Seminar XXIII
| The Sinthome | |
|---|---|
| Seminar XXIII | |
 Cover image commonly associated with Seminar XXIII | |
| French Title | Le Séminaire, Livre XXIII : Le sinthome |
| English Title | The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XXIII: The Sinthome |
| Seminar Information | |
| Seminar Date(s) | November 1975 – May 1976 |
| Session Count | 18 sessions |
| Location | Université Paris VIII (Vincennes) |
| Psychoanalytic Content | |
| Key Concepts | Sinthome • Borromean knot • Real • Symbolic • Imaginary • Jouissance • Object a • Name-of-the-Father |
| Notable Themes | Topological formalization; symptom beyond meaning; Joyce and writing; psychosis and stabilization; end of analysis |
| Freud Texts | Freud on symptom, repetition, narcissism, and identification |
| Theoretical Context | |
| Period | Late period |
| Register | Real (Borromean topology) |
| Chronology | |
| Preceded by | Seminar XXII |
| Followed by | Seminar XXIV |
The Sinthome (Le Séminaire, Livre XXIII : Le sinthome) is the twenty-third annual seminar delivered by Jacques Lacan during the academic year 1975–1976 at the Université Paris VIII in Vincennes. It is one of Lacan’s final and most influential seminars and is widely regarded as the culmination of his late teaching. In it, Lacan introduces the concept of the sinthome—a term drawn from archaic French spelling—to rethink the Freudian symptom beyond interpretation and meaning, situating it instead as a structural mode of jouissance that stabilizes the subject through a specific knotting of the Real, Symbolic, and Imaginary.[1]
Seminar XXIII is inseparable from Lacan’s sustained engagement with James Joyce, whose literary practice Lacan treats as exemplary of a non-neurotic mode of subjective stabilization. The seminar thus occupies a decisive position at the intersection of psychoanalysis, topology, and literary theory, and it has had lasting consequences for Lacanian clinical practice, particularly in the treatment of psychosis and so-called “ordinary psychosis.”
Introductory overview
The Sinthome extends and radicalizes the topological orientation developed in R.S.I.. Whereas Seminar XXII demonstrated that subjectivity depends on the Borromean knotting of the three registers, Seminar XXIII addresses the problem of what happens when this knotting fails. Lacan’s answer is the sinthome: a singular fourth term that can function as a supplementary knot, holding the registers together when the classical symbolic guarantee—especially the Name-of-the-Father—is absent or deficient.
This reconceptualization entails a profound shift in Lacan’s understanding of the symptom. No longer treated primarily as a bearer of repressed meaning to be deciphered, the symptom becomes a mode of enjoyment and a support of being. As Lacan famously states, “The sinthome is what allows the subject to hold together.”[2]
Historical and institutional context
Late Lacan and Vincennes
By 1975–1976, Lacan was in the final phase of his teaching. The seminars at Vincennes were marked by a heterogeneous audience and an increasingly experimental style, including improvised diagrams, wordplay, and direct engagement with mathematics and topology. The École freudienne de Paris itself was undergoing internal tensions that would culminate in its dissolution in 1980.
Within this context, The Sinthome can be read as Lacan’s attempt to reformulate psychoanalysis in the absence of institutional guarantees, grounding it instead in singular solutions invented by subjects themselves.
Publication history
Unlike many earlier seminars, Seminar XXIII has been officially published. The French edition, established by Jacques-Alain Miller, appeared in 2005, followed by an English translation by A. R. Price in 2016.[1][3]
Conceptual framework and methodology
From symptom to sinthome
The term *sinthome* deliberately revives an archaic spelling of *symptôme*. Lacan uses this orthographic shift to mark a conceptual break. The sinthome is not simply a pathological formation to be resolved; it is a mode of enjoyment that structures the subject’s relation to the Real.
Freud had already noted the tenacity of symptoms and their resistance to interpretation. Lacan radicalizes this insight by proposing that some symptoms are irreducible and function as supports of subjectivity itself.
Borromean topology and the fourth ring
In Seminar XXIII, Lacan formalizes the sinthome as a fourth ring added to the Borromean knot. When the three registers fail to hold together Borromeanly, the sinthome can take on the function of knotting them.
This fourth ring is not universal but singular. Each subject invents their own sinthome, which cannot be generalized or standardized. Topology thus serves not as metaphor but as a rigorous formalization of clinical structure.
Methodological anti-hermeneutics
The Sinthome is marked by a decisive departure from hermeneutic models of psychoanalysis. Interpretation is no longer privileged as the primary analytic tool. Instead, Lacan emphasizes manipulation of the knot, the subject’s relation to enjoyment, and the pragmatic effects of analysis.
