David Ingleby’s research while affiliated with Utrecht University and other places

In this chapter I shall try to analyze one element of the political character of psychoanalysis, namely, Freud’s belief in the inevitability of conflict between individual and society and the consequent futility of social change.

This paper explores the relation between the Freudian and Piagetian systems, arguing that the view that they are irreconcilable “schools of thought” stems from arbitrary professional divisions rather than theoretical necessity. The laws of infantile thought according to Piaget, and of the unconscious according to Freud, overlap save in one crucial respect: Piaget's rejection of the fundamental psychoanalytic notion of “thought in the service of desire”.Though a synthesis of these two systems is practicable, and has occasionally been attempted, the paper argues that they are both trapped within a paradigm which ignores the essentially social construction of mind. The way out is suggested by recent developments in both child psychology and psychoanalysis.