New Publications
Freud’s Principal Case Studies Revisited: Freudian-Lacanian Psychoanalysts Reconsider the Legacy, edited by Helena Texier and Eve Watson, has just been published by Routledge. Part of the Freud Lacan Institute lecture series, this collection of essays revisits six of Freud’s most famous case studies – that of the ‘Wolf Man’, the ‘Rat Man’, Dora, Little Hans, Schreber, and the ‘Young Homosexual’ woman. Two Lacanian analysts comment on each case, bringing out new interpretations and fresh perspectives that showcase the richness of Freud’s work and why these cases are still so relevant today. Some of the commentaries introduce more modern terminology – Olga Cox Cameron’s contribution on Dora for instance argues it is a drama of “gaslighting.” Others, like Guy Le Gaufey’s re-reading of the Rat Man’s case, return to classic analytic ideas like the transference. Le Gaufey turns this concept around however, focusing not on the ‘countertransference’ of Freud to the Rat Man but on Freud’s eagerness to work with this kind of obsessional patient, one that he had been waiting almost ten years for, and about whom he spoke for a full five hours at the first psychoanalytical congress in Salzburg in 1908.
Taking Back Desire: A Psychoanalytic Approach to Queerness and Neoliberalism on Screen by James Lawrence Slattery was published last month by Routledge. It takes a Lacanian perspective on TV, film, and video art to bring out how identity, resistance, desire, enjoyment, and knowledge are framed in neoliberal formations. Slattery argues for how queerness can be understood not in terms of particular narratives or characters but as “resisting rather than assuming the category of identity”, thus challenge the ‘identity politics’ through which neoliberalism blends inclusivity with consumerism. Slattery’s use of Lacan does not so much ‘apply’ psychoanalytic theory to film texts as it shows how lack or absence are fundamental to the structure of meaning, and how both capitalism and queerness represent antithetical attempts to negotiate this absence.
Death and Love: Psychoanalytic and Philosophical Perspectives, edited by Julie Reshe and Todd McGowan, was also newly-published last month. This collection sees leading thinkers from the philosophical and psychoanalytical domains offer their contributions on these two central questions about human existence and relationships. They demonstrate that love and death are perhaps best approached via each other, that they both present many of the same questions for us, and that our relation to one is determined by how we think of the other. The authors’ references in contending with these two topics span a wide gamut, from Client Eastwood movies and Sally Rooney novels, to the writings of the 14th century Italian mystic Catherine of Siena. A conversation between Reshe and one of the contributing authors, Stephanie Swales, is available on YouTube. The volume is dedicated to Mari Ruti, whose abstract for this collection is published posthumously at the end of Reshe’s introduction.
Due out in July, and available for pre-order now, is a rare case study by pioneering French psychoanalyst and colleague of Lacan, Françoise Dolto, republished after being out of print for thirty years. Dominique: The Case of an Adolescent will be released by Divided Publishing on 22nd July. Françoise Dolto stands alongside Lacan as a leading light of the Other French school, but is little translated and curiously unknown in the English-speaking world. Much like Winnicott, in her lifetime Dolto’s contribution to paediatrics was integrated into schools, hospitals and popular media at a national level. Her writing is frank and close to the clinical experience. First published in 1971, reading Dominique now gives a granular psychological portrait of an adolescent and his familial inheritance. As such the book is also an historical case study – set in 1960s France – of the relationship between one’s subjectivity and the time and place, as well as nationality, it exists within.
Upcoming Events
On Fri 6th June in Dublin the Irish Circle of the Lacanian Orientation will host a seminar with Virginie Leblanc-Roïc, a psychoanalyst from Lille, titled ‘Who Am I With Psychoanalysis? A Journey from Identity to Nomination.’ The seminar will explore the proliferation of new signifiers for diagnosis and self-nomination, and the communities which gather around them, asking how psychoanalysis can be seen as an anti-identitarian nomination which Lacan – right at the end of Seminar XI – refers to as “absolute difference.” Registration is now open via Eventbrite.
On Sat 7th June Apres-Coup Psychoanalytic Association in New York will welcome Isabelle Orrado and Jean-Michel Vives from France for a workshop on child analysis titled ‘The Autistic Signature.’ It will look at the ways in which autistic subjects find solutions to the invasive threat of the Other via singular styles and modes of bricolage. Attendance is available in-person and online via Zoom.
