Jacques Lacan: Difference between revisions

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{{Psychoanalysis|Schools}}
 
'''Jacques Marie Émile Lacan''' ({{IPAc-en|UK|l|æ|ˈ|k|ɒ̃}},<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.lexico.com/definition/Lacan,_Jacques |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211027020456/https://www.lexico.com/definition/lacan,_jacques |url-status=dead |archive-date=27 October 2021 |title=Lacan, Jacques |dictionary=[[Lexico]] UK English Dictionary |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]}}</ref> {{IPAc-en|US|l|ə|ˈ|k|ɑː|n}},<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.lexico.com/en/definition/Lacan,+Jacques |title=Lacan, Jacques |dictionary=[[Lexico]] UK English Dictionary US English Dictionary |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] }}{{Dead link|date=September 2022 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}{{dead link|date=September 2022|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref><ref>[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/lacan "Lacan"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141103055025/http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/lacan |date=3 November 2014 }}. ''[[Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary]]''.</ref> {{IPA-fr|ʒak maʁi emil lakɑ̃|lang}}; 13 April 1901 – 9 September 1981) was a French [[psychoanalyst]] and [[psychiatrist]]. Described as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since [[Sigmund Freud|Freud]]",<ref name=controversial_quote/> Lacan gave [[The Seminars of Jacques Lacan|yearly seminars]] in Paris, from 1953 to 1981, and published papers that were later collected in the book ''Écrits''. Transcriptions of his seminars, given between 1954 and 1976, were also published.<ref>{{Cite web |title=SEMINARS OF JACQUES LACAN - CONTENTS |url=https://www.lacan.com/seminars1a.htm |access-date=2023-11-02 |website=www.lacan.com |archive-date=4 February 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240204040347/https://www.lacan.com/seminars1a.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> 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 [[Topological space|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]].<ref>[[Malcolm Bowie|Bowie, Malcolm]], ''Lacan'', London: Fontana, 1991. p. 45</ref> 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.
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Lacan was involved with the Parisian [[Surrealism|surrealist]] movement of the 1930s, associating with [[André Breton]], [[Georges Bataille]], [[Salvador Dalí]], and [[Pablo Picasso]].<ref>{{cite book|last1=Desmond|first1=John|title=Psychoanalytic Accounts of Consuming Desire: Hearts of Darkness|date=2012|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|location=NY}}</ref> For a time, he served as Picasso's personal therapist. He attended the ''mouvement Psyché'' that [[Maryse Choisy]] founded and published in the Surrealist journal ''[[Minotaure]]''. "[Lacan's] interest in surrealism predated his interest in psychoanalysis," former Lacanian analyst and biographer [[Dylan Evans]] explains, speculating that "perhaps Lacan never really abandoned his early surrealist sympathies, its [[Neo-romanticism|neo-Romantic]] view of madness as 'convulsive beauty', its celebration of irrationality."<ref name="dylan_evans 2005">Evans, Dylan, "[http://www.dylan.org.uk/lacan.pdf "From Lacan to Darwin"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060210151234/http://www.dylan.org.uk/lacan.pdf |date=2006-02-10 }}", in ''The Literary Animal; Evolution and the Nature of Narrative'', eds. Jonathan Gottschall and David Sloan Wilson, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2005</ref> Translator and historian [[David Macey]] writes that "the importance of surrealism can hardly be over-stated... to the young Lacan... [who] also shared the surrealists' taste for scandal and provocation, and viewed provocation as an important element in psycho-analysis itself".<ref>[[David Macey]], "Introduction" in Jacques Lacan (1994) ''[[The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis]]'', London:Penuin Books, pp. xv–xvi</ref>
 
In 1931, after a second year at the Sainte-Anne Hospital, Lacan was awarded his ''Diplôme de médecin légiste'' (a [[medical examiner]]'s qualification) and became a licensed [[Forensic psychiatry|forensic psychiatrist]]. The following year he was awarded his {{Interlanguage link|Diplôme d'État de docteur en médecine|fr}} (roughly equivalent to an [[Doctor of Medicine|M.D.]] degree) for his thesis "On Paranoiac Psychosis in its Relations to the Personality" ("De la Psychose paranoïaque dans ses rapports avec la personnalité".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://psychaanalyse.com/pdf/lacan_THESE_de_medecine.pdf |title=De la psychose paranoïaque dans ses rapports avec la personnalité |first=Jaques |last=Lacan |year=1975 |publisher=Éditions du Seuil |access-date=18 May 2019 |archive-date=3 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220103110041/https://psychaanalyse.com/pdf/lacan_THESE_de_medecine.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=Macey1988 />{{rp|21}}{{efn|The thesis was published in Paris by Librairie E. Francois (1932); reprinted in Paris by [[Éditions du Seuil]] (1975)}} Its publication had little immediate impact on French psychoanalysis but it did meet with acclaim amongst Lacan's circle of surrealist writers and artists. In their only recorded instance of direct communication, Lacan sent a copy of his thesis to [[Sigmund Freud]] who acknowledged its receipt with a postcard.<ref name=Macey1988 />{{rp|212}}
 
