ABSTRACT
What would positive psychology be like with a theory of the unconscious? Is that a nod to Freud? If so, why should we concern ourselves – against antiquation, against debunkment, against obsolescence – with any such remnant of psychoanalysis? Apropos of this sentiment, in May 2013, a journalist from The White Review wrote: “[P]sychoanalysis is not only out of fashion and widely scorned but largely dismissed as an outdated discipline borne of a personality cult” (Widyaratna, 2013). On the other hand, what if there was still something to learn from psychoanalysis, namely from Lacanian psychoanalysis, where working-through unconscious material is also working toward something which we could call “happiness”? Though it can easily be misconstrued, Lacan himself once said that psychoanalysis has gone far enough when the analysand is “happy to be alive” (Fink, 2007, p. 56). Can we dare begin to wonder from here if Lacanian psychoanalysis presents any potential area of research for positive psychology?
