Can't seem to find these online, although I've heard from a few people they can be accessed somewhere. Any leads?

Still trying to sort this out and I'm rather confused, I know that the hysteric must unconsciously realize that the Other is lacking since the hysteric tries to become the object of desire for the Other but does the obsessive think of the Other as lacking? For some reason it seems to me that he must not but I can't really say why I think that nor can I find the answer.

As a good friend told me, he underwent a Lacanian training to become a psychoanalyst at a school that has separated from Miller. When he talked about the reasons for this split, he told me also that Miller advocates the idea that democracy is the only state condition in which psychoanalysis can develop because it shares the same structure as the goal of psychoanalysis, where the analyzed becomes the analyst. Therefore, everyone should become a democrat. What do you think, do you have more information?

Hi everyone, I've recently read into Lacan's ideas surrounding the Other, imaginary, desires, castration, jouissance etc, and something within me thought this could be linked somehow to the phenomenon of attraction. I'm not well-versed in him hence I'd love to see some of your interpretations.

Specifically, I'm interested in the phenomenon of a woman chasing a man who would give her no notice, who shows her no attention, or is emotionally absent/potentially abusive when she gets together with him, and she still chases him/stays.

There is also another case/instance where she no longer feels attracted to him upon 'getting' him, but I guess an analysis here would be more straightforward (if my reading of Lacan is in the right direction), being that it signals the 'reveal' of the veil of desire which is the foundation for desire.

In a sense, there is a 'paradox' around these attractions, which I think is kind of a pattern I've observed in Lacan's work, meaning, he has many paradoxical concepts.

What are your thoughts? Go ahead and analyze attraction in general too, just wish to learn from you guys.

Me and my collegues are longing to find the interventions of Mannoni and Anzieu at the beginning of the second lesson of Lacan’s first Seminar: First Interventions reguarding the subject of the resistance’ or it should be similar in english.

The italiannversion of the seminar omits them for some reason. We found some notes on Patrick Valas’ site, where there is a complete transcription of the conferences. The problem is that it’s french and it’s badly written in some cases, probably due to the fact that it was a live transcription.

Any clues on how or where to find their intervention (at the very least in a good french/ or at least in english?)

Does anyone have recommendations for building a base of knowledge on Freud? Any good books that cover just the essentials that will help with comprehending Lacan?

hey guys, I am a bachelor English Literature student who is writing his monograph about Osamu Dasai's No Longer Human. More specifically, I am using the philosophical ideas of existentialism and absurdism along with Lacanian Psychoanalysis. In my head, concepts such as the real, the mirror stage, the gaze, etc.. really go well with the main character of the book. The problem though is that I hear that Lacan is not the biggest fan of existentialism. So is using a mix of the two obsolete? what is his problem with existentialism? any suggestions or thoughts are welcomed.

Has anyone read Lacanian Coordinates by Bogdan Wolf? I've read The Lacanian Subject by Bruce Fink and am looking to read some more secondary sources, but I would like to get feedback before investing time into this read if anyone has had any experience with it.

Hello everyone,

Probably a long shot but I’m curious. I made a link in my head between the notion that the psychotic subject does not repress and as such lacks an unconscious and Freud/Lacan’s approach to affects where in what is repressed is not the affect it’s self but the original thought linked to the affect - thus enabling displacement of said affect onto an unrelated, conscious thought.

I’m wondering then if, given the psychotic’s general lack of repression, the link between original thought and affect might actually remain ‘in-tact’ so to say and not be subject to the displacement that typically makes such affects deceptive by nature? Maybe with the implication that the psychotic’s experience of affects maybe aren’t always as deceptive or misleading as to their actual etiology as, say, the neurotic’s?

Someone recently explained the Object a to me in a way that has me thinking differently about how I approach desire. They said to imagine it not as a physical object or hole, but a sort of filter or altered perception (Similar to Zizek's Ideology) that changes the relationship between the subject and object, in a way that makes Object a neither subject nor object.

The example they described to me was a film filter- we have a certain 'sense of things' when watching older films. Films that have mundane scenes gain an almost strange, nostalgic and retro feeling based on the properties they were filmed with, which can invoke warmth and comfort, or other feelings. A perfectly normal scene of a couple getting copy can turn into a 50's rosy scene by putting a black and white filter, or a horror film by editing it be shaky and grainy. Hitchcockian films making excellent use of this. Porn films also use weird lenses and speed-up effects to capture the janky unnatural gyrations and wobblyness of sex.

