Shandean psychoanalysis: a new paradigm for psychoanalysis

Abstract

At the end of 2022, psychoanalyst Françoise Davoine's Shandean Psychoanalysis (New York: Routledge) appeared in English. It reiterates and expands on the thesis put forward in Davoine and Jean-Max Gaudillière's 2006 essay History and Trauma: that their then-called psychanalyse à l’envers (psychoanalysis backwards) constituted a new paradigm of psychoanalysis, one capable of presenting an efficient theoretical and clinical model for cases of trauma and madness. Now called “Shandean Psychoanalysis” because it is based on Laurence Sterne's classic 18th-century work Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, the proposal is renewed and consolidated. In this article, we will review this proposal to verify—or not—its validity and relevance.