Lacan developed his theory and practice of psychoanalysis on the basis of Freud's original work. In his "return to Freud" he not only elaborated and revised some of Freud's innovative ideas, but turned to important questions and problems in Freud's theory that had remained obscure and unresolved, and provided a new way of articulating these issues and their implication for psychoanalytic theory and practice. This book offers a selection of chapters about some of the fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis. The authors aim to explore the trajectory of the development of these concepts from their original basis in Freud's work to their elaboration by Lacan. The book will be of interest to readers from different backgrounds, including the clinical and academic field, social and cultural studies and the arts, for whom psychoanalytic ideas may be a relatively new field to explore, or who are looking for new perspectives to develop their ideas about psychoanalysis.

Conversations with Lacan: Seven Lectures for Understanding Lacan brings a unique, non-partisan approach to the work of Jacques Lacan, linking his psychoanalytic theory and ideas to broader debates in philosophy and the social sciences, in a book that shows how it is possible to see the value of Lacanian concepts without necessarily being defined by them. In accessible, conversational language, the book provides a clear-sighted overview of the key ideas within Lacan’s work, situating them at the apex of the linguistic turn. It deconstructs the three Lacanian orders – the symbolic, the imaginary, and the real – as well as a range of core Lacanian concepts, including alienation and separation, après-coup, and the Lacanian doctrine of temporality. Arguing that criticism of psychoanalysis for a lack of scientificity should be accepted by the discipline, the book suggests that the work of Lacan can be helpful in re-conceptualizing the role of psychoanalysis in the future. This accessible introduction to the work of Jacques Lacan will be essential reading for anyone coming to Lacan for the first time, as well as clinicians and scholars already familiar with his work. It will appeal to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, and scholars of philosophy and cultural studies.

In reasoned progression he outlined core psychoanalytic concepts, such as repression, free association and libido. Of the various English translations of Freud's major works to appear in his lifetime, only one was authorized by Freud himself: The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud under the general editorship of James Strachey. Freud approved the overall editorial plan, specific renderings of key words and phrases, and the addition of valuable notes, from bibliographical and explanatory. Many of the translations were done by Strachey himself; the rest were prepared under his supervision. The result was to place the Standard Edition in a position of unquestioned supremacy over all other existing versions. Newly designed in a uniform format, each new paperback in the Standard Edition opens with a biographical essay on Freud's life and work --along with a note on the individual volume--by Peter Gay, Sterling Professor of History at Yale.

Designed for novices as well as students of psychology and literary criticism, these systematic lectures do much to clarify Lacan's groundbreaking work on the birth of the subject and its links with Freud's theory of drives. Moreover, they answer some of the criticisms that have been leveled at Lacan by forms of psychoanalysis unable or unwilling to incorporate his ideas.

"The goal of my teaching has always been, and remains, to train analysts." --Jacques Lacan, Seminar XI, 209 Arguably the most profound psychoanalytic thinker since Freud, and deeply influential in many fields, Jacques Lacan often seems opaque to those he most wanted to reach. These are the readers Bruce Fink addresses in this clear and practical account of Lacan's highly original approach to therapy. Written by a clinician for clinicians, Fink's Introduction is an invaluable guide to Lacanian psychoanalysis, how it's done, and how it differs from other forms of therapy. While elucidating many of Lacan's theoretical notions, the book does so from the perspective of the practitioner faced with the pressing questions of diagnosis, what therapeutic stance to adopt, how to involve the patient, and how to bring about change. Fink provides a comprehensive overview of Lacanian analysis, explaining the analyst's aims and interventions at each point in the treatment. He uses four case studies to elucidate Lacan's unique structural approach to diagnosis. These cases, taking up both theoretical and clinical issues in Lacan's views of psychosis, perversion, and neurosis, highlight the very different approaches to treatment that different situations demand.

Bowie (French language and literature, U. of London) traces the development of famed French psychoanalyst Lacan's (1901-1981) ideas over the 50-year span of his writing and teaching career, focusing on the mutations in Lacan's interpretation of Freud. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Lacan and Levi-Strauss are often mentioned together in reviews of French structuralist thought, but what really links their distinct projects? In this important study, the author shows how Lacan's famous 'return to Freud' was only made possible through Lacan's reading of Levi-Strauss. Via a careful and illuminating comparison of the work of the psychoanalyst and that of the anthropologist, Zafiropoulos shows how Lacan's theories of the symbolic function, of the power of language, of the role of the father and even of the unconscious itself owe a major debt to Levi-Strauss. Lacan and Levi-Strauss is much more than an academic study of the relations between these two thinkers: it is also a superb introduction to the work of Lacan, setting out with detail and lucidity the major concepts of his work in the 1950s.