Lacan's thesis was based on observations of several patients with a primary focus on one female patient whom he called [[Case of Aimée|Aimée]]. Its exhaustive reconstruction of her family history and social relations, on which he based his analysis of her [[Paranoia|paranoid]] state of mind, demonstrated his dissatisfaction with traditional psychiatry and the growing influence of Freud on his ideas.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Evans|first1=Julia|title=Lacanian Works|url=http://www.lacanianworks.net/?p=113.|access-date=28 September 2014|archive-date=4 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304002419/http://www.lacanianworks.net/?p=113.|url-status=live}}</ref> Also in 1932, Lacan published a translation of Freud's 1922 text, "''Über einige neurotische Mechanismen bei Eifersucht, Paranoia und Homosexualität''" ("Some Neurotic Mechanisms in Jealousy, Paranoia and Homosexuality") as "''De quelques mécanismes névrotiques dans la jalousie, la paranoïa et l'homosexualité''" in the ''{{ill|Revue française de psychanalyse|fr}}''. In Autumn 1932, Lacan began his training analysis with [[Rudolph Loewenstein (psychoanalyst)|Rudolph Loewenstein]], which was to last until 1938.<ref>Laurent, É., "Lacan, Analysand" in ''Hurly-Burly'', Issue 3.</ref>
 
In 1934 Lacan became a candidate member of the [[Société psychanalytique de Paris]] (SPP). He began his private psychoanalytic practice in 1936 whilst still seeing patients at the Sainte-Anne Hospital,<ref name="Jacques Lacan & Co" />{{rp|129}} and the same year presented his first analytic report at the Congress of the [[International Psychoanalytical Association]] (IPA) in [[Marienbad]] on the "[[Mirror stage|Mirror Phase]]". The congress chairman, [[Ernest Jones]], terminated the lecture before its conclusion, since he was unwilling to extend Lacan's stated presentation time. Insulted, Lacan left the congress to witness the [[1936 Summer Olympics|Berlin Olympic Games]]. No copy of the original lecture remains, Lacan having decided not to hand in his text for publication in the conference proceedings.<ref>Roudinesco, Elisabeth. "The mirror stage: an obliterated archive" ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=o2YKaZls_-kC The Cambridge Companion to Lacan] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230405211310/https://books.google.com/books?id=o2YKaZls_-kC |date=5 April 2023 }}.'' Ed. Jean-Michel Rabaté. Cambridge: CUP, 2003</ref>
 
Lacan's attendance at [[Alexandre Kojève|Kojève]]'s lectures on [[Hegel]], given between 1933 and 1939, and which focused on the [[The Phenomenology of Spirit|''Phenomenology'']] and the [[Master–slave dialectic|master-slave dialectic]] in particular, was formative for his subsequent work,<ref name=Macey1988 />{{rp|96–98}} initially in his formulation of his theory of the mirror phase, for which he was also indebted to the experimental work on child development of [[Henri Wallon (psychologist)|Henri Wallon]].<ref name="Jacques Lacan & Co" />{{rp|143}}
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The Overture to the Caracas Encounter was to be Lacan's final public address. His last texts from the spring of 1981 are brief institutional documents pertaining to the newly formed Freudian Field Institute.
 
