Individuality, the impossible project

the long version

Whilst noting that psychoanalysis is one of the most important voices in present culture to maintain the importance of individuality, the author takes the postmodern view that gender, race, social class, and religion do not define the individual's essence. The book explores some strategies of self-creation and the protest against fate that motivates them. It combines the psychoanalytic idea of the deep self with the postmodern belief that the individual should be free to shape her or his life according to freely chosen values and aesthetic preferences. Drawing on the storytelling modes of Freud, Klein, Winnicott, Lacan and others, the book charts some strategies of self-creation via the stories of five people who sought therapeutic help because their project of self-creation had reached an impasse.