Bachelard et la psychanalyse : un compagnonnage houleux

Abstract

Bachelard hopes in psychoanalysis when, as a man of science and researcher, he begins to wonder about the obstacles that hinder thought when attached to the knowledge of nature. At the same time, as he flushes out the imagination as a source of false explanations for correct questions, he engages in the exploration of the imaginary and of images. He now feels that psychoanalysis is an obstacle to imagination and poetry because it seeks to understand the hidden meaning of images, interpret them, and translate them. From then on it betrays them. The criticism of Bachelard is sometimes very sharp. However, he will always keep the taste for the words of psychoanalysis that he enriches with his own culture. And especially, he will use until his last book, the game between animus and anima. He will affirm his choice of the sublimation favoured by the imaginary creation in the heart of the psychoanalytical approach when it proposes for example, the practice of the waking dream of Desoille. The conflict reflecting his path is appeased.