Lacan died on 9 September 1981.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/lacan/ |title=Jacques Lacan |encyclopedia=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Stanford University |first=Adrian |last=Johnston |date=10 July 2018 |access-date=7 September 2021 |archive-date=9 May 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190509063051/https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/lacan/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
 
==Major concepts==
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Lacan thought that Freud's ideas of "slips of the tongue", jokes, and the interpretation of dreams all emphasized the agency of language in subjects' own constitution of themselves. In "[[The Instance of the Letter in the Unconscious, or Reason Since Freud]]," he proposes that "the psychoanalytic experience discovers in the unconscious the whole structure of language". The unconscious is not a primitive or archetypal part of the mind separate from the conscious, linguistic ego, he explained, but rather a formation as complex and structurally sophisticated as consciousness itself. Lacan is associated with the idea that "the unconscious is structured like a language", but the first time this sentence occurs in his work,<ref>Lacan, "Of Structure as an Inmixing of an Otherness Prerequisite to Any Subject Whatever". In ''The Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man: The Structuralist Controversy'', ed. R. Macksey & E. Donato, Baltimore & London, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1970, 186–195</ref> he clarifies that he means that both the unconscious and language are structured, not that they share a single structure; and that the structure of language is such that the subject cannot necessarily be equated with the speaker. This results in the self being denied any point of reference to which to be "restored" following trauma or a crisis of identity.
 
[[André Green (psychoanalyst)|André Green]] objected that "when you read Freud, it is obvious that this proposition doesn't work for a minute. Freud very clearly opposes the unconscious (which he says is constituted by thing-presentations and nothing else) to the pre-conscious. What is related to language can only belong to the pre-conscious".{{r|Jacobus2005|at=5n}} Freud certainly contrasted "the presentation of the ''word'' and the presentation of the ''thing''... the unconscious presentation is the presentation of the thing alone"<ref>Sigmund Freud, ''On Metapsychology'' (Penguin 1984) p. 207</ref> in his metapsychology. Dylan Evans, however, in his ''Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis,'' "... takes issue with those who, like André Green, question the linguistic aspect of the unconscious, emphasizing Lacan's distinction between ''das Ding'' and ''die Sache'' in Freud's account of thing-presentation".{{r|Jacobus2005|at=8n}} Green's criticism of Lacan also included accusations of intellectual dishonesty, he said, "[He] cheated everybody... the return to Freud was an excuse, it just meant going to Lacan."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.apadivisions.org/division-39/publications/reviews/dead-mother|title=The Dead Mother: The Work of André Green (Book Review)|website=apadivisions.org |access-date=21 May 2019|archive-date=18 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191218203151/https://www.apadivisions.org/division-39/publications/reviews/dead-mother|url-status=live}}</ref>
 
===Mirror stage===
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{{Col-begin}}
{{Col-2}}
* [[Name of the Father]]
* [[Foreclosure (psychoanalysis)]]
* The [[Four discourses]]
* The [[graph of desire]]
* [[Lack (manque)]]
* The [[The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis|"Lamella"]]
* ''[[Objet petit a]]''
{{Col-2}}
* The [[graph of desire]]
* [[Matheme]]
* [[Name of the Father]]
* ''[[Objet petit a]]''
* [[Sinthome]]
* The [[Four discourses]]
{{Col-end}}
 
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==Writings and writing style==
According to Jean-Michel Rabaté, Lacan in the mid-1950s classed the seminars as commentaries on Freud rather than presentations of his own doctrine (like the writings), while Lacan by 1971 placed the most value on his teaching and "the interactive space of his seminar" (in contrast to [[Sigmund Freud]]). Rabaté also argued that from 1964 onward, the seminars include original ideas. However, Rabaté also wrote that the seminars are "more problematic" because of the importance of the interactive performances, and because they were partly edited and rewritten.<ref name=LTtF-Rabaté2003>{{Citation |last=Rabaté |first=Jean-Michel |title=Lacan's turn to Freud |date=2003 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-lacan/lacans-turn-to-freud/306335BEAEBD023D003CED49DFAD49F9 |work=The Cambridge Companion to Lacan |pages=1–24 |editor-last=Rabaté |editor-first=Jean-Michel |series=Cambridge Companions to Literature |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-80744-9 |access-date=2022-05-26 |archive-date=19 June 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180619053859/https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-lacan/lacans-turn-to-freud/306335BEAEBD023D003CED49DFAD49F9 |url-status=live }}</ref>
 
Most of Lacan's psychoanalytic writings from the 1940s through to the early 1960s were compiled with an index of concepts by Jacques-Alain Miller in the 1966 collection, titled simply ''Écrits''. Published in French by Éditions du Seuil, they were later issued as a two-volume set (1970/1) with a new "Preface". A selection of the writings (chosen by Lacan himself) were translated by [[Alan Sheridan]] and published by Tavistock Press in 1977. The full 35-text volume appeared for the first time in English in Bruce Fink's translation published by [[W. W. Norton & Company|Norton & Co]]. (2006). The ''Écrits'' were included on the list of [[Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century|100 most influential books of the 20th century]] compiled and polled by the broadsheet ''[[Le Monde]]''.
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Although Lacan is a major influence on psychoanalysis in France and parts of Latin America, in the English-speaking world his influence on [[clinical psychology]] has been far less and his ideas are best known in the arts and humanities. However, there are Lacanian psychoanalytic societies in both North America and the United Kingdom that carry on his work.<ref name="dylan_evans"/>
 
