Portal:Concepts

Key Concepts

   This portal provides structured access to the core concepts of Lacanian psychoanalysis.
   Concepts are grouped thematically to support study, clinical orientation, and research.

Core Concept Clusters

Foundational Registers

Core registers structuring subjectivity in Lacanian theory.

• The Real
• The Symbolic
• The Imaginary

Desire, Drive, Jouissance

Concepts articulating lack, satisfaction, and excess.

• Desire
• Drive
• Jouissance
• Objet petit a

Structure & Subject Formation

Concepts governing the constitution of the subject.

• Subject
• Split subject
• Alienation
• Separation

Lack, Castration, Phallus

Absence, prohibition, and symbolic function.

• Lack
• Castration
• Phallus
• Name-of-the-Father

The Other & Intersubjectivity

Alterity, language, and symbolic authority.

• The Other
• Big Other
• Small other
• Demand

Drives & Partial Objects

Drive circuits and their objects.

• Drive
• Partial object
• Objet petit a
• Scopic drive

Language, Signification, Meaning

How meaning is produced and fixed.

• Signifier
• Signified
• Metaphor
• Metonymy
• Point de capiton

Clinical Structures

Structural diagnoses organizing psychic life.

• Neurosis
• Psychosis
• Perversion
• Foreclosure

Ethics & Direction of Treatment

Analytic ethics and clinical orientation.

• Ethics of psychoanalysis
• Desire of the analyst
• Transference
• Interpretation

Late Lacan & Topology

Topological and late-theoretical concepts.

• Borromean knot
• Real–Symbolic–Imaginary
• Sinthome
• Topology

Browse Concepts by Theme

Subject & Other

• Subject
• The Other
• Big Other
• Small other

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Structure & Diagnosis

• Neurosis
• Psychosis
• Perversion
• Foreclosure

→ More

Ethics & Practice

• Ethics of psychoanalysis
• Desire of the analyst
• Transference
• Interpretation

→ More

Explore

People

Major figures and lineages in psychoanalysis.

 Go to People portal →

Seminars

Lacan’s seminars, chronologies, and thematic guides.

 Go to Seminars portal →

Clinical Topics

Clinical structures, technique, and direction of treatment.

 Go to Clinical portal →

A–Z Index

Browse all concepts alphabetically.

 Open A–Z Index →