Psychoses

Jacques Lacan

W W Norton & Company Incorporated, 1997 - Medical - 341 pages

Taking us into and beyond the realm of Freudian psychoanalysis, Lacan examines the psychoses' inescapable connection to the symbolic process through which signifier is joined with signified. Lacan deftly navigates the ontological levels of the symbolic, the imaginary, and the real to explain psychosis as "foreclosure," or rejection of the primordial signifier. Then, bridging the gap between the theoretical and the practical, Lacan discusses the implications for treatment. In these lectures on the psychoses, Lacan's renowned theory of metaphor and metonymy, along with the concept of the "quilting point," appears for the first time.

What people are saying

Review: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: Freud's Papers on Technique (Le Séminaire #1)

User Review  - Billy Dean - Goodreads

I'm not quite as blown away as I was with Seminar no.3 on the Psychoses, but, as always, Lacan is a pleasure to read, if not a little frustrating/demanding. This is earlier in his career when he's ...

Review: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: Freud's Papers on Technique (Le Séminaire #1)

User Review  - Curt Bozif - Goodreads

Lacan is easier to follow when he's talking than when he's writing.

About the author

Jacques Lacan was born into an upper-middle-class Parisian family. He received psychiatric and psychoanalytic training, and his clinical training began in 1927. His doctoral thesis, "On Paranoia and Its Relation to Personality," already indicated an original thinker; in it he tried to show that no physiological phenomenon could be adequately understood without taking into account the entire personality, including its engagement with a social milieu. Practicing in France, Lacan led a "back to Freud" movement in the most literal sense, at a time when others were trying to interpret Sigmund Freud (see also Vol. 3) broadly. He emphasized the role of the image and the role of milieu in personality organization. Seeking to reinterpret Freud's theories in terms of structural linguistics, Lacan believed that Freud's greatest insight was his understanding of the "talking cure" as revelatory of the unconscious. By taking Freud literally, Lacan led a psychoanalytic movement that evolved into a very specific school of interpretation. Often embroiled in controversy, in the 1950s he opposed the standardization of training techniques, the classification of psychoanalysis as a medical treatment, and the then emerging school of ego psychology. Although general readers may find Lacan difficult to read, his works are provocative and rewarding.

Jacques-Alain Miller is Director of the Department of Psychoanalysis at the University of Paris VIII and editor of Lacan's Seminars .

Russell Grigg practices psychoanalysis and teaches philosophy and psychoanalytic studies at Deakin University. He lives in Melbourne, Australia.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Psychoses; Book 3 of Séminaire de Jacques Lacan, Jacques Lacan
• Author: Jacques Lacan
• Editors: Jacques-Alain Miller, Russell Grigg
• Translated by: Russell Grigg
• Contributor: Russell Grigg
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: W W Norton & Company Incorporated, 1997
• ISBN: 0393316122, 9780393316124
• Length: 341 pages
• Subjects: Medical / Psychiatry / General; Psychology / Movements / Behaviorism; Psychology / Movements / Psychoanalysis; Psychology / Psychopathology / General