One example of Lacan's work being practiced in the United States is found in the works of Annie G. Rogers (''A Shining Affliction''; ''The Unsayable: The Hidden Language of Trauma''), which credit Lacanian theory for many therapeutic insights in successfully treating sexually abused young women.<ref>e.g. ''A Shining Affliction'' {{ISBN|978-0-14-024012-2}}</ref> Lacan's work has also reached Quebec, where The Interdisciplinary Freudian Group for Research and Clinical and Cultural Interventions (GIFRIC) claims that it has used a modified form of Lacanian psychoanalysis in successfully treating psychosis in many of its patients, a task once thought to be unsuited for psychoanalysis, even by psychoanalysts themselves<!--pscyhoanalysis not to treat psychosis???-->.<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://www.gifric.com/388.htm | title=Le 388 | access-date=14 March 2015 | archive-date=24 February 2015 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150224104421/http://www.gifric.com/388.htm | url-status=live }}</ref>
 
==Legacy==
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[[Social psychologist]], psychoanalyst, and [[humanistic]] [[philosopher]] [[Erich Fromm]] rejected Lacan's view on psychonalysis whereby "true psychoanalysis is founded on the relation between man and talk [''parole''],"<ref name=autres>{{cite book |last=Lacan|first=Jacques |date=2001 |title=Autres Ecrits |language=French|trans-title=Other Writings|publisher=[[Seuil]] |isbn= 978-2020486477}}</ref> and denounced the reduction of analysis to "a pure and simple exchange of words," arguing that the relation is instead about an "exchange of signs." Fromm supports "clarity and unambiguity" in the communication with others (''autrui'') and opposes the Lacanian "wordplay [that] is associated with the provision of meaning."<ref>Onfray, Michel: "Erich Fromm et la psychanalyse humaniste" ("Erich Fromm and the humanist psychoanalysis"). Conference held in the [[Université populaire de Caen]], transmitted on ''[[France Culture]]'', 16 August 2011</ref> Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalyst [[Élisabeth Roudinesco]], in her biography of Lacan, writes that some writings of her subject were "incomprehensible" also to [[Maurice Merleau-Ponty]],<ref name=vie>{{cite book |last= Roudinesco|first=Élisabeth|author-link= Élisabeth Roudinesco|date=1993 |title=Jacques Lacan: Esquisse d'une vie, histoire d'un système de pensée|language=French|trans-title=Sketch of a life, history of a system of thought|publisher=[[Fayard]] |isbn= 978-2213031460}}</ref>{{rp|206}} [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]],<ref name=vie/>{{rp|305}} and [[Martin Heidegger]].<ref name=vie/>{{rp|306}}
 
Former Lacan student [[Didier Anzieu]], in a 1967 article titled "Against Lacan," described him as a "danger" because he kept his students tied to an "unending dependence on an idol, a logic, or a language," by holding out the promise of "fundamental truths" to be revealed "but always at some further point ...and only to those who continued to travel with him." According to [[Sherry Turkle]], these attitudes are "representative of how most members of the [[École Freudienne de Paris|Association]] talk about Lacan."{{efn|When the French Society of Psychoanalysis requested official recognition from and affiliation with the ''Association Psychanalytique Internationale'' ([[International Psychoanalytical Association]]) in 1959, the API demanded the sidelining of Jacques Lacan as a didactician. Two currents of the ''[[Société Française de Psychanalyse]]'' (French Society of Psychoanalysis) then stood opposed at each other: one, which became the majority in the SFP in November 1963, was led by Daniel Lagache, and others, while a second current, which became the minority, brought together the supporters of Jacques Lacan.}}<ref>{{cite book |last=Turkle |first=Sherry |date=1978 |url=https://www.scribd.com/document/228963082/Psychoanalytic-Politics-Freud-s-French-Revolution-Sherry-Turkle |access-date=October 24, 2023 |author-link= Sherry Turkle |title=Psychoanalytic Politics: Freud's French Revolution |publisher=Basic Books |isbn=978-0465066070 |archive-date=2 November 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231102081400/https://www.scribd.com/document/228963082/Psychoanalytic-Politics-Freud-s-French-Revolution-Sherry-Turkle |url-status=live }}</ref>
 
