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{{Infobox philosopher
|region = [[Western philosophy]]
|era
|image
|caption
|name = Jacques Lacan
|birth_date
|birth_place = Paris, France
|death_date
|death_place = Paris, France
|education
|institutions
|school_tradition = [[Psychoanalysis]]<br>[[Structuralism]]<br>[[Post-structuralism]]<ref>[[Yannis Stavrakakis]], ''Lacan and the Political'', Routledge, 2002, p. 13: "Lacan has been hailed as one of the cornerstones of this movement [poststructuralism]..."</ref>
|main_interests = [[Psychoanalysis]]
|notable_ideas
|influences
|influenced
}}
{{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 }}.''
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
===Mirror stage===
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Lacan's first official contribution to psychoanalysis was the [[mirror stage]], which he described as "formative of the function of the 'I' as revealed in psychoanalytic experience." By the early 1950s, he came to regard the mirror stage as more than a moment in the life of the infant; instead, it formed part of the permanent structure of subjectivity. In the "imaginary order", the subject's own image permanently catches and captivates the subject. Lacan explains that "the mirror stage is a phenomenon to which I assign a twofold value. In the first place, it has historical value as it marks a decisive turning-point in the mental development of the child. In the second place, it typifies an essential libidinal relationship with the body-image".<ref>Lacan, J., "Some Reflections on the Ego" in ''Écrits''</ref>
As this concept developed further, the stress fell less on its historical value and more on its structural value.<ref name="dylan_evans">{{cite book | last=Evans | first=D. |author-link=Dylan Evans | title=An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis | publisher=Routledge | year=1996 | isbn=978-0-415-13522-1 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iD3r5sbu_rkC}}</ref> In his fourth seminar, "La relation d'objet
The mirror stage describes the formation of the [[Id, ego and super-ego|ego]] via the process of objectification, the ego being the result of a conflict between one's perceived visual appearance and one's emotional experience. This identification is what Lacan called "alienation". At six months, the baby still lacks physical co-ordination. The child is able to recognize itself in a mirror prior to the attainment of control over their bodily movements. The child sees its image as a whole and the synthesis of this image produces a sense of contrast with the lack of co-ordination of the body, which is perceived as a fragmented body. The child experiences this contrast initially as a rivalry with its image, because the wholeness of the image threatens the child with fragmentation—thus the mirror stage gives rise to an aggressive tension between the subject and the image. To resolve this aggressive tension, the child identifies with the image: this primary identification with the counterpart forms the ego.<ref name="dylan_evans"/> Lacan understood this moment of identification as a moment of jubilation, since it leads to an imaginary sense of mastery; yet when the child compares its own precarious sense of mastery with the omnipotence of the mother, a depressive reaction may accompany the jubilation.<ref>Lacan, J., "La relation d'objet" in ''Écrits''.</ref>
Lacan calls the [[Specular reflection|specular]] image "orthopaedic
In the mirror stage a "misunderstanding" (''méconnaissance'') constitutes the ego—the "me" (''moi'') becomes alienated from itself through the introduction of an [[The Imaginary (psychoanalysis)|imaginary]] dimension to the subject. The mirror stage also has a significant [[The Symbolic|symbolic]] dimension, due to the presence of the figure of the adult who carries the infant. Having jubilantly assumed the image as their own, the child turns their head towards this adult, who represents the big [[Other (philosophy)|other]], as if to call on the adult to ratify this image.<ref>Lacan, Tenth Seminar, "L'angoisse," 1962–1963</ref>
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* The little other is the other who is not really other, but a reflection and projection of the ego. Evans adds that for this reason the symbol ''a'' can represent both the little other and the ego in the schema L.<ref>Schema L in ''The Seminar. Book II. The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis''.</ref> It is simultaneously the counterpart and the specular image. The little other is thus entirely inscribed in the imaginary order.