Key themes, concepts, and case studies
James Joyce as paradigm
The central case study of Seminar XXIII is James Joyce. Lacan explicitly raises the question of whether Joyce was psychotic, but he ultimately reframes the issue: Joyce’s writing functioned as a sinthome that stabilized his subjectivity.
Lacan focuses on Joyce’s relation to language, his ego, and his name. Joyce’s literary practice is said to compensate for a deficiency in the paternal function, allowing him to avoid psychotic breakdown through artistic creation.
- "Joyce made himself a name by his writing, and that name is what held him together." [4]
Ego, narcissism, and naming
In Joyce’s case, Lacan argues that the ego itself becomes a sinthome. Joyce’s investment in his name and reputation functions as a stabilizing device. This leads Lacan to rethink narcissism not merely as imaginary capture but as a potential support of the knot.
Psychosis and stabilization
Seminar XXIII has been enormously influential in Lacanian approaches to psychosis. Rather than aiming at normalization or symbolic restoration, the clinical task becomes one of identifying and supporting the subject’s sinthome.
This approach underlies later developments such as the theory of “ordinary psychosis,” associated with Jacques-Alain Miller and others, which emphasizes subtle modes of stabilization rather than overt delusional phenomena.
End of analysis
The Sinthome also has implications for the end of analysis. Lacan suggests that analysis does not necessarily aim at dissolving the sinthome but at enabling the subject to assume it. The end of analysis thus involves a new relation to one’s mode of enjoyment rather than its elimination.
Theoretical significance and clinical implications
A new definition of the symptom
By redefining the symptom as sinthome, Lacan shifts psychoanalysis away from ideals of cure and normalization. The symptom is no longer simply an obstacle but a resource, a solution invented by the subject.
Ethics of singularity
Seminar XXIII articulates an ethics centered on singularity. There is no universal model of health or normality. Each subject must invent their own way of knotting the Real, Symbolic, and Imaginary.
Limits of interpretation
The seminar has prompted extensive debate within Lacanian circles about the limits of interpretation and the role of analytic intervention. Many clinicians read The Sinthome as calling for greater modesty and pragmatism in analytic practice.
Reception and legacy
The Sinthome is widely regarded as one of Lacan’s most difficult but also most fertile seminars. Its influence extends across psychoanalysis, literary studies, and philosophy. Joyce scholars have engaged extensively with Lacan’s reading, sometimes critically, while clinicians have drawn on the concept of the sinthome to rethink treatment goals.
Within Lacanian psychoanalysis, Seminar XXIII is often treated as the keystone of the late teaching, retroactively reshaping the understanding of earlier concepts such as the symptom, the Name-of-the-Father, and the end of analysis.[5]
See also
- Jacques Lacan
- Seminar XXII
- Seminar XXIV
- Sinthome
- Borromean knot
- James Joyce
- Psychosis
- Jouissance
- École freudienne de Paris
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire, Livre XXIII: Le sinthome (1975–1976). Text established by Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2005.
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Seminar XXIII, session of 13 January 1976.
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XXIII: The Sinthome. Trans. A. R. Price. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2016.
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Seminar XXIII, session of 10 February 1976.
- ↑ Miller, Jacques-Alain. “The Later Lacan.” In Reading Seminar XXIII. Albany: SUNY Press, 2002.
Further reading
- Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar, Book XXIII: The Sinthome. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2016.
- Miller, Jacques-Alain. Extimité. Paris: Navarin, 1988.
- Evans, Dylan. An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis. London: Routledge, 1996.
- Rabaté, Jean-Michel. Lacan: Literature, Philosophy, and Psychoanalysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
English translation
An English translation of Seminar XXI, made from unpublished French transcripts, was made by a reading group associated with Jacques Lacan in Ireland and arranged in a presentable form by Tony Hughes.
<pdf width="450px" height="600px">File:Book-23-Joyce-and-the-Sinthome-Part-1.pdf</pdf> <pdf width="450px" height="600px">File:Book-23-Joyce-and-the-Sinthome-Part-2.pdf</pdf>
English Audio
French
| Date | MP3 | |
| 18 novembre 1975 | link | link |
| 09 décembre 1975 | link | link |
| 16 décembre 1975 | link | link |
| 13 janvier 1976 | link | link |
| 20 janvier 1976 | link | link |
| 10 février 1976 | link | link |
| 17 février 1976 | link | link |
| 09 mars 1976 | link | link |
| 16 mars 1976 | link | link |
| 13 avril 1976 | link | link |
| 11 mai 1976 | link | link |
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