Psychology After Lacan

Book excerpt: Ian Parker has been a leading light in the fields of critical and discursive psychology for over 25 years. The Psychology After Critique series brings together for the first time his most important papers. Each volume in the series has been prepared by Ian Parker and presents a newly written introduction and focused overview of a key topic area. Psychology After Lacan is the sixth volume in the series and addresses three central questions: Why is Lacanian psychoanalysis re-emerging in mainstream contemporary psychology? What is original in this account of the human subject? What implications does Lacanian psychoanalysis have for psychology? This book introduces Lacan’s influential ideas about clinical psychoanalysis and contemporary global culture to a new generation of psychologists. The chapters cover a number of key themes including conceptions of the human subject within psychology, the uses of psychoanalysis in qualitative research, different conceptions of ethics within psychology, and the impact of cyberspace on human subjectivity. The book also explores key debates currently occurring in Lacanian psychoanalysis, with discussion of culture, discourse, identification, sexuality and the challenge to mainstream notions of normality and abnormality. Psychology After Lacan is essential reading for students and researchers in psychology, psycho-social studies, sociology, social anthropology and cultural studies, and to psychoanalysts of different traditions engaged in academic research. It will also introduce key ideas and debates within critical psychology to undergraduates and postgraduate students across the social sciences.