Gentle Introductions to Lacan

As the crits are famous for being somewhat gruelling, and the Seminars sometimes very long-
winded, I would recommend the uninitiated or simply curious investigator start with the interview
Lacan gave to the French news weekly LExpress in 1957. The interview has value beyond its
conciseness. According to Roudinescos biography, the interviewer insisted that Lacan agree to the
condition that he speak as if to a lay audience, and avoid the kinds of highfalutin rhetoric he was
already becoming infamous for. You can find a copy of the interview here.

If the reader is not familiar with it already, Darian Leaders Introducing Lacan is a deceptively
simple but masterly piece of compression, providing a great taste of the old mans very tricky ideas
with verve, wit and crystal clarity.

And so to Zizek probably the worlds most well-known Lacanian, his name is now so closely
associated with Lacan in the popular mind that it would be stupid to neglect him on a list like this. I
would recommend anything by the earlier period Zizek, but especially The Sublime Object of
Ideology and Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture. Whilst he
divides opinion amongst Lacanians, these two works in particular are a pleasure to read. Zizek has
not always been as well-known as he is now, and an amusing story about how he first emerged on
the scene is worth recounting. In the early nineties, in the wake of the Sokal and Bricmont affair,
there was great suspicion across academia of anyone purporting to talk with authority about
continental philosophy. When a hyperactive, bearded Slovenian philosopher with what seemed to
be a made-up name emerged on the scene with a book entitled Everything You Always Wanted to
Know About Lacan (But Were Afraid to Ask Hitchcock) many academics, wary of being duped
again, believed this was another hoax and refused to take it seriously. An astonishing beginning for
a man who has introduced so many readers to Lacans work! In his more recent work, Zizeks own
introduction to Lacan, the cheekily-titled How to Read Lacan is highly recommended, and whats
more, you can read the full book for free at Lacan.com here.

Translator of Lacans crits Bruce Fink has authored a number of great books on Lacan. His The
Lacanian Subject provides perhaps one of the best introductions to Lacans thought, written with
great clarity and (mercifully) without pretension.

Another introduction to Lacans work that must get frequently overlooked, perhaps on account of
its title, is Van Hautes Against Adaptation. Strictly speaking it is, according to its subtitle, an
introduction to Lacans paper Subversion of the Subject, but the ground it covers is much wider,
and Van Haute does a great job bridging Freuds thought with Lacans.

Finally, as one of Lacans former students, Moustafa Safouans slim volume Four Lessons of
Psychoanalysis is another easily-digestible introductory work.

Gentle Introductions to Freud

A reader of Lacan is a reader of Freud, and theres nothing like the man himself to provide the best
introduction to his own work. The Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis and New Introductory
Lectures on Psycho-Analysis, from two very different periods of his work, make fascinating reading
side-by-side and give a great overview of what he considers to be the most important of his
discoveries in each period. Freuds method of introduction to psychoanalysis (repeated in The
Question of Lay Analysis), of pre-empting and responding to the criticisms that sceptics are likely
to make against his thought, give the first-time reader a brilliant way to approach his work.

Whilst The Interpretation of Dreams remains his definitive masterwork, On Dreams a more
condensed and accessible paper introducing his dream theory provides a less punishing
introduction than the hefty full book itself.

Going beyond these introductory texts from Freuds own hand, anyone new to his work could do
worse than follow these with his Papers on Metapsychology, from the middle-Freud period, which
offer an introduction to the theory of psychoanalysis. And at the same time, and from around the
same period, his so-called technical papers on the technique and practice of psychoanalysis will
provide a good accompaniment to round-out the theory.

Some other authors also provide great introductions to Freuds work. I would particularly
recommend the late Richard Woolheims Freud for a solid general overview. Whilst not a Lacanian
exposition, Jean-Michel Quinodozs Reading Freud: A Chronological Exploration of Freuds Writings
the result of many years laborious seminar work with his students will provide the reader with
a paper-by-paper analysis of Freuds key texts, with commentary situating the issues explored by
each in modern-day psychoanalysis, and historical notes on the cultural and institutional
background these works sprang from.

Taking Things Further

To take your reading a bit further, there are some great works on psychoanalysis by non-
Lacanians. I would certainly recommend Mikkel Borch-Jacobsens Lacan: The Absolute Master as a
more advanced introduction to Lacans work.