There's this idea that we have a division between belief and perception, and this entity of division is what is known as Object a, something that intentionally connects us to the real by splitting reality into the uncanny. Apparently this division is what conditions our desire towards impossibility. The goal of analysis would not be implicit in seeing past this filter persay, but to become aware of it and co-exist with how its permenance has colored their lives so the subject can survive the atomization of their identity (subjective destitution).
Thoughts?

I’m trying to figure out what Lacan means by saying that “unconscious cause… is a function of the impossible on which a certainty is based.” What is this Greek word he uses? “Ųńõv” (My apologies for the incorrect accents). It is a (something) of the prohibition that brings to being an existent in spite of its non-advent, it is a function of the impossible on which a certainty is based.” pg 129 of Seminar 11, Norton Addition.

Would anybody be willing to help me with processing this?

I've heard this claim before, that the feminine exception of Not-All in sexuation's logical catagories is intrinsically related to psychotic structure and thus female jouissance that is not-wholly phallic is psychotic. What is the elaboration behind this schema?

Have there been some serious efforts made to read Lacaian psychoanalysis along the lines of neuropsychoanalysis, or they are simply incompatible with one another? Also what would be some reading materials regarding the same?

I was looking for reading material which develops a structural homology between Lacanian psychoanalysis and Marxism

I'm writing my (undergrad) philosophy dissertation on the relationship between psychoanalysis and science. Originally I was just going to stick to Freud, but because there's so much more literature on that topic using Lacan's idea's I've started reading around his work. I have no knowledge of mathematics whatsoever, and all the references to set theory and topology are really throwing me off. Additionally, all the secondary literature I've been reading seems to be heavily based on mathematics.

Is reading Lacan without a background in math a futile endeavor? If it isn't, then does anyone have any tips for how to navigate around this?

Freaking out because I feel like i may have chosen the wrong dissertation topic for my current skill set lol🙏(also pls feel free to recommend any sources on this topic that aren't mind bogglingly difficult. I'm reasonably well versed in philosophy and have some basic knowledge of Freud but I feel like Lacan may be way out of my league)

Hi, guys. Without even being sure if I understand those two correctly, let me ask a question. If Lacanian psychoanalysis admits (and gets really specific with this) that there is no Big Other to which a symptom could refer (therefore, if you call it out, the symptom doesn't dissolve), but that there is only the so-called sinthome, which because of jouissance (joy-in-sense), the sense needed to fill the fundamental Gap, which by itself could only lead to psychotic autism, doesn't just go away if you call it out, then what is the point to psychoanalysis? For Lacan I mean. My guess would be that the whole point would be then to go through a process with the patient, whereby on the basis of the insights stemming from transference and so on the patient comes to realize that he need deal with the world differently, find a different sense in the world.

I will be honest and admit that I have approached Lacan mainly from the standpoint of social theorists/philosophers Slavoj Žižek and Mark Fisher, where Mark Fisher at one point basically did for Žižek what Lacan did for Freud: specify his method, formula-te it. He offered in his book Capitalist Realism that the 'traumatic' Reals of Capitalism get invoked: i.e. climate crisis, mental health crisis, so on, so that Capitalist Realism (the symbolic-hegemonic claim that there is no alternative) dissolves. Invoking those Reals I think shouldn't be understood in the classical sociological way where "the fetish hides the social Reality" and so "we reveal under the mask(...)". Invoking them, on the flip-side, means nothing more than the fact that "obviously, the fetish we have right now doesn't adress these urgent crises, so - we need a new one, let's try and construct one anew". So, I'm curious if Lacan has actually said something akin to that in relationship to his specifically psychoanalytic method, where some Real gets invoked for the patient?

I started reading Chiesa's The Not-Two because I heard that he presents a critique of Zizek's animism and vitalism in general. I am finding it really dense since I don't have a background in Lacan. Getting a (lucid) outline of Chiesa's approach and proposed alternative would help, thank you.

"It is this moment that decisively tips the whole of human knowledge into being mediated by the other's desire, constitutes its objects in an abstract equivalence due to competition from other people and turns the 'I' into an apparatus to which every instinctual pressure constitutes a danger, even if it corresponds to a natural maturation process."

Saccades are unconscious, jerk-like eye movements that occur a few times a second. In between saccades, your eyes fixate and the brain processes the visual information it has received. All of this happens unconsciously, without any effort on your part. In human infants, those fixation periods are shorter than in adults.

Curious what the psychoanalytical perspective on this process is. It's something described in science as the unconscious movements of the eye where visual images are rapidly restored (think like a rotating camera snapping pictures set to automatic) without any conscious intention or act of the infant, causing them to perceive longer intervals and recall more information. This carries into adulthood but is greatly lessened and reduces in effectiveness and impact as we age.