By 1977, Lacan was declaring that he was not "too keen" (''"pas chaud-chaud"'') to claim that "when one practices psychoanalysis, one knows where one goes," stating that "psychoanalysis, like every other human activity, undoubtedly participates in abuse. One does as if one knows something."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lacan |first1=Jacques |date=1977 |title=Ouverture de la section clinique |language=French |url=http://www.gnipl.fr/Recherche_Lacan/wp-content/uploads/1977%20LACAN%20OUVERTURE%20A%20LA%20SECTION%20CLINIQUE.pdf |access-date=29 October 2023 |trans-title=Opening of the clinical section |journal=Ornicar? |issue=9 |pages=7–24 |archive-date=29 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231029193731/http://www.gnipl.fr/Recherche_Lacan/wp-content/uploads/1977%20LACAN%20OUVERTURE%20A%20LA%20SECTION%20CLINIQUE.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>
 
Lacan's [[charismatic authority]] has been linked to the many conflicts among his followers and in the analytic schools he was involved with.<ref>Jacqueline Rose, ''On Not Being Able To Sleep: Psychoanalysis and the Modern World'' (London 2003) p. 176</ref> His intellectual style has also come in for much criticism. Eclectic in his use of sources,<ref>Philip Hill, ''Lacan for Beginners'' (London 1997) p. 8</ref> Lacan has been seen as concealing his own thought behind the apparent explication of that of others.{{r|n=Roudinesco 1997|p=46}} Thus, his "return to Freud" was called by [[Malcolm Bowie]] "a complete pattern of dissenting assent to the ideas of Freud {{Nowrap|. . .}} Lacan's argument is conducted on Freud's behalf and, at the same time, against him".<ref>Malcolm Bowie, ''Lacan'' (London 1991) pp. 6–7</ref> Bowie has also suggested that Lacan suffered from both a love of [[system]] and a deep-seated opposition to all forms of system.<ref>Adam Phillips, ''On Flirtation'' (London, 1996), pp. 161–2.</ref>
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Lacan, in his psychoanalytic practice, came to hold sessions of diminishing duration.<ref>{{cite book |last=Borch-Jacobsen |first=Mikkel |author-link=Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen|date= 2005 |editor-last=Meyer|editor-first=Catherine|title=Le livre noir de la psychanalyse|language=French|trans-title=The black boom of Psychoanalysis |publisher=Les Arènes|pages=228–323|trans-chapter=A Zero Theory|chapter=Une Théorie Zéro|isbn=978-2912485885}}</ref> Eventually, Lacan's student relates, they often lasted no more than five minutes, held sometimes with Lacan standing in the typically open door of the room.{{efn|Godin relates, without criticizing this, that Lacan would often read ''[[Le Figaro]]'' throughout a session, "turning the pages noisily" and sometimes exclaiming 'this is insane!' at what he was reading. And he'd never give change if the client did not have the exact amount of money for the session.}} According to Godin, Lacan sometimes struck patients, once literally kicking out a female patient.<ref name=standing>{{cite book |last=Godin|first=Jean-Guy |date=2001 |title=Jacques Lacan, 5, rue de Lille|language=French|trans-title=Jacques Lacan, 5, Lille street|publisher=[[Seuil]] |isbn= 978-2020121606}}</ref>{{rp|82}} Author and Lacanian psychoanalyst [[Jacques-Alain Miller]] asserts that "[Lacan]'s morality derives from a superior cynicism."<ref name=cynic>{{cite journal |last1=Onfray|first1=Michel|author-link1=Michel Onfray |last2= Miller|first2=Jacques-Alain |author-link2= Jacques-Alain Miller|date=2010 |title=En finir avec Freud |language=French|trans-title=To be done with Freud|journal=Philosophie Magazine|issue=36 |pages=10–15|url=|quote=Sa morale relève d'un cynisme supérieur.}}</ref>
 
