The Letter, Issue 14, Autumn 1998, Pages 106 - 119
PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOANALYSIS - A SCIENTIFIC PARADIGM
Tom McGrath
In a world becoming increasing dominated by information technology it might appear to be the case that what was involved here was a kind of final frontier of science-inspired technology taking over and controlling the coding and transmission of that most human of commodities, namely information. It is after all something that is about people, and contained by people and something we seek from people however indirectly. That the word, information, should become to be so frequently associated with technology is a mark of the extent to which society has become increasingly objective and technical as science marches on, and impacts, apparently more and more, on all aspects of life mediating human interaction to an ever increasing extent. It raises the question about the threatened place of the human subject in such an increasingly technical world in a new way, and gives rise to common anxieties about the control of that world and the place of the individual - perhaps unknowing - subject within it. It is perhaps true to say that a majority of individuals have little enough understanding of the technologies which increasingly influence their lives and options, and experience a degree of alienation and dependence hither to unknown. It is as though their lives were being controlled and managed by forces which are beyond their understanding, forces to which they are subjected, and by which they are managed.