==The 'Return to {{Top}}retour à Freud'==Following Freud's death, psychoanalytic practice split into many differing schools of thought. Against the backdrop of these divergent currents of psychoanalytic theory, Lacan called for a 'return to Freud'. Lacan accused later psychoanalysts of a superficial understanding of Freud, claiming they had so cautiously adhered to his ideas that they had served to block rather than to induce scientific investigation of the mental process. Lacan wanted to return to Freud's thought, and expand it in light of its own tensions and currents. In fact, near the end of his life he remarked to a conference, "It is up to you to be Lacanians if you wish; I am Freudian."{{Bottom}}
It should also be emphasised that Lacan insisted that his work was not, in his eyes, an interpretation but a ''translation'' of Freud into structural-linguistic terms. Freud's ideas of 'slips of the tongue', jokes and suchlike – Lacan insisted – all emphasised the agency of language in subjective constitution, such that had Freud lived contemporaneously with [[Claude Lévi-Strauss|Lévi-Strauss]], [[Roland Barthes|Barthes]] and, principally, had Freud been aware of the work of [[Ferdinand de Saussure|Saussure]], he would have done the same as him. In his famous essay, "Freud and Lacan", fellow structuralist [[Louis Althusser]] makes this point particularly well:=====Overview=====
<blockquote>"In his first great work ''The Interpretation of Dreams'' […[Psychoanalysis], ] was founded by [[Sigmund Freud studied the ‘mechanisms’ and ‘laws’ of dreams, reducing their variants to two: ''displacement'' and ''condensation''. Lacan recognized these as two essential figures of speech, called in linguistics [respectively] metonymy and metaphor. Hence slips, failures, jokes and symptoms, like the elements of dreams themselves, become ''signifiers'', inscribed in the chain of an unconscious discourse, doubling silently, i.e. deafeningly, in the misrecognition of ‘repression’, the chain of the human subject’s verbal discourse. […] Hence the most important acquisitions of de Saussure and of the linguistics that descends from him began to play a justified part in the understanding of the process of the unconscious as well as that of the verbal discourse of the subject and of their inter-relationship, i.e. of their identical relation and non-relation in other words, of their reduplication and dislocation (''décalage'')." (Althusser, ‘Freud and Lacan’ in ''Lenin and Philosophy and other essays'', trans. Ben Brewster (London: New Left Books, 1971), pp. 191 – 192. </blockquote>
The 'return to Freud', therefore, is primarily the realisation that the pervading agency of the unconscious is to be understood as intimately tied to the functions and dynamics of language, where, for example, the signifier is irremediably divorced from the signified, ultimately resulting in Lack. It is here that Lacan began his work on "correcting" Freud from within. As Malcolm Bowie puts it:
<blockquote>"For LacanPsychoanalysis originates with the work of Freud and remains rooted in his theories to this day, but every generation of [[analysts]] that came after Freud's central insight was not has sought to update and correct those theories, and to resolve the contradictions that he [[left]] behind.Lacan argued that through this [[process]] of continual revision psychoanalysis had lost [[sight]] of its original aims; that it had become [[conservative]] and reactionary..By playing down the more uncomfortable and disturbing aspects of the [[theory]] that , especially the underlying [[presence]] of [[repressed]], [[unconscious exists]], but that it has structure, that this structure affects [[desire]] in innumerable ways what we say and doour [[mental]] lives, and that in thus betraying psychoanalysis had made itself respectable but it becomes accessible to analysis"had lost its radical edge. (Malcolm BowieIn the early 1950s, therefore, 'Jacques Lacanfamously declared the [[necessity]] of a ' in John Sturrock (ed.), ''Structuralism and Since: From Lévi-Strauss return to DerridaFreud'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979)that is to say, pa return to the [[texts]] of Freud himself and to a close [[reading]] and [[understanding]] of those texts. 118)For the next 26 years he would engage in this [[project]] of close reading, and in the process would reconstitute the theory of psychoanalysis.</blockquote>
(The '[[Lacan]] presented a distinctive [[interpretation|reading]] of [[psychoanalysis]]. In 1951, [[Lacan]] made his call for a "[[return to Freud]]. =====Freudian Legacy=====The [[whole]] of [[Lacan]]' in s work can only be [[understood]] within the full sense context of the term[[intellectual]] and [[theoretical]] legacy of [[Sigmund Freud]] (1856-1939), the founder [[father]] of [[psychoanalysis]]. [[Lacan]] first trained as briefly explained abovea [[psychoanalyst]] within the [[International Psychoanalytical Association]] ([[IPA]]), begins with his paper ‘The agency of the letter in organization founded by [[Freud]] which presented itself as the sole legitimate heir to the unconscious or reason since Freud’ (''Écrits[[Freudian]] legacy''. =====Betrayal of Freud=====However, pp[[Lacan]] gradually began to develop a radical critique of the way that most [[analyst]]s in the [[IPA]] had [[interpretation|interpreted]] [[Freud]]. 