A bakhtinian perpective towards (auto)biography in the psychoanalytic context

Abstract

Bakhtin and his Circle’s interest towards psychoanalysis might bring relevant contributions to the studies held under Volóchinov’s sociological method, under Bakhtinian metalinguistics, and under Medviédev’s sociological poetics. Volóchinov, in O freudismo, counterarguments psychoanalysis through the lens of discursive interaction. Verbalized answers that are exchanged between the analyst and the patient are seen as the common ground based on which interaction happens in a psychoanalysis session. Based on the relevance of verbal exchance in a psychoanalysis session, this paper relies on Volóchinov’s perspective and understands verbal exchange between analyst and patient as the manifestation of (auto)biographical values within the utterance of the patient, to which the analyst responds. Thus, this paper’s objective is to discuss the state of (auto)biographical discourse in the psychoanalytic context, verifying the conditions of biographical values to the ressignification of life. We discuss alterity’s transformative role, as well as the objectified values that are manifested in the patient’s (auto)biographical utterances, based on which we understand verbal exchange in psychoanalysis.