Introduction To Jacques Lacan

Jacques Lacan is one of the most challenging and controversial contemporary thinkers, as well as the most influential psychoanalyst since Freud. Lacanian theory has reached far beyond the consulting room to engage with such diverse disciplines as literature, film, gender and social theory. This introduction provides an accessible guide to Lacanian oncepts and his writing on:

• the imaginary and the symbolic
• the Oedipus complex and the meaning of the phallus
• the subject and the unconscious
• the real
• sexual difference.

This introduction locates Lacan's work in the context of contemporary French thought and the history of psychoanalysis.