The paper examines the significance of hysteria in relation to gender, the Darwinian psychiatrical construction of hysteria in the 19th century, and finally the psychoanalytical concept of hysteria as an example of mental disorder. This suggests that the study of pathology started as the study of female pathology. The question is whethe rit is possible to give new meaning to hysteria and to say that it is a revolt against patriarchal discourse, following this ‘ontological’ link between women and madness based (...) on women’s hyper-emotionality. Furthermore, it even reassess hysteria within post-feminism which stands for diversity, to such an extent that from being women’s‘un-power’ it turns hysteria into ‘woman-power’ – the power of emotions, which is elaborated in the works of contemporary philosophers Megan Boler and AlisonJaggar. (shrink)

Tema teksta bit će odnos određenih psihoanalitičkih učenja i suvremenih new age teorija i tehnika, pri čemu se popularnost i raspostranjenost new age tehnika može dovesti u vezu s opadanjem značaja psihoanalitičkih terapijskih tehnika. New age će biti doveden u vezu s Jungovim naslijeđem i idejom razaranja Ja kako bi se porodilo sebstvo što je vezano uz zahtjev new agea za osobnom preobrazbom preko izmijenjenih stanja svijesti. Freuda se unutar new agea općenito tumači kao vrhunac zapadnjačke racionalnosti, kao krajnju supremaciju (...) racionalnog mišljenja koje je u svom prosvjetiteljskom zanosu krenulo racionalizirati i posljednju stvar, to jest – nesvjesno. Freud, za razliku od new agera, ipak, polaže nade u vladavinu svijesti i očuvanje svjesnog dijela ličnosti ili čvrstoću ega kao temelja ili jamca duševnog zdravlja, kao i očuvanje stroge granice koja dijeli svjesno i nesvjesno. The theme of this essay is the relation of certain psychoanalytic theories and contemporary new age theories, and it is implied that the all-pervasiveness of the new age techniques can be brought into the context of the diminishing power of psychoanalysis. The new age movement will be considered together with Jung’s heritage and the idea of the shattered ego which is a prerequisite for the birth of the self, which is linked to the demand of the new age – that of personal transformation through modified states of consciousness. Within the new age, Freud is generally considered as the apogee of Western rationality, as the apogee of rational thinking which in its enlightenment vein, strove to rationalize the last of all things- the unconscious. Freud, in difference from the new agers, relies on the reign of the conscious part of the personality, or firmnes of the ego as the foundation or guarantor of mental health, as well as keeping a sharp boundary between the conscious and the unconscious. (shrink)