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New Publications
Understanding Lacan’s Objet a, by Juan Pablo Lucchelli, has just been published by Routledge. Exploring the origin and significance of Lacan’s most unique contribution to psychoanalysis, Lucchelli begins by considering what we call an ‘object’ in psychoanalysis. Some of the early responses Lacan had to this question are examined (for instance, in Seminar IV on the Object Relation, and in the model of the ‘inverted bouquet’ from Seminar I), before going into how the notion of object a starts to get fleshed out from Seminar X onwards, partly as a result of Lacan’s engagement with Kant on one hand and Winnicott on the other. The importance of object a as a factor in fantasy, the desire of the analyst, and enjoyment are discussed in the book’s later chapters. Lucchelli is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in Switzerland and a member of the École de la cause freudienne.
The Cambridge Introduction to Jacques Lacan, by Todd McGowan, was published at the end of July and offers an introduction to Lacan’s life, work, and reception, framed in the context of philosophical history and explained with examples from pop culture. The bulk of the book is given over to an explanation of some of Lacan’s main ideas, including desire, object a, and the four discourses. McGowan is the author of many books on combining Lacanian theory with philosophy, including most recently Embracing Alienation: Why We Shouldn’t Try to Find Ourselves and Pure Excess: Capitalism and the Commodity, both of which came out last year. He is also the co-host of the ‘Why Theory’ podcast with Ryan Engley.
A People’s History of Psychoanalysis, by Florent Gabarron-Garcia and translated by Shuli Branson, was released in July by Pluto Press. It portrays psychoanalysis as a revolutionary field and highlights the radical parts of its history. This includes Freud’s promotion of the free clinic network in interwar Germany and the role of lesser-known figures in analytic history, including the Austro-Argentine analyst Marie Langer whose opposition to her institute’s political neutrality and pioneering of group therapy models in Argentina made her a significant figure there before her second exile. Incidentally, Lily Ford’s 2021 documentary about Langer, Chasing the Revolution, is available for free online.
The Anxiety of Educators: Seminars on Psychoanalysis by Duane Rousselle was also released last month. Dealing largely with themes of artificial intelligence, science, and other crises in education, the book attempts to respond to pressing challenges in education from the standpoint of psychoanalysis. Similar to Freud, Lacan seems to have considered psychoanalysis to be, like education, an impossible profession. Although the question of how to transmit something about psychoanalysis is a constant throughout his work, towards the end of his life (in his seminar on 22nd December 1978), Lacan wonders “How does one go about teaching what cannot be taught?”
Newly republished at the end of July after 30 years out of print is the rare case study by pioneering French psychoanalyst and colleague of Lacan, Françoise Dolto. Dominique: The Case of an Adolescent, from Divided Publishing, is now available in Europe, UK, US, and Australia. Dolto was one of the foremost analysts of her time but her work has not received the attention in the Anglophone world that it deserves. Similar to Winnicott in the UK, Dolto’s contributions to paediatrics reached a wider non-analytic audience in her native France, and her approach became integrated into schools, hospitals and was popularised in the national media. First published in 1971, Dominique 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.
Among the journals, the latest issue of The Lacanian Review was published in July. Issue 17 is titled ‘Introduction to Freud’ and is assembled by the London Workshop of the Freudian Field based on its 2023-2024 programme. It features a series of commentaries by NLS/WAP analysts on Freud’s Introductory Lectures and an interview with Mark Solms about the new Revised Standard Edition which he edited that was published last year.
Additionally, to mark July’s PIPOL 12 Congress on ‘Family and its Discontents’ Issue 4 of The Lacanian Review, ‘Family Dramas, Family Traumas’ has been republished and is now available via Amazon. It features a new translation by Russell Grigg of Lacan’s short ‘Note on the Child’ from 1969, in which Lacan discusses the family and how “A symptom may represent the truth of the family couple.” Other papers in this issue include those by Jacques-Alain Miller, François Ansermet, and Félix Guattari.
Lastly among publications, the latest edition of Parapraxis, Issue 06: Resistance (July 2025) is now available to order and will be shipping to subscribers shortly. It features articles by analysts and scholars approaching the topic of resistance from a Lacanian orientation, and those whose work is inspired by Lacan’s. A selection of articles from this issues are available to read on the Parapraxis site, including the editors’ note, as well as some articles from past issues.
Upcoming Events
On 13th August the Lacan Circle of Australia will begin a new reading group on ethics, studying Lacan’s Seminar VII, The Ethics of Psychoanalysis. The group is free, online, and no prior knowledge is required. Register to join here.
On 23rd August, psychoanalyst Jed Wilson will be presenting on ‘Time of Collapse, Collapse of Time: A Psychoanalysis of Perpetual Urgency’. The online event is free and open to all, and is part of the series IPP Talks, hosted by the International Institute of Psychoanalysis.
Starting on 26th August, LOCUS (Lacanian Orientation Center of the United States) has announced its 2025-2026 course which will focus on ‘Freud’s Practice – His Five Paradigmatic Cases’ and engage in a close reading of each, alongside the commentaries offered by Lacan and Jacques-Alain Miller. The course will be held on Zoom and details of how to enrol are available via the link above.
