Power relations in psychoanalysis as conditioned by capitalist structures: Felix Guattari’s critique and new horizons

Patient-analyst relationships, in individual and group treatments alike, are interpellated by capitalism and informed by its agenda of alienation. In Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Felix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze critiqued psychoanalysis for aiding capitalism by helping keep social desires trapped within the closed circuit of the nuclear family, instead of promoting their reinvestment in the social field. Contemporary analyses of the mutual influences between psychoanalysis and capitalism focus on alienation and impersonal intimacy, emphasizing the built-in conflicts of interest and patient-analyst mutual objectifications that stem from the material arrangements at the heart of the psychoanalytic setting.