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In [[{{Y}}|1928]], [[Lacan]] begins [[clinical]] [[training]] at [[Paris ]] Police Special Infirmary for the Insane ([[L’Infirmerie Spéciale de la Préfecture de Police]]), under the supervision of [[Gaëtan Gatian de Clérambault]], whose unconventional style of teaching will exert a lasting influence on [[Lacan]].

Later he would say that "My only [[real ]] [[master ]] in [[psychiatry ]] was Gaëtan Gatian de [[Clérambault]]."

Having decided to go into [[medicine]], Lacan trained to become a doctor. The formative episode in his medical education was the period he spent as a medical student at the special Infirmary for the Insane of the Police Prefecture during the academic year 1928-9. It was here that he fell under the influence of the eccentric [[psychiatrist ]] Gaetan Gatian de Clérambault. Clérambault was a student of ‘erotomania’ and a [[self]]-proclaimed expert on the mechanics of [[paranoia ]] who lived alone with the wax figurines which he used to pursue his [[passion ]] for Arab draping, ‘the art and manner of pleating and folding fabrics, knotting [[them]], causing them to fall voluptuously alongside the [[body]], according to ancestral custom.’[3] As a psychiatrist he adopted a strictly [[organicist ]] approach to [[mental ]] [[illness]], resisted [[psychiatric ]] reform and believed in incarcerating his [[patients]], in whose [[personality ]] and [[welfare ]] he showed little interest.

Although Lacan spent only a year at the special Infirmary, it would appear that he fell completely under Clérambault’s spell and adopted his [[ideas]]. Eventually Lacan would acknowledge Clérambault in his [[Ecrits ]] as his ‘sole master in psychiatry’, but the influence first became [[visible ]] in a 1931 article entitled ‘Structures ‘[[Structures]] des [[psychoses ]] paranoïaques’. In this article Lacan put forward his own modified version of Clérambault’s [[theory ]] of paranoia and supported the systematic internment of those deemed to be insane. He also appended to it a footnote indicating an almost slavish devotion to Clérambault. ‘This [[image]],’ wrote Lacan, referring to a [[particular ]] expression in his article, ‘is borrowed from the [[oral ]] teaching of our master M.G. de Clérambault to who we are indebted for the entirety of our method and [[material]], and to whom, to avoid plagiarism, we would be obliged to pay homage for every one of our [[terms]].’ Clérambault, who regularly expressed the [[fear ]] that his ideas were [[being ]] stolen, was not appeased even by such extravagant terms. Not long after Lacan’s article was published, he broke into a meeting of the Medico-[[Psychological ]] [[Society ]] in a fury, threw copies of the article in Lacan’s face and publicly charged him with plagiarism.[4]