Positioning the subject : a social psychoanalytical analysis of aggressive behaviour

Korber, Ilana

Positioning the subject : a social psychoanalytical analysis of aggressive behaviour

Master Thesis

1993

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Department of Psychology

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Abstract

This research project addresses aggressive and violent behaviour. It focuses on the question of the experiences of a research subject whose behaviour results from his inability to resolve the anxiety arising from his positioning in contradictory discourses. The relationship between his behaviour and underlying aggressive instincts is also considered. This paper integrates the theoretical approach developed by the social constructionists with that argued by Melanie Klein and her successors. It posits that a psychoanalytic perspective augments the social constructionist exploration of the emotional investments which secure a subject's positioning in discourse. The theoretical argument is illustrated with clinical material which examines the subject's positioning within contradictory discourses and the unconscious mechanisms which operate to secure this investment.

Description

Bibliography: leaves 44-46.

Keywords

Clinical Psychology

Reference:

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