{"id":503,"date":"2015-10-28T19:47:51","date_gmt":"2015-10-28T23:47:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/foucault1313\/?p=503"},"modified":"2015-11-08T23:01:44","modified_gmt":"2015-11-09T04:01:44","slug":"epilogue413","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/foucault1313\/2015\/10\/28\/epilogue413\/","title":{"rendered":"Foucault 4\/13 Epilogue: Psychiatric Subjects, Political Subjects, Maneuvers and Counter-Maneuvers"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Bernard E. Harcourt<\/strong><\/p>\n

The presentations by\u00a0Linda Zerilli, Alondra Nelson, and Anna Lvovsky at Foucault 4\/13 <\/a>raised challenging questions concerning the\u00a0political dimensions of\u00a0Psychiatric Power.\u00a0<\/em>Linda Zerilli started us off by questioning whether the disempowered hysteric patient\u2014predominantly middle-class women trapped in coercive family relations\u2014could really act as the agents of resistance to psychiatric power. Alondra Nelson challenged the elision of the primary brute violence of the colonizer and drew our attention to the writings of Frantz Fanon, who wrote on similar questions of psychiatric power. Anna Lvovsky turned our attention to the question of\u00a0sexuality, asking “to what extent is scientia sexualis<\/em> responsible for designating sexuality as a unique truth of the self?”<\/p>\n

It was within this context that John Rajchman offered an alternative reading of the 1974 lectures, emphasizing the way in which Lacan himself had felt it necessary to rework his psychoanalytic theories as a result of the resistance of feminists in the 1960s. This, John Rajchman suggested, casts a different light on the role of the hysterics in Foucault’s work. Linda Zerilli nevertheless questioned whether the focus should have been on the hysterical female patients only, or rather on the persons outside the mental hospital putting pressure on psychiatric power.<\/p>\n

Nadia Urbinati reminded us of the political stakes of the lectures in the early 1970s, while Stathis Gourgouris underscored the\u00a0deeply political nature of an analysis of disciplinary forms of power, and of relations of power more generally. Antonio Pele joined us virtually from Rio and reemphasized the political struggles that were at play during the time of the lectures.\u00a0Adam Tooze focused the conversation on the second and third lectures, where Foucault develops disciplinary power as opposed to sovereign power\u2014suggesting that those were the most political lectures, and tying those to the later dissection, in January 1974, of the “microphysics of power” by means of the analysis of the various maneuvers, strategies, and tactics of the psychiatrists.\u00a0In a conversation with Noa Ben-Asher, Rosalind Morris, and Dana Polan, the seminar discussion turned to Nietzsche, psychoanalysis, and the emerging\u00a0notion of the dispositif<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The seminar left me rethinking Foucault’s minute and intricate analysis of the\u00a0\u201cmaneuvers\u201d (p. 146) and \u201ccounter-maneuver\u201d (p. 318) that constituted those new form of disciplinary power in the nineteenth century. The relationship between the strategies of the psychiatrists, the subject formation of the patients, and the resistance of other patients (hysteric or not) is utterly fascinating, and reflects a certain dynamic that I feel needs to be schematized. It is a movement in three parts, with a cadence and rythm:<\/p>\n

(Doctors) Inform themselves about everything, obtain total information about the patients, get all the background on family and friends\u2014know everything. (PP,\u00a0<\/em>p.\u00a0184: \u201cyou should know why he is there, what the complaint is against him, his biography; you should have questioned his family or circle\u201d). The ma<\/span>neuver<\/u> is \u201cCreating an imbalance of power\u201d (p. 146): \u201cright from the start or, anyways, as quickly as possible, making power flow in one and only one direction, that is to say, from the doctor\u201d (p. 146). To show\u00a0the doctor\u2019s \u201creality and omnipotence\u201d (p. 148).<\/p>\n

(Patients) Made to feel that doctors know more about them than they do themselves, more than anyone could possibly imagine anyone would know. Made to feel that doctors can catch their\u00a0lies and their deliriums.<\/p>\n

(Hysterics) Some patients resist by means of the excesses of the \u201cfunctional mannequin\u201d (p. 311). Some patients display more symptoms than the doctors know about, thereby injecting the question of truth into the situation.\u00a0This is the \u201csecond maneuver\u201d: \u201cAt the end of the second maneuver, the doctor is therefore once again newly dependent on the hysteric\u2026.\u201d (p. 316)<\/p>\n

