Psychoanalysis Outside the Clinic: An approach of Psychosocial Studies

In the article a new approach to research called “psychosocial studies” is examined. According to the author historically an alliance of qualitative research methodology with psychoanalysis played a decisive role in the development of psychosocial studies. Psychoanalysis was rethought as a variation of social criticism whose purpose is to undrstand how power, types of exploitation and other macrosocial features of society affect and are affected by modes of mental and emotional functioning. Examples of psychoanalytic informed psychosocial studies are analyzed. It is shown that psychoanalysis helps to rethink and even to overcome the traditional dualism of psychic and social, of that is “in-here” and that is “out-there”.