161 After [[being]] expelled from the [[IPA]] in 1953, [[Lacan]] developed his polemic further, arguing that [[Freud]]'s radical insights had been universally betrayed by the [[school|three major schools]] of [[psychoanalysis]] within the [[IPA]]: [[ego- 197)psychology]], [[Kleinian psychoanalysis]], and [[object-relations theory]].) =====Return to Freud=====To remedy this [[situation]], [[Lacan]] proposed to lead a "[[return to Freud]]", both in the [[sense]] of a renewed attention to the ''actual texts'' of [[Freud]] himself, and a '''return'''s principal challenge to Freudian theory is the privilege that it accords to ''[[essence]]'' of [[Freud]]'s [[Sigmund Freud:Bibliography|work]] which had been betrayed by the ego [[IPA]]. Reading [[Freud]] in selfthe original [[German]] allowed [[Lacan]] to discover elements which had been obscured by poor [[translation]] and ignored by [[other]] commentators. =====Post-determination. The central pillar Freudians=====Thus much of Jacques [[Lacan]]'s psychoanalytic theory work is that "taken up with detailed textual commentaries on specific works by [[Freud]], and by numerous references to the unconscious work of other analysts whose [[ideas]] [[Lacan]] refutes. To [[understand]] [[Lacan]]'s work, therefore, it is structured like necessary both to have a detailed understanding of [[Freud]]'s ideas and also a languagegrasp of the way these ideas were developed and modified by the other analysts (the 'post-Freudians') whom Lacan criticizes. These ideas are the background against which [[Lacan]]develops his own "[[return to Freud]]. The unconscious, he argued, was " <Blockquote>What such a return [to Freud] involves for me is not a more primitive or archetypal part [[return of the mind separate from the conscious, linguistic egorepressed]], but rathertaking the antithesis constituted by the [[phase]] in the [[history]] of the [[psychoanalytic]] movement since the [[death]] of Freud, showing what psychoanalysis is not, a formation every bit as complex and linguistically sophisticated as consciousness seeking with you the means of revitalizing that which has continued to sustain it, even in deviation...<ref>{{E}} p. 116</ref></Blockquote> =====Orthodoxy=====However, [[Lacan]]'s work itself. If puts in question the unconscious is structured like [[narrative]] of a language'''return''' to ''orthodoxy'' implicit in the expression "[[return to Freud]], " for [[Lacan argues]]'s way of reading [[Freud]] and his style of presentation are so original that they seem to belie his modest claims to be a mere commentator. Furthermore, then while it is [[true]] that [[Lacan]] returns to specific aspects of the self [[Freud]]ian [[conceptual]] legacy, privileging [[Lacan]] is denied any point of reference to which no more "faithful" to [[Freud]]'s [[Sigmund Freud:Bibliography|work]] than the post-Freudians whom he criticizes for having betrayed [[Freud]]'s [[message]]; like [[them]], [[Lacan]] selects and develops certain themes in [[Freud]]'s [[Sigmund Freud:Bibliography|work]] and neglects or [[interpretation|reinterprets]] [[others]]. '''[[Lacan]]ian [[psychoanalysis]]''' might therefore be described as a "[[Freud|post-Freudian]]" [[form]] of [[psychoanalysis]], along with ''restored' following trauma or [[ego-psychology]]''', '''[[Kleinian psychoanalysis]]''' and ''[[object-relations theory]]''identity crisis'. In =====Reading of Freud=====However, this is not the way[[Lacan]] sees his [[work]]. [[Lacan]] argues that there is a deeper [[logic]] at work in [[Freud]]'s [[Sigmund Freud:Bibliography|texts]], a logic which endows those [[Sigmund Freud:Bibliography|texts]] with a consistency despite the [[apparent]] contradictions. [[Lacan]] claims that his [[interpretation|reading]] of [[Freud]], and his alone, brings out this logic, and shows us that "the different [[stages]] and changes in direction" in [[Freud]]'s thesis [[Sigmund Freud:Bibliography|work]] "are governed by Freud's inflexibly effective concern to maintain it in its primary rigour."<ref>{{E}} p. 116</ref> In other [[words]], while [[Lacan]]'s reading of [[Freud]] may be as [[partial]] as any other in the structurally dynamic unconscious sense that it privileges [[particular]] aspects of [[Freud]]'s work, that is also not, in [[Lacan]]'s view, justification for regarding all [[interpretations]] of [[Freud]] as equally valid. Thus [[Lacan]]'s declarations of loyalty and accusations of '''[[betrayal]]''' cannot be seen as a mere rhetorical strategy. Certainly, they do have a rhetorico-[[political]] function, in that presenting himself as "more [[Freud]]ian" than anyone else allowed [[Lacan]] to challenge to the ego psychology effective monopoly on the ''[[Freud]]ian legacy'' that the [[IPA]] still enjoyed in the 1950s. However, [[Lacan]]'s statements are also an [[explicit]] [[claim]] to have teased out a coherent logic if [[Freud himself opposed]]'s writings that no one else had perceived before. ==See Also=={{See}}* [[Ego-psychology]]* [[International Psycho-Analytical Association]]||* [[Kleinian psychoanalysis]]* [[Object-relations theory]]||* [[Psychoanalysis]]* [[School]]{{Also}} ==References==<references/> [[Category:Psychoanalysis]][[Category:Jacques Lacan]][[Category:Dictionary|Freud, Return to]][[Category:Concepts]][[Category:Terms]][[Category:School]][[Category:Freudian psychology]] __NOTOC__
