DO YOU HAVE FAITH IN PSYCHOANALYSIS? Imagination as the key ingredient for the effectiveness of psychotherapy

According to Isabelle Stengers, modern medicine has expelled hypnosis and suggestion in order to achieve scientificity. However, imagination is always present in treatments – especially those related to mental health – so it might be worthwhile to explain this phenomenon instead of reducing it or ruling it out. In this article, we shall explore how classic psychoanalysis has remained within this rationale and some alternatives to be found in contemporary authors. This requires a profound revision of the notions of factuality and fictionality that have determined the development of psychoanalysis, a discipline oscillating between scientific aspirations and literary sensitivities. Guided by the emphasis in ontology given by philosophers such as Michel Serres, Bruno Latour and Donna Haraway, we will provide a constructivist and prospective account of psychotherapy as a process in which imagination is not bounded to the human mind and as a refined practice that enables the patient to embrace her becoming. Thus, imagination can be reintroduced as the chief cornerstone for the parallel healing of the patient’s illness and psychoanalysis’ epistemological paradoxes.