Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis is the theory and practice initiated by Sigmund Freud -- founded on the discovery of the unconscious.

Freud distinguishes between psychoanalysis as

1. a method for investigating unconscious mental processes,
2. a method for treating neurotic disorders, and
3. a set of theories about the mental processes revealed by the psychoanalytic method of investigation and treatment.

Lacan trained initially as a psychiatrist, and turned to psychoanalysis to help him with his psychiatric research.

This then led Lacan to train as a psychoanalyst himself in the 1930s.

From then on, until his death in 1981, he dedicated himself to practicing as an analyst and developing psychoanalytic theory.

In the process, Lacan constructed a highly original way of discussing psychoanalysis which both reflected and determined an original way of conducting the treatment; in this sense it is thus possible to speak of a specifically Lacanian form of psychoanalytic treatment.

However, Lacan never admits that he has created a distinctive "Lacanian" form of psychoanalysis.

On the contrary, when he describes his own approach to psychoanalysis, he speaks only of "psychoanalysis," thus implying that his own approach is the only authentic form of psychoanalysis, the only one which is truly in line with Freud's approach.

Thus the three major non-Lacanian schools of psychoanalytic theory (Kleinian psychoanalysis, Ego-psychology, Object-relations theory) are all, in Lacan's view, deviations from authentic psychoanalysis whose errors his own return to Freud is designed to correct.

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From the very beginning, Lacan argues that psychoanalytic theory is a scientific rather than a religious mode of discourse, with a specific object.

Attempts to apply concepts developed in psychoanalytic theory to other objects cannot claim to be doing "applied psychoanalysis," since psychoanalytic theory is not a general master discourse but the theory of a specific situation.Lacan, Jacques. Écrits. Paris: Seuil, 1966. p.747</ref>

Psychoanalysis is an autonomous discipline; it may borrow concepts from many other disciplines, but this doe snotmeant that it is dependent on any of them, since it reworks these concepts in a unique way.

Thus psychoanalysis is not a brance of psychology, nor of medicine, nor of philosophy, nor of linguistics, and it is certainly not a form of psychotherapy, since its aim is not to "cure" but to articulate truth.

See Also

• Practice
• Theory
• Unconscious