* The big other designates radical alterity, an other-ness which transcends the illusory otherness of the imaginary because it cannot be assimilated through identification. Lacan equates this radical alterity with language and the law, and hence the big other is inscribed in the order of the symbolic. Indeed, the big other ''is'' the symbolic insofar as it is particularized for each subject. The other is thus both another subject, in its radical alterity and unassimilable uniqueness, and also the symbolic order which mediates the relationship with that other subject."<ref>Dylan Evans, ''An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis'' (London: Routledge, 1996), p. 133;
For Lacan "the Other must first of all be considered a locus in which speech is constituted," so that the other as another subject is secondary to the other as symbolic order.<ref>Lacan, J., "The Seminar. Book III. The Psychoses, 1955–1956," translated by Russell Grigg (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997)</ref> We can speak of the other ''as a subject'' in a secondary sense only when a subject occupies this position and thereby embodies the other for another subject.<ref>Lacan, J., ''Le séminaire. Livre VIII: Le transfert, 1960–1961.'' ed. Jacques-Alain Miller (Paris: Seuil, 1994).</ref>
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The term "sinthome" ({{IPA-fr|sɛ̃tom|lang}}) was introduced by Jacques Lacan in his seminar ''Le sinthome'' (1975–76). According to Lacan, ''sinthome'' is the Latin way (1495 Rabelais, IV,63<ref>The term used by Rabelais is not sinthome but ''symptomates'': "Amis, respondit Pantagruel, à tous les doubtes et questions par vous proposées compete une seule solution, et à tous telz symptomates et accidents une seule medicine." (François Rabelais, ''Les Cinq Livres'', La Pochothèque, 1994, p. 1193)</ref>) of spelling the Greek origin of the French word ''symptôme'', meaning [[symptom]]. The seminar is a continuing elaboration of his [[topology]], extending the previous seminar's focus (''RSI'') on the [[Borromean rings|Borromean Knot]] and an exploration of the writings of [[James Joyce]]. Lacan redefines the psychoanalytic symptom in terms of his topology of the subject.
In "Psychoanalysis and its Teachings" (''Écrits'') Lacan views the symptom as inscribed in a writing process, not as
===Desire===
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In ''The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis'' Lacan argues that "man's desire is the desire of the Other." This entails the following:
# Desire is the desire of the Other's desire, meaning that desire is the object of another's desire and that desire is also desire for recognition. Here Lacan follows [[Alexandre Kojève]], who follows Hegel: for Kojève the subject must risk his own life if he wants to achieve the desired prestige.<ref name="Kojève">Kojève, Alexandre, ''Introduction to the Reading of Hegel'', translated by James H. Nichols Jr. (New York: Basic Books 1969), p. 39.</ref> This desire to be the object of another's desire is best exemplified in the Oedipus complex, when the subject desires to be the phallus of the mother.
#
# ''Désir de l'Autre'', which is translated as "desire for the Other" (though it could also be "desire of the Other"). The fundamental desire is the incestuous desire for the mother, the primordial Other.<ref>Lacan, J. ''The Seminar: Book VII. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959–1960'' (W. W. Norton & Company, 1997), {{ISBN|978-0393316131}}</ref>
# Desire is "the desire for something else", since it is impossible to desire what one already has. The object of desire is continually deferred, which is why desire is a [[metonymy]].<ref>Lacan, J., "The Instance of the Letter in the Unconscious, or Reason since Freud" in ''Écrits: A Selection'' translated by Bruce Fink (W. W. Norton & Company, 2004), {{ISBN|978-0393325287}}</ref>
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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 most of the texts in ''Écrits'' and ''Autres écrits'' are closely related to Lacan's lectures or lessons from his Seminar, more often than not the style is denser than Lacan's oral delivery, and a clear distinction between the writings and the transcriptions of the oral teaching is evident to the reader.