Lacan was criticised for being aggressive with his clients, often physically hitting them, sometimes sleeping with them,<ref name=anti/>{{rp|304}}{{efn|In her biography, Roudinesco clarifies that this would happen "always away from the place where the analysis was taking place."}} and charging "exorbitant amounts of money" for each session.<ref>{{cite book |last=Rey|first=Pierre |date=2016 |orig-date=1st pub. 1988 |title=Une saison chez Lacan|language=French|trans-title=A season at Lacan's|publisher=Éditions Points|isbn= 978-2020121606}}</ref>{{efn|Rey, who was ''[[Marie Claire]]'' editor, relates that in order to be able to meet the prices of Lacan, for whom he constantly felt "gratitude," abandoned journalism and started writing best-sellers.}} [[Jean Laplanche]] argued that Lacan could have "harmed" some of his clients.<ref>{{cite journal |last1= André |first1=Jacques|date=2012 |title=Hommage à Jean Laplanche |journal=Le Carnet Psy|volume=6 |issue=164|pages=58–61|language=French|url=https://www.cairn.info/revue-le-carnet-psy-2012-6-page-58.htm|access-date=29 October 2023|quote= [Lacan] avait pu nuire à certains de ses analysants.|archive-date=29 October 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231029193729/https://www.cairn.info/revue-le-carnet-psy-2012-6-page-58.htm|url-status=live}}</ref>
 
Others have been more forceful still, describing him as "The Shrink from Hell"<ref name=stu>{{cite web|date=7 April 2018|last= Jeffries|first=Stuart|title=The selfish shrink: life with Jacques Lacan|website=[[The Spectator|The Spectator Australia]]|access-date=31 October 2023|url-access=subscription|url=https://www.spectator.com.au/2018/04/the-selfish-shrink-life-with-jacques-lacan/|archive-date=31 October 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231031191737/https://www.spectator.com.au/2018/04/the-selfish-shrink-life-with-jacques-lacan/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=tallis>{{cite web|last1=Tallis|first1=Raymond|title=The Shrink from Hell|url=https://www.timeshighereducation.com/books/the-shrink-from-hell/159376.article|website=[[Times Higher Education]]|access-date=31 October 2023|date=31 October 1997|archive-date=20 October 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231020231914/https://www.timeshighereducation.com/books/the-shrink-from-hell/159376.article|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=dick>{{cite web|url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/4w75en/jacques-lacan-was-sort-of-a-dick-323|last1= Wolters|first1=Eugene|title=French Philosopher Jacques Lacan Was Sort of a Dick|website=[[Vice (magazine)|Vice]]|access-date=31 October 2023|date=8 October 2014|archive-date=31 October 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231031191737/https://www.vice.com/en/article/4w75en/jacques-lacan-was-sort-of-a-dick-323|url-status=live}}</ref> and listing the many associates —from lovers and family to colleagues, patients, and editors— who were left damaged in his wake.
 
===Feminist criticism===
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Others have echoed this accusation, seeing Lacan as trapped in the very [[phallocentric]] mastery his language ostensibly sought to undermine.<ref>[[Jacqueline Rose]], "Introduction – II", in Juliet Mitchell and Jacqueline Rose, ''Feminine Sexuality'' (New York 1982) p. 56</ref> The result, [[Castoriadis]] would maintain, was to make all thought depend upon Lacan himself, and thus to stifle the capacity for independent thought among all those around him.{{r|n=Roudinesco 1997|p=386}}
 
In an interview with anthropologist James Hunt, Sylvia Lacan said of her late husband: "He was a man who worked tremendously hard. Tremendously intelligent. He was...what is called, well, a domestic tyrant... But he was worth the trouble. I have absolutely no reproaches to make against him. Just the contrary. But it was not possible to be a wife, a mother to my children, and an actress at the same time."<ref>{{Cite web|last=Hunt|first=Jamer Kennedy|date=1995|title=Absence to presence: The life history of Sylvia [Bataille] Lacan (France)|url=https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/16832/9610654.PDF?sequence=1&isAllowed=y|access-date=24 October 2020|website=Rice Digital Scholarship|archive-date=15 February 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220215011545/https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/16832/9610654.PDF?sequence=1&isAllowed=y|url-status=live}}</ref>
 
