Currently this course – its materials and forums – is open to the public.
Goals And Aims – Although our re-orientation is not addressed to any one national or political concern, it may be helpful to use the United States as an example of a more global investigation.
It is not surprising to view Lacan in the U.S. as a theorist without a practice as this says more about a general ignorance that has shrowded contemporary Lacanian analysis for quite some time now. In order to re-orient this field, it is worthwhile to indicate briefly why this is the case.
In the U.S. Lacanian analysis was introduced from 1960 to 1980 in the university as literary theory and/or continental philosophy. Afterwards certain 'neo-' and recuperative efforts began to emerge in the late 80’s and 90’s with ‘clinical’ aspirations. This has meant following a careful balancing act of adopting while critiquing the empirical and experimental basis of U.S. psychodynamic therapy, psychology, and psychiatry. The contemporary scene in Lacanian analysis for the last four decades has been locked in this revolving door between speculative Continental Philosophy and compromised forms of Anglo-American Empiricism. Needless to say, if left at this level of debate, the theory and practice of Lacanian analysis does not progress further than the more than a century old opposition between Kant and Hume.
Without denying a historical transference of styles and fantasy, our introductory course aims to show the door to the theory and practice of Lacanian analysis is not there. Our introduction aims to operate a re-orientation in the field by showing how a school can be founded in the tradition of Freud and Lacan – neither Kant nor Hume – and on the basis of its clinical dimensions in the cartel and non-analyst. In this respect, the course will put to the test the procedures that have been proposed by Lacan to traverse the fantasy and to analyze those transferences so readily put into place by the institutionalization of psychoanalysis.
Thus, we concentrate our first entry on a reading of the institutional writings of Lacan, most of which have remained untranslated (translations provided in the course) and viewed as secondary ‘bureaucratic’ problems. Our didactic strategy proceeds otherwise by insisting that a formation in psychoanalysis must first and foremost distinguish the analytic act from its institutionalization and the professional being of the analyst. Said otherwise, one must distinguish the desire of the analyst from the desire to be an analyst. Once such a division is made, it then becomes possible to make a progress in the learning of a practice and theory.
Through the readings and in class discussions each participant will be encouraged to develop a position in theory and practice so that a practice of the place of analysis is no longer assimilated to the cultural and ideological, but the theoretical. See included attachments for texts and further info.
Introduction by Course Instructor: R. Groome
Goals And Aims – Although our re-orientation is not addressed to any one national or political concern, it may be helpful to use the United States as an example of a more global investigation.
It is not surprising to view Lacan in the U.S. as a theorist without a practice as this says more about a general ignorance that has shrowded contemporary Lacanian analysis for quite some time now. In order to re-orient this field, it is worthwhile to indicate briefly why this is the case.
In the U.S. Lacanian analysis was introduced from 1960 to 1980 in the university as literary theory and/or continental philosophy. Afterwards certain 'neo-' and recuperative efforts began to emerge in the late 80’s and 90’s with ‘clinical’ aspirations. This has meant following a careful balancing act of adopting while critiquing the empirical and experimental basis of U.S. psychodynamic therapy, psychology, and psychiatry. The contemporary scene in Lacanian analysis for the last four decades has been locked in this revolving door between speculative Continental Philosophy and compromised forms of Anglo-American Empiricism. Needless to say, if left at this level of debate, the theory and practice of Lacanian analysis does not progress further than the more than a century old opposition between Kant and Hume.
Without denying a historical transference of styles and fantasy, our introductory course aims to show the door to the theory and practice of Lacanian analysis is not there. Our introduction aims to operate a re-orientation in the field by showing how a school can be founded in the tradition of Freud and Lacan – neither Kant nor Hume – and on the basis of its clinical dimensions in the cartel and non-analyst. In this respect, the course will put to the test the procedures that have been proposed by Lacan to traverse the fantasy and to analyze those transferences so readily put into place by the institutionalization of psychoanalysis.
Thus, we concentrate our first entry on a reading of the institutional writings of Lacan, most of which have remained untranslated (translations provided in the course) and viewed as secondary ‘bureaucratic’ problems. Our didactic strategy proceeds otherwise by insisting that a formation in psychoanalysis must first and foremost distinguish the analytic act from its institutionalization and the professional being of the analyst. Said otherwise, one must distinguish the desire of the analyst from the desire to be an analyst. Once such a division is made, it then becomes possible to make a progress in the learning of a practice and theory.
Through the readings and in class discussions each participant will be encouraged to develop a position in theory and practice so that a practice of the place of analysis is no longer assimilated to the cultural and ideological, but the theoretical. See included attachments for texts and further info.
Introduction by Course Instructor: R. Groome