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Lacan earned a medical degree in 1932 and was a practicing psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in Paris for much of his career.
IDEAS
LANGUAGE
notable poststructuralist, he reinterpreted Freudian psychoanalysis, esp. the theory of the unconscious, in the light of structural linguistics and anthropology.
He reinterpreted Freudian psychoanalysis in the light of structural linguistics and anthropology; he saw the unconscious as developing simultaneously with language.
[[Lacan]] carried out influential work in reinterpretating Freudian psychoanalysis in light of developments in structural linguistics and anthropology.
His endeavour was to reinterpret Freud in the light of the structural approach to linguistics inaugurated by Saussure.
Language becomes a manifestation of the structures present in the unconscious. T
Lacan emphasized the primacy of language as the mirror of the unconscious mind, and he tried to introduce the study of language (as practiced in modern linguistics, philosophy, and poetics) into psychoanalytic theory. His major achievement was his reinterpretation of Freud's work in terms of the structural linguistics developed by French writers in the second half of the 20th century.
he central theme is that the growing child must give up the narcissistic stage of absorption in the mother, and becomes aware of loss and difference as it begins to take its place in a network of linguistic and social roles. The repressions involved in this procedure open up a world of insatiable desires.
ORGANIZATION
He founded and headed an organization called the Freudian School of Paris from 1964 until he disbanded it in 1980 for what he claimed was its failure to adhere with sufficient strictness to Freudian principles.
SEMINARS, FAME - WORKS
The influence he gained extended well beyond the field of psychoanalysis to make him one of the dominant figures in French cultural life during the 1970s. In his own psychoanalytic practice, Lacan was known for his unorthodox, and even eccentric, therapeutic methods.
His influence rested on the series of seminars he gave at the univeristy of Paris from 1953 which decisively influenced French thought of the time.
he reached prominence only after he began conducting regular seminars at the University of Paris in 1953. He acquired celebrity status in France after the publication of his essays and lectures in Écrits (1966; Eng. trans. The Language of the Self: The Function of Language in Psychoanalysis).
Lacan's work is notoriously obscure, repeating the same shifting nature of dreams and, presumably, the unconscious; like that of Derrida after him it is also replete with wordplays, puns, and reason-defying leaps. His lectures, in transcript, are collected in the two-volume Écrits (1966, 1971, trs. under the same title, 1977).
A number of [[Lacan]]'s articles and lectures are collects in Écrits (1966).
==Theory==
[[Lacan]]'s [[Jacques Lacan:Bibliography|work]] has transformed [[psychoanalysis]], both as a '''theory''' and as a '''practice'''.
In the 1950s, [[Lacan]] emphasized the role of [[language]] (and the [[symbolic order]]) in [[psychoanalysis]] and formulated his most important thesis: that ''the unconscious is structured like a language''.
(This was an extraordinarily innovative period for Lacan and he introduced many of the concepts that would preoccupy him for the rest of his career.)
[[Lacan]] drew on a field of study known as '''[[Structuralism]]''' and on '''[[linguistics|linguistic theory]]'''.
[[Claude Lévi-Strauss]]'s ''elementary [[structure]] of kinship'' provided the basis for [[Lacan]]'s conception of the [[symbolic]] [[order]] and the formation of the [[unconscious]].
[[Lévi-Strauss]]'s [[structuralism|structural anthropology]] was facilitated by the work of the Swiss [[linguistics|linguist]] [[Ferdinand de Saussure]] (1857-1913) and it was through [[Lévi-Strauss]] that [[Lacan]] began to read [[linguistics]].
In the process he made radical and far-reaching changes to [[Saussure]]'s concept of the [[linguistics|linguistic]] [[sign]], completely reversing any conventional understanding of the relationship between the [[speech|speaking]] [[subject]] and [[language]].
Finally, we will look at the Russian [[linguistics|linguist]] [[Roman Jakobson]]'s (1896-1982) work on [[metaphor]] and [[metonymy]], as this was crucially important for [[Lacan]]'s conceptualization of [[desire]].
[[Lacan]]'s conception of the [[subject]] as constituted in and through [[language]].
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Further information about [[{{PAGENAME}}]] can be found below:
* {{Z}} ''[[Looking Awry|Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture]]''. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991. pp. 5–6, 21, 28–29, 33–39, 65, 75, 88, 90–91, 95–96, 98, 103, 108–110, 118–119, 125–126, 128–132, 135–139, 151–153, 158, 161–169
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