An often neglected aspect of Lacan's oral and writing style is his influence from his colleague and personal friend [[Henry Corbin]], who introduced Lacan to the thought of [[Ibn Arabi]].<ref>Élisabeth Roudinesco, ''Jacques Lacan'' (Malden: Polity Press, 1999), 11, 89, 98, 435.</ref><ref>Jacques Lacan, ''L'éthique de la psychanalyse: Séminaire VII'' (Paris : Seuil, 1986), 224-225.</ref><ref>Jacques Lacan, ''Le Triomphe de La Religion précédé de Discours aux Catholiques'' (Paris: Seuil, 2005), 65.</ref>
[[Jacques-Alain Miller]] is the sole editor of [[The Seminars of Jacques Lacan|Lacan's seminars]], which contain the majority of his life's work. "There has been considerable controversy over the accuracy or otherwise of the transcription and editing", as well as over "Miller's refusal to allow any critical or annotated edition to be published".<ref>David Macey, "Introduction", Jacques Lacan, ''The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-analysis'' (London 1994) p. x</ref> Despite Lacan's status as a major figure in the history of [[psychoanalysis]], some of his seminars remain unpublished. Since 1984, Miller has been regularly conducting a series of lectures, "L'orientation lacanienne." Miller's teachings have been published in the US by the journal ''[[Lacanian Ink]].''
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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==
In his introduction to the 1994 Penguin edition of Lacan's ''[[The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis|The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis]]'', translator and historian [[David Macey]] describes Lacan as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since [[Sigmund Freud|Freud]]".<ref name=controversial_quote>[[David Macey]], "Introduction", Jacques Lacan (1994). ''The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis'', London: Penguin Books, p. xiv</ref> His ideas had a significant impact on [[post-structuralism]], [[critical theory]], [[20th-century French philosophy|French philosophy]], [[film theory]], and clinical psychoanalysis.<ref>{{cite journal | last=Marta | first=Jan | title=Lacan and post-Structuralism | journal=The American Journal of Psychoanalysis | publisher=Springer Science and Business Media LLC | volume=47 | issue=1 | year=1987 | issn=0002-9548 | doi=10.1007/bf01252332 | pages=51–57| pmid=2437811 | s2cid=21435280 }}</ref>
In 2003, Rabaté described "The Freudian Thing" (1956) as one of his "most important and programmatic essays".<ref name=LTtF-Rabaté2003/>
==Criticism==
===Theory of psychoanalysis===
In ''[[Fashionable Nonsense]]'' (1997), [[Alan Sokal]] and [[Jean Bricmont]] criticize Lacan's use of terms from [[mathematical]] fields, such as [[topology]], accusing him of "superficial erudition", of abusing scientific concepts that he does not understand, and of producing statements that are [[not even wrong]].{{r|n=Fashionable Nonsense|r={{cite book | last1=Sokal | first1=Alan |author-link=Alan Sokal |last2=Bricmont |first2=Jean |author2-link=Jean Bricmont | title=[[Fashionable Nonsense|Fashionable nonsense: postmodern intellectuals' abuse of science]] | publisher=Picador USA | publication-place=New York | year=1998 | isbn=0-312-20407-8 | oclc=39605994}}|p=21|q=he mixes them up arbitrarily and without the slightest regard for their meaning. His 'definition' of compactness is not just false: it is gibberish.}} All the same, they note that they do not want to enter into the debate over the purely psychoanalytic part of Lacan's work.{{r|n=Fashionable Nonsense|p=17}}▼
[[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>
Others have dismissed Lacan's work wholesale. {{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>Roustang, François, [http://bactra.org/reviews/lacanian-delusion/''The Lacanian Delusion'']</ref> The former Lacanian analyst Dylan Evans (who published a dictionary of Lacanian terms in 1996) eventually dismissed 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]] decried 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> Others have been more forceful still, describing him as "The Shrink from Hell"<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.psychiatrie-und-ethik.de/infc/en/Shrink_from_Hell.htm|title=Raymond Tallis|website=www.psychiatrie-und-ethik.de|access-date=21 May 2019|archive-date=13 June 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160613142302/http://www.psychiatrie-und-ethik.de/infc/en/Shrink_from_Hell.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{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 Supplement|access-date=27 August 2016|date=31 October 1997}}</ref> and listing the many associates—from lovers and family to colleagues, patients, and editors—who were left damaged in his wake. ▼