To read Lacan closely is to follow him to the letter, to take him literally, making the wager that he comes right out and says what he means in many cases, though much of his argument must be reconstructed through a line-by-line examination. And this is precisely what Bruce Fink does in this ambitious book, a fine analysis of Lacan's work on language and psychoanalytic treatment conducted on the basis of a very close reading of texts in his Icrits: A Selection. As a translator and renowned proponent of Lacan's works, Fink is an especially adept and congenial guide through the complexities of Lacanian literature and concepts. He devotes considerable space to notions that have been particularly prone to misunderstanding, notions such as "the sliding of the signified under the signifier,"or that have gone seemingly unnoticed, such as "the ego is the metonymy of desire." Fink also pays special attention to psychoanalytic concepts, like affect, that Lacan is sometimes thought to neglect, and to controversial concepts, like the phallus. From a parsing of Lacan's claim that "commenting on a text is like doing an analysis," to sustained readings of "The Instance of the Letter in the Unconscious," "The Direction of the Treatment," and "Subversion of the Subject" (with particular attention given to the workings of the Graph of Desire), Fink's book is a work of unmatched subtlety, depth, and detail, providing a valuable new perspective on one of the twentieth century's most important thinkers. Bruce Fink is a practicing Lacanian psychoanalyst, analytic supervisor, and professor of psychology at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. He is the author of A Clinical Introduction to LacanianPsychoanalysis (1997) and The Lacanian Subject (1995). He has coedited three volumes on Lacan's seminars and is the translator of Lacan's Seminar XX, On Feminine Sexuality, the Limits of Love and Knowledge (1998), Icrits: A Selection (2002), and Icrits: The Complete Text (forthcoming).

Lacan Today: Psychoanalysis, Science, Religion offers a lucid overview of the French psychoanalyst's work. In five sections--"The Structure of the Subject," "Epistemology," "Four Discourses," "There is No Sexual Rapport," and "God is Real,"--the book maps out Lacan's thought for the lay reader with unmatched clarity. It does this by building from Lacan's graph and formulas, which are often misunderstood. This formalization acts as a pedagogical tool of wonderful economy, offering a broad overview without neglecting the essential details. The chapters are summarized by a general graph that visually demonstrates Lacan's rigor and coherence. The book examines often-neglected aspects of Lacan's work, like problems in the history of science, epistemology, and religion, in order to show Lacan's relevance to today's world. It makes the case for Lacan as one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century, whose reach extends beyond the discipline of psychoanalysis. Indeed, Lacan's thought should lead readers into a reexamination of philosophy, literature, art, politics, economy, and desire. In his introduction, Alexandre Leupin writes: "If the unconscious exists, then Lacan is the only twentieth-century thinker who has drawn the consequences of Freud's discovery to their ultimate limits. I propose here what some will take as bombastic hyperbole: Lacan's radical reevaluation of human thinking is comparable to Einstein's." Though Lacan's thought is making tremendous inroads in countries of Latin culture, it has been slowly fading from public awareness in the English-speaking world. Often Lacan has been nothing more than a pawn in the bundling of contradictory doctrines labeled as "French thought"; or he has been reduced to a means of exchange between psychoanalysts or specialists in the humanities. Leupin's contention is that what Lacan said or wrote is of interest to the general public and that his consignment to oblivion is reversible. This book demonstrates that Lacan's thinking has vast implications, not only for college professors or practicing psychoanalysts, but also for scientists, epistemologists, and every man and woman.

The second volume in the Studying Lacan’s Seminars series, this book is the first comprehensive study of Lacan’s Seminar VI: Desire and its Interpretation. A natural companion to Bruce Fink’s recent translation of the seminar into English (2019), this book offers a genuine opportunity to delve deeply into the seminar, and a hospitable introduction to Lacan’s teachings of the 1950s. This important book brings together various aspects of Cox Cameron’s teachings and systematic, careful, and critical readings of Seminar VI. Lacan’s theorizing and conceptualizing of the object a, the fundamental fantasy, and aphanisis, as well as the ambiguous treatment of the phallus in his work at the time, are all introduced, contextualized, and explored in detail. The trajectories of his thinking are traced in terms of future developments and elaborations in the seminars that follow closely on the heels of Seminar VI – Seminars VII (Ethics of Psychoanalysis), VIII (Transference), IX (Identification), and X (Anxiety). Consideration is also given to how certain themes and motifs are recapitulated or reworked in his later teachings such as in Seminars XX (Encore), and XXIII (The Sinthome). Also included in this volume are two further essays by Cox Cameron, a most valuable critique of the concept of the phallus in Lacan’s theories of the 1950s, and an overview of Seminar VI originally presented as a keynote address to the APW congress in Toronto 2014. The book is of great interest to Lacanian scholars and students, as well as psychoanalytic therapists and analysts interested in Lacan’s teachings of the 1950s and in how important concepts developed during this period are treated in his later work.