From Bruce Fink's A Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis: "As Freud himself said, "If you take up a theoretical point of view and disregard the matter of quantity, you may quite say that we are all ill- that is, neurotic- since the preconditions for the formation of symptoms [that is, repression] can also be observed in normal people." Obviously it is conceivable that other forms of repression could be found, leading to four or more principal structures; but on the basis of research and theory, these three seem to cover the entire field of psychological phenomena. Thus, "borderline" does not constitute a genuine diagnostic category in Lacanian psychoanalysis as no specific mechanism corresponds to it."

As someone who has been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder I find this very hard to believe when I read about the traits of neurosis in both Freud and Lacan, especially in Freud's talk about hysterics and their trait of allowing their fantasy to control their life- this is something I feel very strongly that people with borderline do. This would put people with borderline into the neurotic diagnostic category as the mechanism that causes it is repression.

I'd be interested to know, if someone here could help me understand these two notions.

Are they in any relation at all to each other? As far as I understand, subjective destitution usually only appears in or towards the end of analysis. That it can be extremely dangerous to some subjects, even with the possibility with ending in suicide, if the analyst isn't under control of the situation.

Though then I'm confused by a story Žižek sometimes tells. Here's a quote I found, for the one's who never heard that story:

Žižek often takes the example of a friend whose wife had died, leaving behind her hamster. The friend didn’t appear shaken by the event of death, he rationally assumed the knowledge of her death, this ultimate absence, and went on living as he did before. After some time, the wife’s hamster had also died, and he was utterly shaken by this, experiencing this loss as a total subjective destitution. The point, of course, is that the hamster functioned as a fetish, the object (the “but all the same”) that enabled him to acknowledge the fact of the wife’s death (the “I know very well”), while not experiencing the devastating consequences of this knowledge: “I know well that my wife has died, but all the same—by clinging to the hamster—I believe (act as if) no death ever took place.”

I'm confused here because it seems that here subjective destitution seems to have happened completely unrelated to analysis. Also it simply seems to be described as some kind of breakdown.

Then I also found this quote which puts subjective destitution in relation to interpellation:

This desubjectivization of the subject results not just in the loss of one’s subjectivity, but also the ethical concerns, imaginary formations, and symbolic identities, which, until then, were simply interpellations of the subject’s functioning within society.

Then of course psychosis: I understand it as 'complete' disintegration or dissolution of the symbolic. The psychotic subject experiencing psychosis kind of looses their complete touch with reality. Do only psychotics experience psychosis or do neurotics and perverts experience it too? I kind of seem to remember reading something on hysterical psychosis, but I'm not sure anymore. Also would the psychosis differ per clinical structure, since only a psychotic subject goes through 'Verwerfung', forclosing the name-of-the-father? Oh and isn't the name-of-the-father a master signifier? Here I would see the only link to ideology critic and the notion of interpellation.

This seems kind of similar to what was the quotes, no? I'm troubled by this, thank you anyone who can somewhat enlighten me!

The links of the quotes I will post in the comments below. Thanks again

I'm struggling to understand the relation, if there is any, between the goal of analysis (the acceptance of lack) and compulsive repetition. Is repetition exactly the way we protect ourselves from seeing our lack? Is there more to it?

In Lacanian theory, the perverse subject is a complex concept that still raises questions for me about the nature of consciousness and the unconscious. Are they aware of their perversions, or is their behavior solely driven by unconscious forces/desire? What role does awareness play in the manifestation of perversion?

Like, you compare lacanian or freudian psychoanalysis to standard interventions. See what the progress was with certain conditions which are more measurable like ocd. Have they found any to more, equal or less effective?

I know that during it's history there was a lot of overlap in France between the Maoists and its psychoanalytical scene. Are there any good books or articles exploring the relationship between Lacan and maoist communism and the influence its had on the movement overall?

Intro

I posted earlier about being new to Lacanian analysis. I received several helpful comments, but realized it would have made more sense to just post one of my questions instead of attempting to chat individually with people. Thanks to u/AncestralPrimate for your answers thus far. I would like to open up and continue to conversations to get some varied viewpoints.

TLDR

The question is to what extent do Lacanians apply their theories universally and how can there be some amount of certainty that Lacanian insights apply to all people and not just the folks who "click" with the theory. Is there any sort of tension between other subjective experiences being open for humans to experience?

