The Practice of Lacanian Psychoanalysis

Book excerpt: The Practice of Lacanian Psychoanalysis lays out an Aristotelian framework to account for the different types of knowing and not-knowing operative in the theory and practice of psychoanalysis. The book proposes a new model for diagnosis, giving preference to fewer over more diagnoses, and seeks to better organize them by distinguishing between structure and surface symptoms. It examines many principles of Lacanian clinical practice, including different types of frames and evidence, the practice of citation and listening, the resistance and desire of the analyst, transference love as a metaphor, the role of negative transference at the end of analysis, and the identification with the sinthome as Lacan's last formulation regarding the end of analysis. The text also suggests that there are three forms of love and hate based on the works of Lacan and Winnicott. Underpinned by extensive practical knowledge of the clinic and case examples for clinicians, analysts, and practicing Lacanian analysts, this book should be of interest to academics, scholars, and clinicians alike.