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On the Absence of a Presence/The Presence of an Absence

Psychoanalysis in the Turkish Context

Boaziçi University, gulerce{at}boun.edu.tr

The emergence and development of psychoanalysis as a discipline and clinical practice in Europe and the birth of Turkey as a modern nation-state are synchronic events in the world's sociocultural and political history. In this article, I shall reflect on the establishment of psychoanalysis in Turkey by providing a brief historical account. I shall treat the belated entry of psychoanalysis as a sign of Turkey's somewhat unique modernization experience. While viewing Turkey's non-Western modernization struggle as the past/present/future conditions of (im)possibility for psychoanalysis, I also expect to hint at an alternative and psychoanalytically informed insight for the sociopolitical transformations of Turkish society. This article will briefly document some events through which psychoanalysis has evolved in Turkish society within a macro-historical context. I will make the case in favor of a few psychoanalytical concepts in understanding various local political discourses and their split communities in inter-dependence and dynamic co-construction.

Key Words: Islam • modernization • Ottoman Empire • psychoanalysis • Turkey

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