Lacan Circle Seminar
Introduction to Lacan: Return to Freud
Presented by Jonathan Redmond during Semester I, 2022
In this seminar we studied Lacan’s “return to Freud” via the concepts of the imaginary, the symbolic and the real in relation to key Freudian texts and concepts.
Lacan’s famous statement “the unconscious is structured like a language” orientates analysts to, above all, a return to the Freudian unconscious. Lacan’s articulation of fundamental Freudian ideas of the ego and the unconscious via reference to the imaginary, the symbolic and the real establishes a distinctly Lacanian analytic discourse clearly distinguishable from other contemporary post-Freudian schools (ego psychology, object relations and Kleinian theory).
By a close reading of key texts, we traced Lacan’s original reading of, and fidelity to, Freud’s oeuvre; tracing the movement from idea to concept to praxis, the seminar explored how fundamental psychoanalytic concepts such as the unconscious, resistance, repression, transference, the drives, interpretation, working through, neurosis and psychosis are articulated in relation to the imaginary, symbolic and the real.
This course was open to anyone interested in engaging with Lacan’s “return to Freud” and who is interested in learning more about fundamental Lacanian concepts with an emphasis on their link to Freud and to clinical practice
Visit our ongoing reading group: Jacques Lacan’s Seminar V, Formations of the Unconscious here
Visit our currrent seminar on psychosis here
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