Jacques Lacan and the Freudian Practice of Psychoanalysis
Jacques Lacans work has become a standard reference in gender, womens and cultural studies. Yet despite its popularity is frequently being overlooked as a paragon of post-modernism by scientists and literary scholars alike.
Jacques Lacan and the Freudian Practice of Psychoanalysis paints a completely new picture of the man and his ideas. Situating Lacans contributions firmly within the Freudian tradition of clinical psychoanalysis, the book succeeds in showing how his ideas can become more accessible, and re-evaluates his significance within the field of psychodynamic psychotherapy.
The book is structured thematically around five key issues: diagnosis, the analysts position during the treatment, the management of transference, the formulation of interpretations, and the organisation of analytic training. For each of these issues, Lacans entire work, both published and unpublished material, has been taken into account and theoretical principles have been illustrated with clinical examples. The book also contains the first complete bibliography of Lacans works in English.
Clear, detailed, and wide ranging, Jacques Lacan and the Freudian Practice of Psychoanalysis will prove essential reading, not only for professionals and students within the fields of psychology and psychiatry, but for all those keen to discover a new Lacan.
Dany Nobus is a Lecturer in Psychology and Psychoanalytic Studies at Brunel University. He is the Chair of the Universities Association for Psychoanalytic Studies (UAPS).
The Makers of Modern Psychotherapy
Series editor: Laurence Spurling
This series of introductory, critical texts looks at the work and thoughts of key contributors to the development of psychodynamic psychotherapy. Each book shows how the theories examined affect clinical practice, and includes biographical material as well as a comprehensive bibliography of the contributors work.
The field of psychodynamic psychotherapy is today more fertile but also more diverse than ever before. Competing schools have been set up, rival theories and clinical ideas circulate. These different and sometimes competing strains are held together by a canon of fundamental concepts, guiding assumptions and principles of practice.
This canon has a history, and the way we now understand and use the ideas that frame our thinking and practice is palpably marked by how they came down to us, by the temperament and experiences of their authors, the particular puzzles they wanted to solve and the contexts in which they worked. These are the makers of modern psychotherapy. Yet despite their influence, the work and life of some of these eminent figures is not well known. Others are more familiar, but their particular contribution is open to reassessment. In studying these figures and their work, this series will articulate those ideas and ways of thinking that practitioners and thinkers within the psychodynamic tradition continue to find persuasive.
Laurence Spurling
Also in this series:
John Bowlby and Attachment Theory Jeremy Holmes
Frances Tustin Sheila Spensley
Michael Fordham: Innovations in Analytical Psychology James Astor
Heinz Kohut and the Psychology of the Self Allen Siegel
The Clinical Thinking of Wilfred Bion Joan and Neville Symington
Harry Stack Sullivan: Interpersonal Theory and Psychotherapy F.Barton Evans III
R.D.Laing and the Paths of Anti-Psychiatry Zbigniew Kotowicz
Anna Freud: A View of Development, Disturbance and Therapeutic Techniques Rose Edgcumbe
Jacques Lacan and the Freudian Practice of Psychoanalysis
Dany Nobus
London and Philadelphia
First published 2000 by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Taylor & Francis Inc
325 Chestnut Street, 8th Floor, Philadelphia PA 19106
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002.
2000 Dany Nobus
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Nobus, Dany.
Jacques Lacan and the Freudian practice of psychoanalysis/Dany Nobus.
p. cm. (Makers of modern psychotherapy)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
I. Psychoanalysis. 2. Lacan, Jacques, 1901I. Title. II. Series.
RC506.N63 2000
616.89'17dc21
00025501
ISBN 0-415-17961-0 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-17962-9 (pbk)
ISBN 0-203-13009-X Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-18267-7 (Glassbook Format)
To the Memory of my Father, Marcellus Josephus Nobus, 19261986
Contents
It is a Lacanian commonplace to claim that every subject is in debt to the symbolic. Although I do not want to dispute the validity of this assertionafter all, I could not have written this book if language and speech had not been given to meproducing this text has made me feel that I am also indebted to a cornucopia of friends, colleagues and students. Some of these debts may be imaginary, to the extent that I may just have wished for some of these people to assist me, yet most of them are very real and therefore difficult to confront. Moreover, since my expressions of gratitude in these acknowledgements are purely symbolic, my imaginary and real debts to them are doomed to remain uncleared.
First of all, I wish to thank all those people who have given me the opportunity to test some of the ideas included in this book by inviting me into their seminars. Thanks to Alison Hall and Alan Rowan I have been able to present parts of at a meeting of The Higher Education Network for Research and Information in Psychoanalysis (THERIP) in London. The text of my lecture was subsequently published as Splitting Images: Lacan, Institutional Politics and the Social Authorization of Psychoanalysis in P/S: Journal of the Universities Association for Psychoanalytic Studies, 1998, 1 (1), pp. 5367.
Outside the public eye I have had numerous discussions (both imaginary and real) about the topic of this book with interlocutors in various parts of the world. Perhaps they do not realize the impact they have had on the shaping of my ideas, but I could not have formulated a consistent argument without the input of Parveen Adams (despite our clashes), David F.Allen (from Paris to Brionne), Eric Corijn (despite the virtues of leisure), Sadhvi Dar (I have been your student too), Dylan Evans (despite evolutionary psychology), Bruce Fink (your book was first), Katrien Libbrecht (despite the Little Potato), Kenneth Reinhard (you wanted this book), Harry Stroeken (from Utrecht to Gent), Laurence Spurling (a brilliant series editor) and Paul Verhaeghe (teachers can become friends). Manya Steinkoler allowed me to sit in on Alices Kitchen Seminar, the most exciting intellectual high to come from a Southern Californian kitchen in years, which has given me unprecedented creative energy and the courage to carry on writing. Lets hope Alices seminar finds a publisher soon. As always, Katrien Libbrechts tender care, intellectual scope, and unwavering belief in my abilities proved invaluable for completing the manuscript.
