Dor - Introduction to the Reading of Lacan

T HE L ACANIAN C LINICAL F IELD

A series of books edited by
Judith Feher-Gurewich
in collaboration with Susan Fairfield

Introduction to the Reading of Lacan:
The Unconscious Structured Like a Language
Jol Dor

Lacan and the New Wave in American Psychoanalysis:
The Subject and the Self
Judith Feher-Gurewich and Michel Tort, eds.

The Clinical Lacan
Jol Dor

Hysteria from Freud to Lacan: The Splendid Child of Psychoanalysis
Juan-David Nasio

Lacanian Psychotherapy with Children: The Broken Piano
Catherine Mathelin
What Does a Woman Want?
Serge Andr

Lacan in America
Jean-Michel Rabat, ed.

Lacan
Alain Vanier

Lacans Seminar on Anxiety: An Introduction
Roberto Harari, translated by Jane C. Lamb-Ruiz

Against Adaptation: Lacans Subversion of the Subject
Philippe Van Haute, translated by Paul Crowe and Miranda Vankerk

This work, published as part of the program of aid for publication, received support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Cultural Service of the French Embassy in the United States. Cet ouvrage publi dans le cadre du programme daide la publication bnficie du soutien du Ministre des Affaires Etrangres du Service Culturel de lAmbassade de France reprsent aux Etats-Unis.

Production Editor: Robert D. Hack

Copyright 1998 by Other Press, LLC; 1985 by Editions DENOL.
Originally titled Introduction la lecture de Lacan, 1: Linconscient structur comme un langage.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or parts thereof, in any form, without written permission from Other Press, LLC except in the case of brief quotations in reviews for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast. For information write to Other Press LLC, 307 Seventh Avenue, Suite 1807, New York, NY 10001. Or visit our website: www.otherpress.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dor, Jol.
[Introduction la lecture de Lacan. English]
Introduction to the reading of Lacan : the unconscious structured like a language / by Jol Dor; edited by Judith Feher-Gurewich in collaboration with Susan Fairfield.
p. cm.
Previously published : Paris : Denol, c1985.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 255).
eISBN: 978-1-59051-661-4
1. Psychoanalysis. 2. Lacan, Jacques, 1901 . I. Gurewich, Judith Feher. II. Fairfield, Susan. III. Title
BF173.D55713 1997
150.195092dc20

96-17924

v3.1

The Lacanian Clinical Field: Series Overview
Judith Feher-Gurewich

Editors Preface
Judith Feher-Gurewich

Introduction
Jol Dor

L acanian psychoanalysis exists, and the new series, The Lacanian Clinical Field, is here to prove it. The clinical expertise of French practitioners deeply influenced by the thought of Jacques Lacan has finally found a publishing home in the United States. Books that have been acclaimed in France, Italy, Spain, Greece, South America, and Japan for their clarity, didactic power, and clinical relevance will now be at the disposal of the American psychotherapeutic and academic communities. These books cover a range of topics, including theoretical introductions; clinical approaches to neurosis, perversion, and psychosis; child psychoanalysis; conceptualizations of femininity; psychoanalytic readings of American literature; and more. Thus far twelve books have been published.

Though all these works are clinically relevant, they will also be of great interest to those American scholars who have taught and used Lacans theories for over a decade. What better opportunity for the academic world of literary criticism, philosophy, human sciences, womens studies, film studies, and multicultural studies finally to have access to the clinical insights of a theorist known primarily for his revolutionary vision of the formation of the human subject. Thus the Lacanian Clinical Field goes beyond introducing the American clinician to a different psychoanalytic outlook. It brings together two communities that have grown progressively estranged from each other. For indeed, the time when the Frankfurt School, Lionel Trilling, Erich Fromm, Herbert Marcuse, Philip Rieff, and others were fostering exchanges between the academic and the psychoanalytic communities is gone, and in the process psychoanalysis has lost some of its vibrancy.

The very limited success of ego psychology in bringing psychoanalysis into the domain of science has left psychoanalysis in need of a metapsychology that is able not only to withstand the pernicious challenges of psychopharmacology and psychiatry but also to accommodate the findings of cognitive and developmental psychology. Infant research has put many of Freuds insights into question, and the attempts to replace a one-body psychology with a more interpersonal or intersubjective approach have led to dissension within the psychoanalytic community. Many theorists are of the opinion that the road toward scientific legitimacy requires a certain allegiance with Freuds detractors, who are convinced that the unconscious and its sexual underpinnings are merely an aberration. Psychoanalysis continues to be practiced, however, and according to both patients and analysts the uncovering of unconscious motivations continues to provide a sense of relief. But while there has been a burgeoning of different psychoanalytic schools of thought since the desacralization of Freud, no theoretical agreement has been reached as to why such relief occurs.

Nowadays it can sometimes seem that Freud is read much more scrupulously by literary critics and social scientists than by psychoanalysts. This is not entirely a coincidence. While the psychoanalytic community is searching for a new metapsychology, the human sciences have acquired a level of theoretical sophistication and complexity that has enabled them to read Freud under a new lens. Structural linguistics and structural anthropology have transformed conventional appraisals of human subjectivity and have given Freuds unconscious a new status. Lacans teachings, along with the works of Foucault and Derrida, have been largely responsible for the explosion of new ideas that have enhanced the interdisciplinary movement pervasive in academia today.

The downside of this remarkable intellectual revolution, as far as psychoanalysis is concerned, is the fact that Lacans contribution has been derailed from its original trajectory. No longer perceived as a theory meant to enlighten the practice of psychoanalysis, his brilliant formulations have been both adapted and criticized so as to conform to the needs of purely intellectual endeavors far removed from clinical reality. This state of affairs is certainly in part responsible for Lacans dismissal by the psychoanalytic community. Moreover, Lacans impossible style has been seen as yet another proof of the culture of obscurantism that French intellectuals seem so fond of.