Curtis Sittenfeld
American novelist (1975-)
Jacques Lacan
French psychoanalyst and writer (1901-1981)
Jacques Lacan was a renowned French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who made significant contributions to various fields, including post-structuralism, critical theory, and film theory. His unique interpretation and development of Freudian concepts, as well as his controversial clinical practices, led to a profound impact on the practice of psychoanalysis itself.
Table of Contents
Family Info
Siblings
Marc-Francois Lacan
Spouses
Sylvia Bataille
Marie-Louise Blondin
Children
Judith Miller
Sibylle Lacan
Caroline Roger-Lacan
About the Jacques Lacan
Jacques Marie Emile Lacanwas a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. Described as “the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud”, Lacan gave yearly seminars in Paris, from 1953 to 1981, and published papers that were later collected in the book Ecrits. Transcriptions of his seminars, given between 1954 and 1976, were also published. His work made a significant impact on continental philosophy and cultural theory in areas such as post-structuralism, critical theory, feminist theory and film theory, as well as on the practice of psychoanalysis itself.
Lacan took up and discussed the whole range of Freudian concepts, emphasizing the philosophical dimension of Freud’s thought and applying concepts derived from structuralism in linguistics and anthropology to its development in his own work, which he would further augment by employing formulae from predicate logic and topology. Taking this new direction, and introducing controversial innovations in clinical practice, led to expulsion for Lacan and his followers from the International Psychoanalytic Association. In consequence, Lacan went on to establish new psychoanalytic institutions to promote and develop his work, which he declared to be a “return to Freud”, in opposition to prevalent trends in psychology and institutional psychoanalysis collusive of adaptation to social norms.
Frequently Asked Questions
Jacques Lacan was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who made significant contributions to various fields, including post-structuralism, critical theory, and film theory. He was known for his unique interpretation and development of Freudian concepts and his controversial clinical practices.
Jacques Lacan was born on April 13, 1901, in France. He was a psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who gained recognition for his work in the fields of post-structuralism, critical theory, and film theory.
Jacques Lacan took up and discussed the whole range of Freudian concepts, emphasizing the philosophical dimension of Freud’s thought and applying concepts derived from structuralism in linguistics and anthropology to its development in his own work. He also introduced controversial innovations in clinical practice, which led to his expulsion from the International Psychoanalytic Association.
Jacques Lacan’s work made a significant impact on continental philosophy and cultural theory in areas such as post-structuralism, critical theory, feminist theory, and film theory. His unique approach to psychoanalysis also influenced the practice of psychoanalysis itself.
Jacques Lacan’s introduction of controversial innovations in clinical practice led to his expulsion from the International Psychoanalytic Association. However, he went on to establish new psychoanalytic institutions to promote and develop his work, which he declared to be a ,return to Freud,, in opposition to prevalent trends in psychology and institutional psychoanalysis.
Jacques Lacan’s work made a significant impact on the practice of psychoanalysis itself. His unique interpretation and development of Freudian concepts, as well as his controversial clinical practices, led to a profound influence on the field of psychoanalysis.
Jacques Lacan’s work had a lasting impact on various fields, including post-structuralism, critical theory, feminist theory, and film theory. His unique approach to psychoanalysis and his controversial clinical practices also influenced the practice of psychoanalysis itself.
19 Quotes by Jacques Lacan
- 1.
For the signifier is a unit in its very uniqueness, being by nature symbol only of an absence.
Jacques LacanFrench psychoanalyst and writer (1901-1981)
- 2.
We emphasize that such a form of communication is not absent in man, however evanescent a naturally given object may be for him, split as it is in its submission to symbols.
Jacques LacanFrench psychoanalyst and writer (1901-1981)
- 3.
Symptoms, those you believe you recognize, seem to you irrational because you take them in an isolated manner, and you want to interpret them directly.
Jacques LacanFrench psychoanalyst and writer (1901-1981)
- 4.
The Mirror Stage as formative in the function of the I as revealed in psychoanalytic experience.
Jacques LacanFrench psychoanalyst and writer (1901-1981)
- 5.
What could be more convincing, moreover, than the gesture of laying one’s cards face up on the table?
Jacques LacanFrench psychoanalyst and writer (1901-1981)
- 6.
As is known, it is in the realm of experience inaugurated by psychoanalysis that we may grasp along what imaginary lines the human organism, in the most intimate recesses of its being, manifests its capture in a symbolic dimension.
Jacques LacanFrench psychoanalyst and writer (1901-1981)
- 7.
Which is why we cannot say of the purloined letter that, like other objects, it must be or not be in a particular place but that unlike them it will be and not be where it is, wherever it goes.
Jacques LacanFrench psychoanalyst and writer (1901-1981)
- 8.
The knowledge that there is a part of the psychic functions that are out of conscious reach, we did not need to wait for Freud to know this!
Jacques LacanFrench psychoanalyst and writer (1901-1981)
- 9.
The narration, in fact, doubles the drama with a commentary without which no mise en scene would be possible.
Jacques LacanFrench psychoanalyst and writer (1901-1981)
- 10.
What does it matter how many lovers you have if none of them gives you the universe?
Jacques LacanFrench psychoanalyst and writer (1901-1981)
- 11.
A geometry implies the heterogeneity of locus, namely that there is a locus of the Other. Regarding this locus of the Other, of one sex as Other, as absolute Other, what does the most recent development in topology allow us to posit?
Jacques LacanFrench psychoanalyst and writer (1901-1981)
- 12.
But this emphasis would be lavished in vain, if it served, in your opinion, only to abstract a general type from phenomena whose particularity in our work would remain the essential thing for you, and whose original arrangement could be broken up only artificially.
Jacques LacanFrench psychoanalyst and writer (1901-1981)
- 13.
Writings scatter to the winds blank checks in an insane charge. And were they not such flying leaves, there would be no purloined letters.
Jacques LacanFrench psychoanalyst and writer (1901-1981)
- 14.
Psychoanalysis is a terribly efficient instrument, and because it is more and more a prestigious instrument, we run the risk of using it with a purpose for which it was not made for, and in this way we may degrade it.
Jacques LacanFrench psychoanalyst and writer (1901-1981)
- 15.
In other words, the man who is born into existence deals first with language; this is a given. He is even caught in it before his birth.
Jacques LacanFrench psychoanalyst and writer (1901-1981)
- 16.
Yet, analytical truth is not as mysterious, or as secret, so as to not allow us to see that people with a talent for directing consciences see truth rise spontaneously.
Jacques LacanFrench psychoanalyst and writer (1901-1981)
- 17.
Aside from that reservation, a fictive tale even has the advantage of manifesting symbolic necessity more purely to the extent that we may believe its conception arbitrary.
Jacques LacanFrench psychoanalyst and writer (1901-1981)
- 18.
Since Freud, the center of man is not where we thought it was; one has to go on from there.
Jacques LacanFrench psychoanalyst and writer (1901-1981)
- 19.
Obsessional does not necessarily mean sexual obsession, not even obsession for this, or for that in particular; to be an obsessional means to find oneself caught in a mechanism, in a trap increasingly demanding and endless.
Jacques LacanFrench psychoanalyst and writer (1901-1981)