CFAR’s annual conference  took place here in London on 23rd June with the title ‘Bipolar or Manic Depressive? Lacanian Perspectives’. Amidst contributions from an array of speakers, one common theme was the lack of clarity of the distinction between the various disturbances classed amongst the overall category of affective disorders. Psychiatrist Furham Iqbal, the first speaker, pointed to the constant

May began with the sad news of the death of Jean Laplanche, one of Lacan’s former pupils and a great psychoanalyst in his own right. He is perhaps best known as co-author with J.-B. Pontalis of the monumental The Language of Psychoanalysis, one of the must-have reference works in the psychoanalytical canon. There have been plenty of obituaries written since his

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

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

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

  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

  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

  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

  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

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