LacanOnline.com

Jean Laplanche, Psychoanalyst, 1924-2012

It was announced last week that psychoanalyst Jean Laplanche has died in Beaune, near Dijon, France, aged 87. Coincidentally he passed away on 6th May, the 156th anniversary of Freud’s birth. This sad news nevertheless gives us occasion to revisit the work of this most brilliant of psychoanalytic thinkers, early follower of Lacan and, of course, translator of Freud’s work

Jean Laplanche, 1924 -2012

Jean Laplanche, 1924 -2012

News – April 2012

Echoes of the debate on autism and psychoanalysis reverberated around mainstream French media in April. French weekly news magazine Le Nouvel Observateur devoted a good proportion of its 19th April edition (front page above) to the current wave of opposition to psychoanalysis in France. Its cover story, carrying the title ‘Should we burn psychoanalysis?’, focuses on the most recent debates

Le Nouvel Observateur front page, 19th April

Le Nouvel Observateur front page, 19th April

News – March 2012

The debate around the treatment of autism continues to dominate almost all current French psychoanalytic output. On 8th March the French public health body the Haute Autorité de Santé published it’s report on autism, Autisme et autres troubles envahissants du développement. Lacan Quotidien has a summary of its conclusions, in French, here. With the French press heralding that the report would be critical of psychoanalytic

autism press conference

autism press conference

News – February 2012

The debate on autism in France, first reported on last month, rumbles on. The pages of February’s Lacan Quotidien have been filled with comment on the debate sparked by Sophie Robert’s film Le Mur which, since its censorship by a Lille court, has attracted considerable attention. Now, several news sources in France have published details of a report by the French health authority

le mur - sophie robert

le mur - sophie robert

News – January 2012

Autism Scandal A controversy has broken out in French psychoanalytic circles around a documentary on autism by filmmaker Sophie Robert. Her documentary Le Mur (or The Wall) includes interviews with a number of prominent Lacanian analysts in which they discuss their perspectives on autism. The film can be viewed on YouTube (in French, with English subtitles) here. The film is

Rendez-vous chez Lacan

Rendez-vous chez Lacan

What Does Lacan Say About… The End, And Ends, of a Psychoanalysis? (Part II)

Added Jan 16, 2012, Under: Lacan

Duchamp - The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even

For Part I click here The psychoanalyst as incarnation of object a The shift from Seminar X Around the time of Seminar X in 1963 there is a big shift in how Lacan interprets Freud’s major contribution on the question of the end of a psychoanalysis, Analysis Terminable and Interminable. By this time Lacan is no longer focused on the idea

By LacanOnline with 1 comment

What Does Lacan Say About… The End, and Ends, of a Psychoanalysis? (Part I)

Added Jan 15, 2012, Under: Lacan

Duchamp - The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even

Introductory Remarks The first question we have to confront is a terminological one: in what sense do we mean the ‘end of a psychoanalysis’? This phrase could refer simply to the final session, regardless of whether a ‘psychoanalysis proper’ has been undertaken prior to this moment. Or it could refer to the conclusion of an analytic work, the end

By LacanOnline with 2 comments

News – December 2011

Added Dec 31, 2011, Under: Lacan

Lacan shaking head

The picture above shows Lacan posing alongside numerous other European intellectuals of the 1930s, including Picasso and Satre. At the time this photograph was taken Lacan was busy refining his theories of the deceptive and disruptive capabilities of the image. He stands on the far left, shaking his head so as to distort the camera’s depiction. On 20th November

By LacanOnline with 0 comments

News – November 2011

Added Nov 21, 2011, Under: News

lacanironie

After being imprisoned for over two months, Lacanian psychoanalyst Rafah Nached was released by the Syrian authorities Wednesday 16th November, bringing to a successful conclusion the worldwide campaign by psychoanalysts – Lacanian and non-Lacanian – and those from other walks of life for her release. More on this excellent news from Lacan Quotidien (in French) here and translated into English here.

By LacanOnline with 0 comments

News – October 2011

Added Oct 24, 2011, Under: News

Lacanparzaldivar

The latest edition of The Symptom, the free online journal of Lacan.com, is now up on the site. Number 12 includes selected translations from the Lacan Quotidien news service, and two articles each from Jacques-Alain Miller and Slavoj Zizek. Read the full thing here. The London Society of the New Lacanian School starts its 2011-2012 seminar and events programme on

By LacanOnline with 0 comments

Popular
Recent Comments
Tags

Alessandra:Excellent ! Thank you
Jettie Hayward:What's Taking place i'm new to
Kaisa Azriouli:If the unconscious is STRUCTUR
Francis Slaton:What’s Happening i'm new to th
john:excellent
LacanOnline:Hi Katy, sure, my name's Owen
Katy:Hi I was just wondering who th
David Mathew:This is an interesting debate.
Rusty:Poor Antigone is simply doomed
:Today, the EU Parliament will
Dr. Antonios Chasouris:Dear Owen, First of all, th
LacanOnline:Dr Chasouris - Always good to

LacanOnline.com is a site for exploring psychoanalysis through the work of Jacques Lacan

Jacques Lacan was a French psychoanalyst, living 1901 - 1981.

Trained as a psychiatrist, he abandoned the profession in favour of psychoanalysis in the early thirties. After publishing his paper on the Mirror Stage in 1949, for which he is probably best known to the general public, in the early fifties Lacan embarked on a project he called the 'Return to Freud'.

Lacan began holding yearly seminars, starting in 1952, re-examining Freud's work. At the time, the theory and technique of psychoanalysis was facing a complete overhaul at the hands of post-Freudian psychoanalysts, many of whom had emigrated to the United States after the war. Lacan railed against their teaching of Freud, seeing it as an oversimplification of his work and a corruption of psychoanalytic technique reducing it to the status of life management. Through his seminars he offered another interpretation of Freud's work and psychoanalytic theory. Inventive, radical and adventurous, many still believe Lacan's to be a creative mis-reading of Freud.

However Lacan's seminars grew in popularity and as his teaching developed from a reading of Freud's text to an elaboration of his own concepts his teaching became more influential. Lacan continued to give yearly seminars until the year before his death in 1981. By that time, he had become a major intellectual figure in public life and had both created and disbanded his own school, separating his members both from the established psychoanalytic institutions and from each other.

Today, Lacanian theory is advanced by a number of disparate groupings of his followers and the technique of psychoanalysis he developed is practiced clinically by Lacanian analysts around the world.