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>
[[Roger Scruton]] included Lacan in his book ''Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left'', and named him as the only 'fool' included in the book—his other targets merely being misguided or frauds.<ref>{{Cite news | url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/dec/10/fools-frauds-and-firebrands-thinkers-of-the-new-left-roger-scuton-review | title=Fools, Frauds and Firebrands by Roger Scruton review – a demolition of socialist intellectuals| newspaper=The Guardian| date=10 December 2015| last1=Poole| first1=Steven}}</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>
===Therapeutic practice===
Many feminist thinkers have criticised Lacan's thought. Philosopher and psychoanalyst [[Luce Irigaray]] accuses Lacan of perpetuating [[Phallocentrism|phallocentric]] mastery in philosophical and psychoanalytic discourse.<ref>Luce Irigaray, "Cosi Fan Tutti," in Clive Cazeaux, ''Continental Aesthetics Reader'' (New York, 2011), pp. 377–386.</ref> 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 himself, and thus to stifle the capacity for independent thought among all those around him.{{r|n=Roudinesco 1997|p=386}}▼
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===
Many feminist thinkers have criticized Lacan's thought. American philosopher [[Cynthia Willett]] accuses Lacan for portraying the mother less as a "loving," "nurturing" presence in the infant's world, but rather as a "whore" who abandons the child to a "higher bidder for her affections,"<ref>{{cite book |last=Willett |first=Cynthia |date=1998|author-link=Cynthia Willett |title=Maternal Ethics and Other Slave Moralities|publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-0415912105}}</ref> while [[Judith Butler]], philosopher and [[gender studies]] scholar, reworks these notions as "gender performativity."<ref>{{cite book |last= Butler |first=Judith |date=2006|author-link=Judith Butler|title=Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity|publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-0415389556}}</ref>
[[Psycholinguistics|Psycholinguist]] and [[culture theory|cultural theorist]] [[Luce Irigaray]] "ridicules" through "mimicry and exaggeration" these representations of femininity posited as natural and proper by Lacan.<ref>{{cite book |last= Irigaray|first=Luce |date=1985|author-link=Luce Irigaray|title=Speculum of the Other Woman|publisher=[[Cornell University]] Press |isbn= 978-0801493300}}</ref> Irigaray accuses Lacan of perpetuating [[Phallocentrism|phallocentric]] mastery in philosophical and psychoanalytic discourse.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Irigaray|first1=Luce |date=2011 |title=Cosi Fan Tutti|journal=Continental Aesthetics Reader}}</ref>{{efn|Irigaray too has been criticized by Sokal & Bricmont for ostensibly misusing scientific terminology in her work. Among their points of criticism, are the interest Irigaray claims Einstein had in "accelerations without electromagnetic re-equilibrations", her confusing [[special relativity]] for [[general relativity]], and her claim (Irigaray, ''To Speak is Never Neutral'', 2017) that Einstein's [[mass–energy equivalence]] equation is a "sexed equation" since "it privileges the speed of light over other speeds that are vitally necessary to us".}}
▲
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===
▲In their work ''[[Fashionable Nonsense]]'' (1997), through which their stated intention was to show that "famous intellectuals" abuse scientific terminology and concepts,{{r|n=Fashionable Nonsense|p=x}} professors of [[Physics]] [[Alan Sokal]] and [[Jean Bricmont]]
In a seminar held in 1959, he confuses the [[irrational number]]s with the [[imaginary number]]s, despite claiming to be "precise."{{efn|Lacan is quoted defining "human life" as a "[[calculus]] in which zero is irrational."}} A year later, the mathematical "calculations" he presents in another seminar are assessed as "pure fantasies."{{r|n=Fashionable Nonsense|p=25-26}}
