Ian Parker has been a leading light in the fields of critical and discursive psychology for over 25 years. The Psychology After Critique series brings together for the first time his most important papers. Each volume in the series has been prepared by Ian Parker and presents a newly written introduction and focused overview of a key topic area.

Psychology After Psychoanalysis, the fourth volume in the series, is about the impact of psychoanalysis on critical debates in psychology. It addresses three central questions:

• Why is psychoanalysis re-emerging within psychology?
• How can psychoanalytic ideas inform psychosocial research?
• How does psychoanalysis explain the relation between the individual and society?

International in scope, the book includes a clear account of psychoanalysis, and the different varieties of the approach that are at work inside and outside the discipline of psychology. It explores the status of psychoanalysis as a series of concepts and as a methodology, and shows how its clinical practice is crucial to the way that it operates now in an academic context. In doing so, the book sheds light on the arguments currently occurring inside psychoanalysis, with discussion of its relation to critical psychology, psychosocial research, the health professions, culture and social theory.

Parker shows how psychoanalysis rests on a notion of 'method' that is very different from mainstream psychology, and unravels the implications of this difference. Early chapters examine the lines of debate between various psychoanalytical traditions, and show how critical psychology challenges the assumptions about human nature and subjectivity made in conventional psychoanalysis. Later chapters introduce the methodological device of 'transference' and explore how psychoanalysis may be utilized as a resource to review key questions of human culture.

Psychology After Psychoanalysis is essential reading for students and researchers in psychology, psychosocial studies, sociology, social anthropology and cultural studies, and to psychoanalysts of different traditions engaged in academic research.

'This series is the comprehensive resource we have been waiting for to enable new generations of budding psychologists, and all those who concern themselves with how we might live, to find their way to a just appreciation of what it might be to understand the myriad ways a human being can be a person among persons.' -Rom Harré, Linacre College, University of Oxford, UK, and the Psychology Department, Georgetown University, USA 'A wise and wonderful book, at times incisively witty, Psychology after Psychoanalysis recounts the contradictions that work their way into applied psychoanalytic projects, from psychological research, discourse analysis, to radical cultural practices. Parker insists on a critical psychoanalysis that remains conscious of itself as complicit in systems of domination, even as he identifies sites where possibilities emerge for aligning psychoanalysis with struggles for human freedom. The volume is both expansive in its theoretical scope and grounded in richly drawn examples from the author's impressive scope of clinical, research, and political experience.' - Janice Haaken, Department of Psychology, Portland State University, USA 'This book is a must-read for everyone interested in critical psychology, psychosocial studies and psychoanalysis. Ian Parker explores the boundaries between these areas of study with great insight, clarity and humour. The book draws on Parker's long history of dialogues with psychology, psychoanalysis, Marxism and feminism to map out possibilities for these fields, 'after critique'. Always engaging, sometimes controversial, rigorous and full of commitment, the book offers measured perspective on the past, an invaluable analysis of the present, and many fresh and exciting ideas for the future.' - Corinne Squire, Centre for Narrative Research, School of Law and Social Sciences, University of East London, UK 'As with other work produced by Parker, the focus of his critique is clearly political and concerned with the need for change not only in psychology but also in society. This book should be of interest to undergraduates, postgraduates, researchers and practitioners in areas including psychology, counselling, psychosocial studies and various mental health work. ' - Dr Alexander John Bridger, The Psychologist