The Problem
For example, I've read Ernest Becker's work on his fear of death theory, which posits that the primary drive for human action is an attempt to transcend or deny our inevitable mortality. While I could see the fear of death being a central motivator for some of my own behaviors, when discussing the theory with others, it seemed they could not relate or identify with death anxiety playing such a pivotal role in their psyches. This raised the question of whether they were somehow 'wrong' to not acknowledge death as a primal motivator, or if there are simply different temperaments and mindsets that attract people to resonate more or less with certain theoretical frameworks.

​

So, when it comes to Lacan, I find his ideas deeply intuitive, but again wonder if this is part of a self-selection process. That is certain types of minds drawn to certain ways of dicing up the world and our experience in it. I am reminded of Bertrand Russell's critique of Nietzsche, that goes something along the lines that Nietzsche could only image one type of person.

The question then is whether Lacanians, in putting forth concepts like the barred subject or mirror stage as universally applicable, are making a similar reduction - forgetting the variety of human subjectivity and experience by insisting their lens applies to all? As u/AncestralPrimate pointed out, Lacanian practice is highly particularized, so perhaps I should focus specifically on whether the theoretical doctrines claim universality across all analysands.

I hope I will respect the rules asking this.

So...in Freud, in his 3 essays on the theory of sexuality he talks about 2 important moments in the development of sexuality. From my understanding there is the infamous Primal scene and the 2nd one, for boys it will be the 1st ejaculation and for girls the 1st period.

I don't know what to make of this, but Freud says that you are basically stuck with the way these 2 moments imprinted on you. The way I see it is like the primal scene is structuring in some sense love(how one loves, is loved etc.) and the puberty scene (pretty much will determine what will make one cum).

Is Lacan talking about this ? Are they changeable in any meaningful way ? What about the problematic cases ? What if someone had a rather troubleosme puberty phantasm that makes the subject suffer? Is this treatable in theory ? Is it hard to treat it in practice ?

I know that this might be vague but if anyone knows more or knows some additional articles, books from other sources or writers I would be grateful.

If I misunderstood something I would be grateful to be educated, just a layman here.

Hi all,

I've been doing some research into the obsessional clinical structure. I've been using mostly Joel Dor's 1997 Clinical Lacan and Bruce Fink's 1997 Clinical Introduction to Lacan to orient. I've come up to a bit of a thing that I can't think beyond, and I would love some help.

Fink has a line: "Desire is impossible in obsession, because the closer the obsessive gets to realizing his desire ... the more the Other threatens the obsessive with what Lacan calls 'aphanisis', his fading or disappearance as a subject" (124). Why does Fink think the desire for the obsessive is impossible? He doesn't seem to give much of explicit explanation, but here's what I've gathered so far: Because of his constant attempts to neutralize the Other and 'seize' jouissance for himself, desire shows him (e.g., in sex with an other) that his existence (and its maintenance) is indeed deeply dependent upon the Other. Is this the case?

And then there is the Joel Dor idea, which I think might be connected in an important way but I can't think of exactly how. Dor really takes the idea that the obsessional is loved too much and runs with it, arguing that the obsessive-to-be's desire is always taken up/colonized by the desire of the mOther which is never fully satisfied by the paternal function/father.

So perhaps a way to think these together (just a thought) is that the closer the obsessional gets to satisfied his desire, the closer he is to the original relationship pattern with his mOther: that his desire is not his own--and if it was, he would be oedipally punished (because it would be incestuous to blend the child's desire with mOther's). Thoughts or direction would be appreciated.

I have these three a bit jumbled up and am having a difficult time understanding the differences between them. I get the similarities (and perhaps that is where I am getting confused- are they all that similar???) I work with a non-verbal autistic patient who I make art with, which is part of the context behind my desire to understand the terminology (and my patient) better.

I don't have all of the seminars, and so I'm learning a lot from excerpts. There's so much information to sift through to answer the million questions I have.

When Lacan asserts that the "I think" of the Cogito is like something inside a homunculus that causes the Subject to be and act, and then shows how that leads to an infinite regress, is he then using that as a way to show that thoughts stem directly from unconscious impulse because it's the most logical way for him to break the infinite regress of the "I think, therefore I am?" 

As Nietzsce says, "It" is doing the thinking, and we are acting the thought. But what is doing the thinking that causes the thinking of the it? and so on and so on... Does it all just stop at impulse? In other words "desire"? So, unconscious desire is what's doing the thinking, and language is like the passport which allows the subject to enact the desire in one way or another? Or is the big Other that is doing the thinking from outside, and we just reiterate it within a form that fits our desire? Like, the unconscious is just this empty mirror/jug that sucks language in from the big Other to understand its own Oedipal drives and then manipulates the signifiers and ships them back out to create action? Am I just making stuff up here, or have I actually learned something?