Talk:Seminar XXV

Jacques Lacan's Seminars : I · II · III · IV · V · VI · VII · VIII · IX · X · XI · XII · XIII · XIV · XV · XVI · XVII · XVIII · XIX · XX · XXI · XXII · XXIII · XXIV · XXV · XXVI · XXVII I. Freud's technical writings II. The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis III. The Psychoses IV. The Object Relations V. The Formations of the Unconscious VI. Desire and its Interpretation VII. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis VIII. Transference IX. Identification The Names of the Father X. Anxiety XI. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis XII. Crucial Problems for Psychoanalysis XIII. The Object of Psychoanalysis XIV. The Logic of Fantasy XV. The Psychoanalytic Act XVI. From One Other to the Other XVII. The Reverse of Psychoanalysis XVIII. On a Discourse That Would Not Be Semblance XIX. Or Worse XX. Encore XXV. The Moment of Concluding XXVII. Dissolution ← Seminar XXIV Seminar XXVI →

Le moment de conclure
Seminar XXV
Cover image used in circulating transcript editions of Seminar XXV
French Title	Le moment de conclure
English Title	The Moment to Conclude / Time to Conclude
Seminar Information
Seminar Date(s)	15 November 1977 – 9 May 1978
Session Count	Approximately 12 sessions (incomplete transcription)
Location	Paris
Psychoanalytic Content
Key Concepts	Lalangue • Desire of the analyst • Unconscious • Non-rapport sexuel • Termination of analysis
Notable Themes	End of analysis; limits of psychoanalysis; language and writing; late reformulation of desire; critique of scientific discourse
Chronology
Preceded by	Seminar XXIV
Followed by	Seminar XXVI

Le moment de conclure (Le moment de conclure; English: The Moment to Conclude or Time to Conclude) is the twenty-fifth annual seminar delivered by Jacques Lacan during the academic year 1977–1978. It belongs to the final phase of Lacan’s teaching and is known primarily through incomplete transcripts and recordings rather than a definitive edition published by Éditions du Seuil. The seminar follows Seminar XXIV (L’insu que sait de l’une-bévue, s’aile à mourre) and precedes Seminar XXVI (La topologie et le temps), situating it within Lacan’s late reflections on language, desire, and the limits of psychoanalysis.

The title signals a reflexive orientation: Lacan frames psychoanalysis as reaching a moment where it must confront what it can meaningfully “conclude,” both in terms of the end of an individual analysis and the epistemological status of psychoanalysis itself. Rather than proposing a doctrine of closure, Seminar XXV underscores the irreducible incompleteness of the speaking subject and the persistence of desire beyond interpretation.

=The late seminars (1970s)

Seminar XXV forms part of Lacan’s late teaching, a period marked by his reworking of earlier concepts (such as the unconscious and desire) through notions like Lalangue, the sinthome, and topological models. By the late 1970s, Lacan had already delivered Seminar XX (Encore), where he famously asserted that “there is no sexual relationship” (il n'y a pas de rapport sexuel), and Seminar XXIII (Le sinthome), devoted to James Joyce and the function of symptom as knotting device.

Seminar XXV continues this trajectory but adopts a more summative and interrogative tone. Lacan’s institutional position within the École freudienne de Paris remained central, yet the seminar reflects a moment of introspection regarding psychoanalysis’ future and its relation to science, philosophy, and clinical practice.

Publication status and transmission

Unlike most seminars from Book I through Book XXIII, Seminar XXV has never been formally edited by Jacques-Alain Miller for Éditions du Seuil. Knowledge of the seminar derives from stenographic notes, audio recordings, and later transcriptions circulated privately and online. The absence of a canonical text has led scholars to treat Seminar XXV cautiously, relying on cross-referencing multiple transcripts and situating claims within the broader arc of Lacan’s late teaching.

Structure and methodology

The seminar is composed of approximately twelve sessions delivered between November 1977 and May 1978. Available transcripts indicate lesson titles and thematic clusters rather than a rigidly structured argument. Lacan proceeds through free association, commentary on Freudian concepts, and polemical remarks about psychoanalysis and science.

