So um, these aren't meant as rhethorical even though they might read like that?
1) Can Lacan be used to help people? I have always imagined that a lot of Freud's patients led more functional lives after meeting him, is this true? Did Lacan even have patients? Do 'Lacanian analysts' believe that if people's problems are explained through a Lacanian filter these problems will become easier to bear, or something else?
2) Can Lacan be used to 'cure' people? Can Freud?
3) Are there any Lacanian analyses of literature that ring true the way e.g. Freud's "Hamlet has some Oedpipus stuff going on" does? If not, why not? Is "ringing true" necessarily a good thing, in literary theory?
4) Are there any Lacanian analyses of literature that do not ring true but that you think are true anyway?
(um i realise this is a ridiculous load of questions, just answering one or none or something is cool)
― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Thursday, 13 April 2006 12:42 (twenty years ago)
he did. man like louis althusser became one. it would be hard to claim that lacan's work here was a great success.
but i don't think that he believed in cures.
― enrique's pseudonym, Thursday, 13 April 2006 12:44 (twenty years ago)
― Nathalie (stevie nixed), Thursday, 13 April 2006 12:46 (twenty years ago)
― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Thursday, 13 April 2006 12:55 (twenty years ago)
Sorry, doesn't answer the question...
― Ned T.Rifle (nedtrifle), Thursday, 13 April 2006 13:06 (twenty years ago)
I am still curious about some of these questions!
― Gravel Puzzleworth, Sunday, 12 December 2010 22:13 (fifteen years ago)
lacanian analysts haven't been amenable to peer review iirc
― salvia divanorum (nakhchivan), Sunday, 12 December 2010 22:16 (fifteen years ago)
i remember that the lacanian take on poe's 'purloined letter' was pretty cool, although i have zero recollection why.
― Antoine Bugleboy (Merdeyeux), Sunday, 12 December 2010 22:17 (fifteen years ago)
The man himself was notoriously uninterested in his patients, wasn't he? Getting his hair cut during sessions, cutting appointments shorter and shorter to increase patient turnover, etc?
― muus lääv? :D muus dut :( (Telephone thing), Sunday, 12 December 2010 22:23 (fifteen years ago)
yeah, but there was of course a theoretical rationalization for the various things that (inter alia) got him ostracized from the wider psychoanalytic community
― salvia divanorum (nakhchivan), Sunday, 12 December 2010 22:39 (fifteen years ago)
had dinner with practicing Lacanian analyst the other evening. I was surprised when she said she was Lacanian, didn't really think they actually dealt with clients, patients, analysands, w/e you call it. Asked her about short sessions (lol non-theory guy who only knows 1 thing about Lacanian analysis, well 2 really, but she was nice, and good company & I felt 'lots of his patients committed suicide and stuff right?' wld have been seen as hostile) and she said that yes, she did cut things short if she thought patients had reached something important. It made them remember it. Which seemed like a clear reasonable position at the time.
― portrait of velleity (woof), Sunday, 12 December 2010 22:59 (fifteen years ago)
do they have a background in medicine/psychology?
― salvia divanorum (nakhchivan), Sunday, 12 December 2010 23:16 (fifteen years ago)
Nah. Art and film of course.
― portrait of velleity (woof), Sunday, 12 December 2010 23:19 (fifteen years ago)