On 20th September, the Psychoanalysis Unit at University College London will be holding an online conference, After Lacan: The Other French School, which will look at the work of four of Lacan’s contemporaries – Françoise Dolto, Jean Bergès, Charles Melman, and Marcel Czermack – to promote discussion of their contributions on child development, intersubjectivity, clinical practice, and applied psychoanalysis. Attendance is via Zoom and a recording of the conference will be available to registered participants on request.
Starting in October, Jason Childs and Derek Hook will be running a seminar series on ‘Lacanian Diagnostic Structures and Clinical Technique.’ This seminar will consist of 22 sessions in total, finishing in April 2026. All sessions will run for approximately two hours on Saturdays at 3pm Paris time (9am New York / 2pm London / 6am Los Angeles / 4pm Beirut / 11pm Sydney). More details and the application form are available via the link above.
The London Workshop of the Freudian Field has announced its 2025-2026 programme under the title ‘The Word “Unconscious” – What does it mean in Freud?’ Starting in November and running until June 2026, speakers will each discuss a different one of Freud’s texts on the topic. The course is organised under the direction of Jacques-Alain Miller.
Looking further ahead, the presentation of the theme of the 2026 NLS Congress is now available. Penned by Patricia Bosquin-Caroz, the Congress theme next year is ‘Varity: Variations of Truth in Psychoanalysis’, where ‘varity’ is the term Lacan coined to describe the successive revelations of truth (their ‘vari(e)ty’) that occur in an analysis. Lacan refers to ‘truth’ throughout his teaching, though what he means by the term seems itself to vary. In the so-called ‘post-truth’ era the Congress “will thus be devoted to highlighting the ethical dimension of the relationship that subjects have with truth and with speech, which is the very condition of their analysability.”
New Podcasts
A new podcast, ‘The Subject of the Unconscious’, hosted by Neil Gorman and Isolda Alvarez has just launched, with the first couple of episodes now available. The podcast, which comes from Lacanian Compass, offers “relaxed but serious conversations about Lacanian psychoanalysis and the way it affects (and is affected by) the imaginary, the symbolic, and the real today.” The first two episodes discuss how psychoanalysis changes over time, and diagnosis, respectively.
Prof. Dr. Samuel McCormick’s Lectures on Lacan began a new series on Lacan’s Television in July, and is currently four episodes in, covering topics such as the destiny of object a, meaning, and the sign. Video recordings of the lectures are on YouTube and more content from the series is available on Substack.
Ordinary Unhappiness, a podcast about psychoanalysis, politics, pop culture and the ways we suffer now, continues its excellent series of commentaries on Freud’s Standard Edition. Having now reached the Studies on Hysteria, last month presenters Abby Kluchin and Patrick Blanchfield turned their attention to one of the most extraordinary cases from the Studies, that of Emmy von N. This case gets far too little attention in the Lacanian community, but the presenters succeed in bringing out just how strange the case – and in particular Freud’s method of treatment at the time – were. New episodes of Ordinary Unhappiness are out on Saturdays. For those unfamiliar with this podcast, some of the best recent episodes include Kevin Duong’s interview about Harlem’s Lafargue Clinic and Lily Scherlis’ interview about boundaries and attachment.
From the Rendering Unconscious podcast comes the recording of the inaugural event of the RU Center for Psychoanalysis, which launched last month. Vanessa Sinclair hosts Myriam Sauer to present her paper ‘The Queerness of Psychoanalysis: Emptiness is the Cure for Psychoanalysis’, followed by discussion. The RU Center is will also be running a 12-part online course ‘Introduction to Psychoanalysis’ with Dr Vanessa Sinclair, starting in September and meeting monthly until Sept 2026.
New Videos
Several new videos on YouTube from Derek Hook in the past month explore Lacan’s theory of perversion in a four-part series, looking at the links to Freud, Lacan’s ‘formula’ of perversion, the idea of the perverse couple, and the scopic drive in voyeurism and exhibitionism. Hook also offers a psychoanalytic take on two of the year’s biggest movies, comedy-horror The Substance and the new Superman remake (spoiler alert for the latter).
New Resources
Over on Freud2Lacan.com are several new updates and translations. At the bottom of the homepage is a newly-updated version of the ‘Names of Analysts’ list that, thanks to Richard G. Klein, pulls together a list of who analysed whom in psychoanalytic history, including an alphabetical list of almost 300 of Freud’s patients. Thanks to Anthony Chadwick’s translations, on the Lacan page (see number 158 on that page) is a 1971 intervention that Lacan made on the subject of supervision (‘control’) in response to Alain Didier-Weil and Michel Silvestre’s paper ‘Listening to listening’ at the EFP Congress on ‘Psychoanalytic Technique.’ Lacan’s concluding remarks at the close of that same conference are also available (see number 160). Translations of two more of Lacan’s interventions have also been added in the past month – his comments on presentations by José Guey in 1971 (number 156) and Moustapha Safouan in 1972 (number 161), respectively.
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