===Mathematics in psychoanalysis===
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===Incomprehensibility===
Several critics have dismissed Lacan's work wholesale. French philosopher {{ill|François Roustang|fr}} called it an "incoherent system of [[pseudo-scientific]] gibberish", and quoted [[linguist]] [[Noam Chomsky]]'s opinion that Lacan was an "amusing and perfectly self-conscious [[charlatan]]".<ref name=roustang>{{cite book |url=http://bactra.org/reviews/lacanian-delusion/ |last=Roustang |first=François |date=1986 |title=Lacan, de l'équivoque à l'impasse |language=French |trans-title=Lacan, from ambiguity to dead end |publisher=[[Les Éditions de Minuit]] |pages=100–110 |chapter=L'illusion lacanienne |trans-chapter=The Lacanian Delusion |isbn=978-2707311085 |access-date=2 February 2016 |archive-date=10 December 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151210101642/http://bactra.org/reviews/lacanian-delusion/ |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Noam Chomsky]], in a 2012 interview on ''Veterans Unplugged'', said: "[Q]uite frankly I thought [Lacan] was a total charlatan. He was just posturing for the television cameras in the way many Paris intellectuals do. Why this is influential, I haven't the slightest idea. I don't see anything there that should be influential."<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.openculture.com/2013/06/noam_chomsky_slams_zizek_and_lacan_empty_posturing.html|title= Noam Chomsky Slams Žižek and Lacan: Empty 'Posturing'|last= Springer|first= Mike|date= 28 June 2013|website= Open Culture|access-date= 31 August 2018|archive-date= 19 March 2022|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20220319200117/http://www.openculture.com/2013/06/noam_chomsky_slams_zizek_and_lacan_empty_posturing.html|url-status= live}}</ref>
 
