Psychoanalysis in Egypt: A problem of non-accession

Abstract

This article retraces the advent of psychoanalysis in Egypt and the way in which it has failed to differentiate itself from medical and academic models, remaining dominated by the figure of the persecuting Master outside its ranks and the paternal Master within them. It then goes on to discuss the arguments typically set forward to explain resistance to psychoanalysis in Egypt and the Arab world in general, and this with an aim to both relativizing and exploring such positions. Such resistance can indeed be identified not only within the sphere of the demand for analysis.