Towards Identity in the Psychoanalytic Encounter A Lacanian Perspective

Description

Towards Identity in the Psychoanalytic Encounter addresses the theme of identification and identity in the psychoanalytic clinic as elaborated by Jacques Lacan over the course of his teaching. In psychoanalysis the subject who is summoned “to speak himself” is by definition lacking in identity. His question is “What am I?” but as he is only represented by his words his being is “always elsewhere” within other words that are yet to come. Thus a paradox: one seeks via speech the identity of a being who through his speech is not identifiable. Yet the fact remains he has a body and he is riveted to sufferings that psychoanalysis from Freud to Lacan identified which are not accidental which we call repetition and symptom and which shift the question of identity because a One real is at play in them. Towards Identity in the Psychoanalytic Encounter will be key reading for the study and research of Lacanian psychoanalysis and all practitioners interested in Lacan’s teaching as well as other discourses such as philosophy art literature and history. | Towards Identity in the Psychoanalytic Encounter A Lacanian Perspective