Foucault e a psicanálise: do dispositivo de sexualidade às interfaces com a teoria freudiana da sexualidade

Abstract

In this work we propose to discuss the Foucauldian hypothesis linking psychoanalytic knowledge and Freud's discourse on sexuality as part of a historical deployment: the deployment of sexuality. To support and sustain our argument, we sought to analyze some of the propositions within the theory of psychoanalytic sexuality, aligning them with Foucault's concept of strategic power-knowledge ensembles, which, by definition constitute the deployment of sexuality. Our research delved into the examination of the notion of the deployment of sexuality. In broad terms, Foucault conceives the notion of sexuality as the productive interactions between power and knowledge relations. According to Foucault, as a result of these power-knowledge interactions, there arise the ensembles of pedagogization, hysterization, psychiatrization, and socialization ensembles, which respectively focus on the child, the woman, the perverse adult, and the reproductive couple. By following the Foucauldian argument, we sought, through these power-knowledge ensembles, to indicate some aspects that allow for a problematization of the discourse on sexuality present in Freudian theory, relating it to the deployment of sexuality. In this context, this research aimed to highlight the possible convergences and divergences between the two theories, particularly in their treatment of infantile sexuality, hysteria, perversions, and procreation. On the one hand, these themes form the basis of the operations of the strategic power-knowledge ensembles, while on the other, they also constitute part of the psychoanalytic theoretical framework. It was necessary, therefore, to investigate what these power-knowledge ensembles entail, as per Foucault, while simultaneously examining the specificities of Freud's approach.