Sokal and Bricmont find Lacan to be "fond" of [[topology]], in which, though, they see Lacan committing serious errors. He uses technical terms erroneously, e.g. "[[Topological space|space]]", "[[Bounded set (topological vector space)|bounded]]", "[[Closed set|closed]]", and even "topology" itself, and posits claims about a literal and not just symbolic or even [[metaphor]]ical relation of topological mathematics with [[neurosis]].{{efn|E.g. Lacan states: "[The] [[torus]] really exists and it is exactly the structure of the [[Neurosis|neurotic]]. It is not an [[analogy|analogon]]; it is not even an [[abstraction]], because an abstraction is some sort of diminution of reality, and I think [the torus] is reality itself." Lacan (1970)}}{{r|n=Fashionable Nonsense|p=18-21}}<ref>{{cite book |last=Lacan |first=Jacques |date= 1 May 1970 |editor-last1= Macksey|editor-first1=Richard |editor-last2= Donato |editor-first2=Eugenio |title=The Languages of Criticism & the Sciences of Man: the Structuralist Controversy|publisher=[[Johns Hopkins University]] Press|pages=186–200 |chapter=Of structure as an inmixing of an otherwise prerequisite to any subject whatsoever|isbn=978-0801810473}}</ref>
In the book's preface, the authors state they shall not enter into the debate over the purely psychoanalytic part of Lacan's work.{{r|n=Fashionable Nonsense|p=17}} Nonetheless, after presenting their case, they comment that "Lacan never explains the relevance of his mathematical concepts for psychoanalysis," stating that "the link with psychoanalysis is not supported by any argument." Equally meaningless they find his "famous formulae of sexuation" offered in support for the maxim "There are no sexual relations." Considering the "cryptic writings," the "play on words" and "fractured syntax", as well as the "reverent exegesis" accorded to Lacan's work by "disciples", they point out a similarity to religiosity.{{efn|They end posing the rhetorical question whether we are "dealing with a new religion."}}{{r|n=Fashionable Nonsense|p=31-37}}
===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>
▲
In ''Les Freudiens hérétiques'', the 8th tome of his work ''Contre-histoire de la philosophie'' (''Anti-History of Philosophy''),<ref name=anti>{{cite book |last= Onfray |first=Michel|author-link=Michel Onfray |date=2013 |title=Les Freudiens hérétiques : Contre-histoire de la philosophie|language=French|trans-title=The heretic Freudians: Anti-History of Philosophy|volume= 8th |publisher=[[Éditions Grasset]] |isbn=978-2246802686}}</ref> [[Michel Onfray]] determined that Lacan's [[best seller|best-selling]] ''[[Écrits]]'' (''Writings'')<ref name=ecrits>{{cite book |last= Lacan |first=Jacques |author-link=Jacques Lacan|date=2007 |title=Écrits|language=English|trans-title=Writings|translator-first1= Bruce |translator-link=Bruce Fink (psychoanalyst) |translator-last1=Fink|publisher=[[W. W. Norton]] |isbn= 978-0393329254}}</ref> is "illegible"<ref name=anti/>{{rp|49}}. Lacan, in his work, Onfray asserts, engages in constant [[word play]]s, has a taste for the [[formulaic]], while he deploys "incantatory [[glossolalia]]" and unnecessary [[neologism]]s. He goes as far as stating that Lacan, whom he too calls a "charlatans," is a "[[dandy]] figure" who "sinks into [[autism]]," eventually becoming [[senile]].<ref name=anti/>{{rp|49-50}}▼
▲[[Roger Scruton]] included Lacan in his book ''Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left'', and named him as the only 'fool' included in the book—his other targets merely being misguided or frauds.<ref>{{Cite news | url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/dec/10/fools-frauds-and-firebrands-thinkers-of-the-new-left-roger-scuton-review | title=Fools, Frauds and Firebrands by Roger Scruton review – a demolition of socialist intellectuals| newspaper=The Guardian| date=10 December 2015| last1=Poole| first1=Steven}}</ref>
▲In ''Les Freudiens hérétiques'', the 8th tome of his work ''Contre-histoire de la philosophie'' (''Anti-History of Philosophy''),<ref name=anti>{{cite book |last= Onfray
==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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===Introductory texts===
* {{cite book | last1=Benvenuto | first1=B. | last2=Kennedy | first2=R. | title=The Works of Jacques Lacan: An Introduction |location =London| publisher=Free Association Books | year=1986
* [[Malcolm Bowie|Bowie, Malcolm]], (1991) ''Lacan''
* Dor, Joel, (2001)
* Evans, Dylan (1997). ''An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis.'' London: Routledge.