Methodologically, Seminar XXV exemplifies Lacan’s late style: elliptical, performative, and resistant to systematic exposition. The seminar frequently revisits core Freudian concepts—such as drive, desire, and the Oedipus complex—not to redefine them doctrinally, but to test their limits when psychoanalysis asks what it means to “conclude.”

Key themes and concepts

The “moment of concluding”

The central motif of the seminar is the question of conclusion. Lacan does not present conclusion as a final synthesis or resolution; instead, he frames it as a moment—contingent and structural—where analysis encounters its limit. In the opening session, Lacan announces the title and emphasizes its performative dimension: the seminar itself is staged as an act of concluding, without claiming final authority or closure.

This orientation resonates with Lacan’s longstanding opposition to ego-psychological models of termination. Rather than strengthening the ego or achieving harmony, the end of analysis involves assuming the subject’s division and the persistence of desire beyond symbolic mastery.

Language, writing, and the unconscious

Seminar XXV reiterates Lacan’s thesis that the unconscious is structured like a language, while emphasizing the material dimension of language as inscription or writing. Lacan aligns the unconscious with traces that operate independently of conscious meaning, stressing that interpretation cannot exhaust their effects.

The seminar thus continues Lacan’s late concern with Lalangue—the pre-symbolic, bodily imprint of language—which complicates any notion of analytic conclusion as semantic clarification alone. The unconscious persists as writing, not as a message to be fully decoded.

Desire of the analyst

Another recurring theme is the desire of the analyst. Lacan revisits this concept to underscore that analytic work depends not on technique alone but on the analyst’s position relative to desire. The analyst’s desire is not an object or intention but a function that sustains the analytic process without imposing meaning or closure.

In the context of concluding analysis, this implies that termination cannot be reduced to criteria or goals external to the analytic relation. The analyst’s desire must allow the analysand to encounter their own relation to lack and jouissance rather than providing reassurance or synthesis.

Non-rapport sexuel

Although Seminar XXV does not introduce the concept, it presupposes Lacan’s thesis of the non-rapport sexuel elaborated in Seminar XX. The impossibility of a sexual relationship functions as a paradigmatic example of what cannot be concluded or resolved within language. Any attempt at final harmony or complementarity is structurally foreclosed.

In this sense, Seminar XXV’s emphasis on concluding is paradoxical: to conclude analysis is to recognize the impossibility of concluding desire or sexual rapport at the level of totality.

Theoretical significance and clinical implications

Seminar XXV holds a distinctive place in Lacan’s oeuvre as a reflective turning point. It neither inaugurates a new formal system nor abandons psychoanalytic theory; instead, it interrogates the very act of theorizing and practicing psychoanalysis. Clinically, it reinforces an ethics of non-closure: analysis ends not with mastery but with a transformed relation to lack, language, and enjoyment.

The seminar’s insistence on limits has influenced later Lacanian discussions of termination, particularly those emphasizing that the end of analysis is an effect of position rather than of knowledge. In this respect, Seminar XXV complements Lacan’s earlier ethical formulations in Seminar VII (The Ethics of Psychoanalysis).

Reception and legacy

Due to its unpublished status, Seminar XXV has circulated primarily among specialists of Lacanian psychoanalysis. It is frequently cited in bibliographies of Lacan’s seminars and discussed in secondary literature addressing Lacan’s late period. Scholars often read it in conjunction with Seminars XXIII–XXVI to assess Lacan’s final positions on language, desire, and analytic practice.

While less frequently cited than earlier canonical seminars, Le moment de conclure is regarded as crucial for understanding Lacan’s refusal of closure and his insistence that psychoanalysis remains oriented by what resists conclusion—desire, jouissance, and the unconscious as writing.

See also

• Jacques Lacan
• Seminar XX
• Seminar XXIII
• Seminar XXIV
• Seminar XXVI
• Lalangue
• Desire of the analyst
• Non-rapport sexuel
• Unconscious

Further reading

• Roudinesco, Élisabeth. Jacques Lacan. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1997.
• Fink, Bruce. The Lacanian Subject: Between Language and Jouissance. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.
• Miller, Jacques-Alain. “The Later Lacan.” In Lacanian Ink, no. 6 (1990).

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