Jean Laplanche is to my mind one of the very few analysts who can give Lacan a run for his money
when it comes to the reading of Freud. Hes not as creative a thinker as Lacan, but his work has
extraordinary rigour and clarity. His series of lectures are published in French as the
Problematiques. I am only aware of a single English translation of this series, The Unconscious and
the Id, but I cannot recommend this highly enough if youve grasped the rudiments of Freud and
want to get deeper into psychoanalytic theory. It is also interested to compare Laplanches style of
delivery (the Problematiques were given as a series of lectures) to Lacans more animated,
idiosyncratic, method of exposition. A more systematic exposition of the ideas in the
Problematiques can be found in his New Foundations for Psychoanalysis.

Finally, one of Lacans contemporaries, the philosopher Paul Ricoeur, also writes the excellent
Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation, which is worth checking out too. Lacan was
apparently angered by its appearance in 1970, at a time when Lacan dominated the French
psychoanalytical scene. Turning to the index it will be noted that Lacans name appears only in
footnotes, with the exception of one dismissive reference to Lacan owing the idea of the
unconscious structured like a language from Merleau-Ponty. This might explain Lacans irritation.

Clinical Perspectives

People used to complain about the deficit of available clinical material published by Lacanian
psychoanalysts. In the last ten to fifteen years that has changed greatly. There are a handful of
general clinical introductions worth checking out. Fink has published two: Fundamentals of
Psychoanalytic Technique and A Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis. Philip Hill has a
larger volume called Using Lacanian Clinical Techniques, and more recently, a highlight from last
year, Michael J. Millers Lacanian Psychotherapy: Theory and Practical Applications is also highly
recommended. Paul Verhaeghes On Being Normal and Other Disorders: A Manual for Clinical
Psychodiagnostics does a good job of situating Lacanian psychoanalysis within the wider context of
modern mental health treatments, and engaging with them on terms that are their own.

On more specific areas of symptomatology, three books by the aforementioned Darian Leader are
worth checking out: What Is Madness? on psychosis; The New Black: Mourning, Melancholia, and
Depression on depression; and Why People Get Sick: Exploring the Mind-Body Connection on
psychosomatic disturbances.

Outside the Lacanian world, I would recommend the Edward Glovers 1955 The Technique of
Psycho-Analysis, and the classic from former IPA president Horacio Etchegoyen, The Fundamentals
of Psychoanalytic Technique. This should give any reader an idea of how different analysts from
various orientations and across the generations have approached clinical problems.

Finally, an alternative view comes from Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, more recently infamous to
psychoanalysts as one of the co-authors of the French-only The Black Book of Psychoanalysis,
which caused quite a stir when it was released and has contributed to the current parlous standing
of psychoanalysis even in France. I would strongly recommend two of his books, Making Minds
and Madness: From Hysteria to Depression and Remembering Anna O.: A Century of Mystification,
both of which are written in a crystal-clear, easy-to-read style and provide, in my opinion, the
most fascinating food for thought for those susceptible to the so-called Cult of Lacan. Everyone
should read Lacan with a healthy skepticism, and Borch-Jacobsens work provides the best
antidote.

Lighter Reading

Darian Leaders Why Do Women Write More Letters Than They Send?: A Meditation on the
Loneliness of the Sexes and Promises Lovers Make When It Gets Late are both very accessible,
pop-culture examples (in the best sense of the term) of Lacans theories applied to everyday life.
Verhaeghes Love in a Time of Loneliness: Three Essays on Drive and Desire was published a couple
of years after these and is also both excellent and accessible. An older example in this vein is
Sapirsteins Paradoxes of Everyday Lifefrom 1955 (if you can get your hands on it).

Coming back to the present, Henry Bonds Lacan at the Scene builds on a brilliant premise:
imagining how Lacan would interpret crime scenes in the UK through the 1950s and 1960s. I
reviewed the book for this edition of Palgraves Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society.

Psychoanalytical Reference Works

To help the reader of Lacan through all the psychoanalytic jargon

littering the field (and there is plenty!) there are two reference
works I would consider absolutely indispensible. First, from a
Lacanian perspective, Dylan Evans An Introductory Dictionary of
Lacanian Psychoanalysis a terrific accomplishment unrivaled to this
day and second, from a more general psychoanalytic perspective,
Laplanche and Pontalis The Language of Psycho-Analysis. The latter
has sat on every psychoanalysts bookshelf since the 1960s.