* Grosz, Elizabeth. (1991) ''Jacques Lacan: a Feminist Introduction''.
*Homer, S. (2005) ''Jacques Lacan''. London: Routledge.
*Leader, D. & Groves, J. (1995) ''Lacan for Beginners.'' London: Icon Books.
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===Textual commentaries===
==== Écrits ====
* Fink, Bruce
*Hook, D., Vanheule, S. & Neill, C. (eds.) (2019) ''Reading Lacan’s Écrits: From ‘The Freudian Thing’ to ‘Remarks on Daniel Lagache’''. London: Routledge.
*Hook, D., Vanheule, S. & Neill, C. (eds.) (2022) ''Reading Lacan’s Écrits: From ‘Logical Time’ to ‘Response to Jean Hyppolite’''. London: Routledge.
*Vanheule, S., Hook, D. & Neill, C. (eds.) (2018) ''Reading Lacan’s Écrits: From ‘Signification of the Phallus’ to ‘‘Metaphor of the Subject’''. London: Routledge
*Neill, C., Hook, D. & Vanheule, S. (eds.) (
▲*Neill, C., Hook, D. & Vanheule, S. (eds.) (2023) ''Reading Lacan’s Écrits: From ‘Overture to This Collection’ to ‘Presentation on Psychical Causality’''. London: Routledge.
*Johnston, Adrian (2017). ''Irrepressible Truth: On Lacan's "The Freudian Thing"''. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
*Muller, John P.; Richardson, William J. (1982). ''Lacan and Language: A Reader's Guide to Écrits''. New York: International University Press.
*Nobus, Dany (2022) ''The Law of Desire: On Lacan's 'Kant with Sade'.'' Cham: Palgrave MacMillan.
====The Seminars====
*Cox Cameron, O. with Owens, C. (2021) ''Studying Lacan’s Seminar VI: Dream, Symptom, and the Collapse of Subjectivity''. London. Routledge.
*Owens, C. and Almqvist, N. (2019) ''Studying Lacan’s Seminars IV and V: From Lack to Desire. London''. Routledge.
* {{cite book | editor-last1=Feldstein | editor-first1=Richard | editor-last2=Jaanus | editor-first2=Maire | editor-last3=Fink | editor-first3=Bruce | title=Reading seminars I and II: Lacan's return to Freud: seminar I, Freud's papers on technique, seminar II, the ego in Freud's theory and in the technique of psychoanalysis | publisher=State University of New York Press | publication-place=Albany | year=1996 | isbn=0-7914-2780-3 | oclc=42854739}}
* {{cite book | editor-last1=Feldstein | editor-first1=Richard | editor-last2=Jaanus | editor-first2=Maire | editor-last3=Fink | editor-first3=Bruce | title=Reading Seminar XI: Lacan's Four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis: the Paris seminars in English | publisher=State University of New York Press | publication-place=Albany | year=1995 | isbn=0-7914-2148-1 | oclc=42854927}}
* {{cite book | editor-last1=Feldstein | editor-first1=Richard | editor-last2=Jaanus | editor-first2=Maire | editor-last3=Fink | editor-first3=Bruce | title=Reading Seminar XX: Lacan's major work on love, knowledge, and feminine sexuality | publisher=State University of New York Press | publication-place=Albany, NY | year=2002 | isbn=0-7914-5432-0 | oclc=53275064}}
* Harari, Roberto, ''Lacan's Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis: An Introduction'', New York: Other Press, 2004.
* Harari, Roberto, ''Lacan's Seminar on "Anxiety": An Introduction'', New York: Other Press, 2005.
* [[Jacques-Alain Miller|Miller, Jacques-Alain]], "Introduction to Reading Jacques Lacan's Seminar on Anxiety I", New York: ''Lacanian Ink'' 26, Fall 2005.
* Miller, Jacques-Alain, "Introduction to Reading Jacques Lacan's Seminar on Anxiety II", New York: ''Lacanian Ink'' 27, Spring 2006.
===General commentaries===
* [[Alain Badiou|Badiou, Alain]], "The Formulas of l'Étourdit", New York: ''Lacanian Ink'' 27, Spring 2006.
