blanket rejection but an engagement that treats Freudianism as primarily a project in dire need of ‘translation’. One of Freud’s chief personal contradictions is also a very vivid reflection of unresolved contradictions within capitalism: his attitude towards sex.