(Doctors) The technique of psychiatric questioning<\/u>: minute, detailed strategy of questioning, like a sword fight, not about extracting information, but about placing the patient under the doctor’s mastery. (PP\u00a0<\/em>p.\u00a0185: \u201cinterrupt him with questions\u201d; \u201cfollow a certain order\u201d). Here, the\u00a0m<\/span>aneuver<\/u> is: \u201cthe reuse of language\u201d (p. 149): require the patient to \u201cread and recite verse\u201d (p. 150).<\/p>\n

(Patients) Made to feel there is \u201can interplay of meanings which give the doctor a hold on the patient.\u201d (p. 185)<\/p>\n

(Hysterics) Sexual avowals that disrupt: Charcot does not want to talk about sexuality (p. 318). MF:\u00a0\u201cthe hysterics, for the third time, take back power over the psychiatrist, for these discourses, scenes, and postures.\u201d (p. 320).<\/p>\n

(Doctors) Maintain a constant file, and constantly supervise the patient\u2014permanent surveillance. (PP,\u00a0<\/em>p.\u00a0185: \u201ca complete system of statements and notes on the asylum patient.\u201d) Here the\u00a0m<\/span>aneuver<\/u> is: Creating regularity and order: the asylum becomes therapeutic \u201cbecause it obliged people to submit to regulation, to a use of time, it forced them to obey orders, to line up, to submit to the regularitiey of certain actions and habits, to submit to work.\u201d (p. 151). The quest is for order, PP\u00a0<\/em>p. 152.<\/p>\n

(Patients) Feel completely known, everything the patient has done, \u201cwhat he said the day before, what faults he committed, and what punishment he received.\u201d (PP,\u00a0<\/em>p. 185)<\/p>\n

(Hysterics) Challenges the system of surveillance by showing more symptoms than expected.<\/p>\n

(Doctors) To get the patient to \u201ctell the truth\u201d: to avow that he is mad, or was mad, that those were only hallucinations. The\u00a0m<\/span>aneuver<\/u> here: \u201cthe patient must be got to tell the truth.\u201d (p. 157).<\/p>\n

(P) Patient must avow, must confess (p. 159). He must recognize certain biographical episodes.<\/p>\n

(H) Sexual avowal as \u201cthe hysteric\u2019s victory cry.\u201d (p. 322).<\/p>\n

These dynamics capture the central elements of disciplinary power. Recall from the lecture of November 21, 1973: first, getting a total hold and \u201cexhaustive capture of the individual\u2019s body, actions, time, and behavior\u201d (p. 46); second, implementing a process of continuous control (p. 47); third, imposing isotopic forms of classification, ranking, hierarchies through examinations and competitions (p. 52); fourth, producing an unclassifiable residue who requires even more disciplinary mechanisms, a super-discipline (p. 53).<\/p>\n

From the perspective of the doctors, the efficacy of the asylum is due to \u201cuninterrupted disciplinary training; the dissymmetry of power inherent in this; the game of need, money, and work; statutory pinning to an administrative identity in which one must recognize oneself through a language of truth.\u201d (PP<\/em>, p. 161)<\/p>\n

From the perspective of the patients, this is \u201cthe truth of a madness agreeing to first person recognition of itself in a particular administrative and medical reality constituted by asylum power.\u201d (PP<\/em>, p. 161).<\/p>\n

From the perspective of the strategic hysteric, the avowal of madness is a strategic way to avoid being deemed demented, and provides a privileged position in the asylum. (p. 254). As Foucault emphasized, \u201cthe only way not to be demented in a nineteenth century hospital was to be a hysteric.\u201d (PP<\/em>, 254)<\/p>\n

This recurring interplay of doctor, patient, and resistant is what forms, it seems, the very \u00a0backbone of disciplinary interactions. It is all a game of strategy and counter-strategy, reinforcing and undermining authority in the total institution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Bernard E. Harcourt The presentations by\u00a0Linda Zerilli, Alondra Nelson, and Anna Lvovsky at Foucault 4\/13 raised challenging questions concerning the\u00a0political dimensions of\u00a0Psychiatric Power.\u00a0Linda Zerilli started us off by questioning whether the disempowered hysteric patient\u2014predominantly middle-class women trapped in coercive… Continue Reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1641,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38936,38938],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured2","category-foucault-413"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/foucault1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/foucault1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/foucault1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/foucault1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1641"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/foucault1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/foucault1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/foucault1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/foucault1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/foucault1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}