* {{cite web
* {{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}}
* Bracher, Mark; Massardier-Kenney, Françoise; Alcorn, Marshall W.; Corthell, Ronald J. (1994). ''Lacanian Theory of Discourse: Subject, Structure, and Society''. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 0-8147-1299-1.
* Brennan, Teresa (1993). ''History after Lacan''. London: Routledge
* Dor, Joel (1999)
* Felman, Shoshana (1987). ''Jacques Lacan and the Adventure of insight: Psychoanalysis in Contemporary Culture''. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press.
* Fink, Bruce (1996) ''The Lacanian Subject: Between Language and Jouissance''
* Fink, Bruce (1997) ''A Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis: Theory and Technique''. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
* {{cite book | last=Fink | first=Bruce | title=Against Understanding, vol. 1: Commentary and Critique in a Lacanian Key | publisher=Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group | publication-place=London | year=2014 | isbn=978-0-415-63543-1 }}
*[[John Forrester (historian)|
* Glynos, Jason and [[Yannis Stavrakakis|Stavrakakis, Yannis]] (eds) (2002). ''Lacan and Science''. London: Karnac Books.
* {{cite book|last=Hendrix|first=John Shannon|author-link=John Shannon Hendrix|title=Architecture and Psychoanalysis: Peter Eisenman and Jacques Lacan|publisher=Peter Lang|location=New York|year=2006|isbn=978-0-820481-71-5}}
* [[Adrian Johnston (philosopher)|Johnston, Adrian]] (2005)
* [[Filip Kovacevic|Kovacevic, Filip]] (2007) "Liberating Oedipus? Psychoanalysis as Critical Theory" Landham, MD: Lexington Books.
* Macey, David (1988). ''Lacan in Contexts''. London: Verso.
* Mandal, Mahitosh (2018) ''Jacques Lacan: From Clinic to Culture''. Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan
* 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 }}
* [[Juan-David Nasio|Nasio, Juan-David]], ''Book of Love and Pain: The Thinking at the Limit with Freud and Lacan'', transl. by David Pettigrew and Francois Raffoul, Albany: SUNY Press, 2003.
* Nasio, Juan-David (1998)
* Nasio, Juan-David (1999)
*{{cite book | last = Neill |first = Calum |author-link =|date = 2014 | title = Without Ground: Lacanian Ethics and the Assumptions of Subjectivity |
* Nobus, Dany (ed.) (1999) ''Key Concepts of Lacanian Psychoanalysis''. New York: Other Press.
* Nobus, Dany (2022). ''Critique of Psychoanalytic Reason: Studies in Lacanian Theory and Practice''.
* Parker, Ian (2011)
* Pettigrew, David and François Raffoul (eds.), (1996) ''Disseminating Lacan'', Albany: SUNY Press.
* Rabaté, Jean-Michel (ed.), (2003) ''The Cambridge Companion to Lacan'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
* [[Jacqueline Rose|Rose, Jacqueline]] (1986) ''Sexuality in the Field of Vision''.
* [[Élisabeth Roudinesco|Roudinesco, Élisabeth]], 'Lucien Febvre à la rencontre de Jacques Lacan, Paris 1937'. with Peter Schöttler, ''Genèses'', Année 1993, Vol.13, n°1.
* Roudinesco, Elisabeth (1990) ''Jacques Lacan & Co.: a History of Psychoanalysis in France, 1925–1985''. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
* Roudinesco, Élisabeth, "Lacan, The Plague", ''Psychoanalysis and History'', ed. John Forrester, Teddington, Artesian Books, 2008.
* [[Moustafa Safouan|Safouan, Moustafa]] (2004) ''Four Lessons of Psychoanalysis'', New York, Other Press.
* Schneiderman, Stuart (1983)
* {{cite book | last=Soler | first=Colette | title=What Lacan said about women: a psychoanalytic study | publisher=Other Press | publication-place=New York | year=2006 | isbn=978-1-59051-170-1 | oclc=58546399 |translator-last=Holland |translator-first=John}}
* [[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. 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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