Schizoanalysis (or ecosophy, pragmatics, micropolitics, rhizomatics, or nomadology) (; schizo- from Greek [], meaning 'to split') is a set of theories and techniques developed by philosopher Gilles Deleuze and psychoanalyst Félix Guattari, first expounded in their book Anti-Oedipus (1972) and continued in their follow-up work, A Thousand Plateaus (1980).
Overview
The practice acquired many different definitions, uses and articulations during the course of its development in collaborative work with Deleuze and individually in the work of Guattari; for instance, in Guattari's final work, Chaosmosis, he explained that "rather than moving in the direction of reductionist modifications which simplify the complex", schizoanalysis "will work towards its complexification, its processual enrichment, towards the consistency of its virtual lines of bifurcation and differentiation, in short towards its ontological heterogeneity" whereupon it could take on the same tasks expected of revolutionary ideologies and political projects.
Background
Schizoanalysis was developed by Guattari as an open-ended theoretical practice responding to the perceived shortcomings of French psychoanalytic practice and as the culmination of his work with institutional psychotherapy at the La Borde clinic. Guattari was regularly confronted with the use of the Oedipus complex as a starting point for analysis, and the uneven dynamic of the authority figure of the psychoanalyst in relationship to the patient. Guattari was interested in a practice that could derive, from given systems of enunciation and subjective structures, new "assemblages [agencements] of enunciation" capable of forging new coordinates of analysis, and to create unforeseen propositions and representations from the standpoint of psychosis that would yield positive conclusions to analysis.
Deleuze would later begin to break away from the framework, stating that in 1973 that "we no longer want to talk about schizoanalysis, because that would amount to protecting a particular type of escape, schizophrenic escape".