Academic and former Lacanian analyst [[Dylan Evans]]{{efn|Evans published a dictionary of Lacanian terms in 1996, titled ''An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis''.}} came to dismiss Lacanianism as lacking a sound scientific basis and as harming rather than helping patients. He criticized Lacan's followers for treating Lacan's writings as "holy writ".<ref>{{cite book|last1=Evans |first1=Dylan |chapter=From Lacan to Darwin |title=The Literary Animal: Evolution and the Nature of Narrative|url=https://archive.org/details/literaryanimalev00gott_879 |url-access=limited |date=2005|pages=[https://archive.org/details/literaryanimalev00gott_879/page/n64 38]–55|publisher=[[Northwestern University Press]]|location=[[Evanston, Illinois]]|editor1=Jonathan Gottschall|editor2=David Sloan|citeseerx=10.1.1.305.690 }}</ref> [[Richard Webster (British author)|Richard Webster]] decries what he sees as Lacan's obscurity, arrogance, and the resultant "[[Cult]] of Lacan".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.richardwebster.net/thecultoflacan.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020910203351/http://www.richardwebster.net/thecultoflacan.html |url-status=usurped |archive-date=10 September 2002 |title=The Cult of Lacan |publisher=Richardwebster.net |date=14 June 1907 |access-date=18 June 2011}}</ref>
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==Works==
Selected works published in English listed below. More complete listings can be found at [http://www.lacan.com/bibliographies.htm Lacan.com] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050405161817/http://lacan.com/bibliographies.htm |date=5 April 2005 }}.
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*[http://www.lacan.com/rolleyes.htm Chronology of Jacques Lacan] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181211191659/http://www.lacan.com/rolleyes.htm |date=11 December 2018 }}
*[http://www.lacan.com/seminars1.htm The Seminars of Jacques Lacan] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181219155958/http://lacan.com/seminars1.htm |date=19 December 2018 }}
*[http://www.lacan.com/bibliographyxx.htm Jacques Lacan's Complete French Bibliography] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051227235532/http://www.lacan.com/bibliographyxx.htm |date=27 December 2005 }}
*[http://www.lacan.com/hotel.htm Of Structure as the Inmixing of an Otherness Prerequisite to Any Subject Whatever] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051228002010/http://www.lacan.com/hotel.htm |date=28 December 2005 }} – Johns Hopkins University (1966)
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*[http://www.lacan.com/kantsade.htm Jacques Lacan; Kant with Sade] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060225083033/http://www.lacan.com/kantsade.htm |date=25 February 2006 }}
*[http://www.lacan.com/purloined.htm The Seminar on "The Purloined Letter"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060328141754/http://www.lacan.com/purloined.htm |date=28 March 2006 }}
*[http://www.lacan.com/papin.htm The Crime of the Papin Sisters] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070106125938/http://www.lacan.com/papin.htm |date=6 January 2007 }}
*[http://www.lacan.com/zizlola.htm Love beyond Law] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101126101546/http://lacan.com//zizlola.htm |date=26 November 2010 }} – further discussions by Žižek on Desire in the Lacanian conceptual edifice
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===General commentaries===
* [[Alain Badiou|Badiou, Alain]], "The Formulas of l'Étourdit", New York: ''Lacanian Ink'' 27, Spring 2006.
* {{cite web | last=Badiou | first=A. |url=http://www.lacan.com/badpre.htm|title=Lacan and the Pre-Socratics|website=Lacan Dot Com|year=2006|access-date=27 June 2006|archive-date=18 June 2006|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060618190507/http://lacan.com/badpre.htm|url-status=live}}
* {{cite book | last1=Badiou | first1=A. | last2=Roudinesco | first2=E. | last3=Smith | first3=J.E. | title=Jacques Lacan, Past and Present: A Dialogue | publisher=Columbia University Press | year=2014 | isbn=978-0-231-16511-2 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bhEZBQAAQBAJ}}
* {{cite book | last=Benvenuto | first=Sergio | title=Conversations with Lacan: Seven Lectures for Understanding Lacan | publisher=Routledge | publication-place=Abingdon, Oxon | year=2020 | isbn=978-0-367-14879-9 | oclc=1134622118}}
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* McGowan, Todd and Sheila Kunkle Eds.(2004) ''Lacan and Contemporary Film'', New York: Other Press.
* Miller, Jacques-Alain, "Jacques Lacan's Later Teachings", New York: Spring ''Lacanian Ink'' 21, 2003.
* Miller, Jacques-Alain, [http://www.lacan.com/frameXVII2.htm "The Paradigms of Jouissance"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130911045844/http://www.lacan.com/frameXVII2.htm |date=11 September 2013 }} New York, ''Lacanian Ink'' 17, Fall 2000.
* Miller, Jacques-Alain, [http://www.lacan.com/symptom8_articles/miller8.html "Suture: Elements of the Logic of the Signifier"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070104103140/http://www.lacan.com/symptom8_articles/miller8.html |date=4 January 2007 }}, Lacan Dot Com, The Symptom 2006.
* Miller, Jacques-Alain, [http://www.lacan.com/lacinkXXIII2.htm "Religion, Psychoanalysis"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091005173011/http://www.lacan.com/lacinkXXIII2.htm |date=5 October 2009 }}, Lacanian Ink 23, Spring 2004.
* Miller, Jacques-Alain, [https://web.archive.org/web/20130721100720/http://www.lacan.com//lacinkXX2.htm "Pure Psychoanalysis, Applied Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy"], ''Lacanian Ink'' 20, Spring 2002.
* {{cite book | last=Miller |first=Jacques-Alain | title=Applied Lacanian Psychoanalysis | publisher=University of Minnesota Press | publication-place=Minneapolis London | year=2013 | isbn=978-0-8166-8319-2 | oclc=842322946 }}
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* [[Yannis Stavrakakis|Stavrakakis, Yannis]] (2007) ''The Lacanian Left'', Albany: State University of New York Press.
* Turkle, Sherry and Wandollheim, Richard, 'Lacan: an exchange', ''New York Review of Books'', 26 (9), 1979.
* [[Slavoj Žižek|Žižek, Slavoj]], [http://www.lacan.com/zizfour.htm "Jacques Lacan's Four Discourses"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140224093556/http://www.lacan.com/zizfour.htm |date=24 February 2014 }}, ''Lacan Dot Com'', 2008.
* Žižek, Slavoj, [http://www.lacan.com/zizwoman.htm "Woman is One of the Names-of-the-Father, or how Not to misread Lacan´s formulas of sexuation"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060719190529/http://lacan.com/zizwoman.htm |date=19 July 2006 }}, Lacan Dot Com, 2005.
* Žižek, Slavoj, 'The object as a limit of discourse: approaches to the Lacanian real', ''Prose Studies'', 11 (3), 1988, pp. &nbsp;94–120.
* Žižek, Slavoj, "Jacques Lacan as Reader of Hegel", New York, ''Lacanian Ink'' 27, Fall 2006.
* Žižek, Slavoj, (2006) [http://www.lacan.com/essays "How to Read Lacan''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091212041726/http://www.lacan.com/essays/ |date=12 December 2009 }} London: Granta Books.
 
==External links==
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* [[Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research]]
* [[World Association of Psychoanalysis]]
*[http://www.lacan.org/ Homepage of the Lacanian School of Psychoanalysis and the San Francisco Society for Lacanian Studies] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041017083813/http://www.lacan.org/ |date=17 October 2004 }}
*[http://www.londonsociety-nls.org.uk/ The London Society of the New Lacanian School. Site includes online library of clinical & theoretical texts] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210414125601/http://www.londonsociety-nls.org.uk/ |date=14 April 2021 }}
*[http://www.lacan.com/lacan1.htm Lacan Dot Com] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181211222017/http://www.lacan.com/lacan1.htm |date=11 December 2018 }}
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