Antonin Artaud, embodiment and postpsychology

This chapter discusses Antonin Artaud’s relevance to the project of postpsychology. Whenever reaction gets the better of working-class consciousness, the most odious, repugnant and nasty currents within psychology resurface with a vengeance. Pop psychology assaults the senses with endless accounts of gender essentialism to reinforce patriarchy. The success of postpsychology as a project is dependent on recognising how to overcome dualities. The mind-body duality has been a particular bane of psychology. The critical psychiatrist Peter Breggin is scathing about the lack of controlled studies in favour of electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) treatment. He writes, ‘That ECT had no positive effect after four weeks confirms the brain-disabling principle, since four weeks is the approximate time for significant recovery from the most obvious mind-numbing or euphoric effects of the ECT-induced acute organic brain syndrome’. As science became better acquainted with the nervous system, ‘nerves’ became a crucial metaphorical entry point for intervention.