Also on Sat 7th June, Corpo Freudiano Vancouver will be hosting Leticia Cantú Alvarado, an analyst from Mexico City, for a seminar titled ‘Decolonzing: On a Verb, its Grammar and Episteme.’ Alvarado will discuss the shortcomings of psychoanalysis stemming from its emergence and production primarily in Europe, and address how “the colonial wound and the patriarchal mark appear in our analytic practice.” Attendance is free and will be online via Zoom.
Beginning on Sat 7th June, and continuing on 14th and 21st June, the Lacan Circle of Australia will commence its Winter Webinar 2025, ‘Reading Jacques-Alain Miller’s Seminar of Barcelona: On ‘Die Wege der Symptombildung‘ (the latter title referring to Freud’s ‘The Paths to the Formation of Symptoms’, lecture XXIII of his Introductory Lectures from 1916-17). Miller’s text, which dates from 1996, explores the way the notion of the symptom is elaborated through Lacan’s work and offers a commentary on the aforementioned lecture from Freud, and the accompanying lecture ‘The Sense of Symptoms’ (SE XVI). The event is convened by Jonathan Redmond and is offered in-person in Melbourne, on Zoom, and via recording. Registration is available via the link above.
Lacan Toronto has two events in June which are free and open to all. On 8th June Domenico Cosenza will be in conversation with Penny Georgiou on ‘A Lacanian Reading of Anorexia: A Clinical Discussion’, based on Cosenza’s 2023 book on the subject. Then on 22nd June Daniel José Gaztambide will present on ‘Decolonizing Psychoanalytic Technique’, drawing from his book which was published last year. To request the Zoom meeting link see the details on the Lacan Toronto site via the link above.
Beginning on 13th June, Prof Dr Samuel McCormick will be hosting a summer miniseries on Lacan’s ‘Third’ Rome discourse, La Troisième, which was delivered in 1974. The close and careful reading of this key text is the latest in his Lectures on Lacan series, and registration is open now.
On 20th June, the London Society of the NLS will be organising an online seminar towards the PIPOL 12 conference in July. Susana Huler and Cyrus Saint-Amand Poliakoff will explore the theme of the conference, ‘Family and its Discontents.’ Registration is open now.
On 28th June, the Race and Culture Committee of the Guild of Psychotherapists will hold its next seminar in the series on Decolonising Psychoanalysis with Sheldon George, Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. George’s talk will be on ‘Race as Screen: The Iridescent Allure of the Lacanian Real’, in discussion with Andrea Fassolas and Anshu Srivastava. Registration is open now via Eventbrite.
Finally, with this year’s NLS Congress on ‘Painful Loves’ having taken place in Paris in May the date of next year’s Congress has been announced for 27th and 28th June 2026 on the theme ‘Varity: Variations of Truth in Psychoanalysis.’ More details to come; save the date for now.
New Resources
Further work has been completed on the bilingual version of The Complete Freud-Fliess Correspondence available on Freud2Lacan.com (scroll down the homepage to find parts I-IV). This side-by-side translation contains much that is unavailable in either the Standard Edition, nor in the new Revised Standard Edition edited by Mark Solms. The latest updates encompass Letters 42-52 to Fliess and include copious notes translated from the German text. Also updated in the past month, at the bottom of the homepage, is the ‘Names of Analysts’ list: an alphabetical directory of who analysed who, dating back to the inception of psychoanalysis, which now includes almost 300 of Freud’s patients. Second from bottom of the homepage is also ‘A Diary or Chronology of Important Events in Freud’s Life – From his birth on May 6, 1856 until Dec. 31, 1900’, which contains detail that is not available in Christfried Toegel’s Biographical Compendium of Freud’s life, released last year. Thanks to Richard G. Klein and team for these invaluable resources.
Finally, Richard C. Ledes’ movie V13, starring Alan Cumming as Sigmund Freud, is now available for purchase and rental in North America (Canada, U.S. and Mexico) on Apple TV, Amazon Prime, and more. Outside of North America it is also available worldwide on Vimeo. See the viewing options via the link above. An exclusive interview with Ledes for Lacan In Scotland, talking about this movie and his previous one, Adieu, Lacan, is now available in five parts on YouTube.
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