Schizoanalysis

Domain I · Psychodynamic & depth psychology · Guattari, Deleuze · 1972

What it is

Schizoanalysis is a way of analysing how subjectivity is produced. It looks at the material, social, technical, aesthetic and institutional components that combine to make a person's way of existing. It does not interpret a hidden family drama. Deleuze summed up the premise: the unconscious "is not…

Format

• No canonical phases exist. Guattari, Deleuze and La Borde did not specify stages, session counts or criteria for moving between phases. The three "tasks" of schizoanalysis in Anti-Œdipe are logical tasks, not a time sequence. D&G call them inseparable]:
• Pragmatic sequence from A Thousand Plateaus. D&G list four components of "pragmatics or schizoanalysis" as four tasks: a tracing of the mixed semiotics already operating; a transformational map of how those regimes could be translated or changed; a diagram of the abstract machines in play; and a…

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Read this first. Schizoanalysis is not a manualised therapy. It has no protocol, no fixed session structure, no fidelity measure and no training curriculum. Guattari said explicitly that analytic cartographies should develop without prior recourse to settled theoretical principles, and that psychiatric practice must be continually reinvented. What follows is (a) the clinical and institutional practices Guattari and…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Is there physical contact? Was it explained beforehand, and do you feel free to say no or stop at any point?
• Does it involve any substance, plant preparation, remedy or supplement? Has your doctor or prescriber been told, especially about any medication you take?
• Does it involve fasting, a special diet or 'detox'? Have you discussed this with your doctor?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• Intrusiveness. Respect withdrawal. It is working when the client re-engages through the shared material.
• Prescribing hobbies mechanically. It is working when the client describes new sensations, rhythms or contacts.
• Dismissing such remarks as symptoms. It is working when staff change practice in response to patients' remarks.
• Slipping back into interpretation. It is working when the client describes concrete connections and finds alternative couplings.
• Abdicating professional responsibility, especially around risk. It is working when the client steers the format and outside links grow.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.