Psychoanalysis, despite the social conservatism of many of its subsequent adherents, in its more socially liberal guises came to be seen as very much on the side of the individual, particularly in its advocacy of less punitive forms of child-rearing and nursery education, as well as many of its basic ideas about the meaning of symptoms. There are of course also vast differences between utilitarian liberalism and Freudian psychoanalysis, most especially in Freud’s deconstruction of the rational subject on which the moral psychology of liberalism depends. Consequently the connection between Freud and J.S. Mill cannot be pushed too far, but it is striking when compared to the very different philosophical traditions of nineteenth century central Europe with which Freud is more usually associated. These links nonetheless help to underline how some of the conceptions of the individual current within psychoanalysis resonate with those of liberal individualism, and especially with the notions of individuals in relation to society, conceptions which limit the ability of psychoanalysis to understand lesbian and gay lives.
The defining practice of psychoanalysis is that of privacy, consent and confidentiality in the clinical relationship between two adults. In many ways, the privacy of this relationship, its abstraction from the demands of everyday life, the boundaried nature of the consulting room free from intrusions, all the familiar routines and rituals of many therapeutic relationships–this privacy–is one of the conditions of psychoanalysis being able to be practiced and work at all. This same privacy is part of what allows the creation of a highly specific kind of relationship between analyst and patient, the particular intimacy that helps form an analytic relationship, part of what makes it work; but they are very contested and hard won conditions, frequently misunderstood, and require much effort to maintain adequately. However, the requirement of these conditions seems to create–or at least fit too well with–the fiction of both the individual and the designated object of psychoanalysis (the mind and its workings) as distinct and autonomous from social forces as in important ways separate from society. This has impeded thinking differently within psychoanalysis or more generally about individuals as inextricably formed by and part of historical and political structures.