Lacanian Psychoanalysis

Post-Freudian Lacan

In rejecting the notion of an ideal self as embraced by the humanists, Lacan clearly rejected the idealism of the humanist project, which he saw as necessarily connected with North American optimism. Although a self-proclaimed Freudian, Lacan also diverged from the traditional Freudians of his day. For example, Lacan held a different view on the prescribed length of therapy sessions, which he thought should be openended rather than fixed at 50 minutes. Also, Lacan focused on language as the key element of human change and development rather than the notion of ego and the unconscious. Another key distinction between Lacan and the Freudian tradition lies in institutional intent. Freud aimed to legitimize psychoanalysis as a science by developing acceptable and replicable methods that institutionalized the process of psychoanalysis. Specifically, Freud sought to outline a coherent theory of the relationship between the conscious and the unconscious. In contrast, Lacan saw his role as one of institution challenger and tester, seeking to obscure the theoretical relationship between the conscious and the unconscious.

Post-Lacanian Freud

These and other differences eventually led Lacan to leave the dominant Freudian organization of his day, the prestigious International Psychoanalytic Association. Yet, despite criticism that Lacan had abandoned his Freudian roots, Lacan continued to call Freud his primary intellectual influence and confirmed his commitment to Freudian psychoanalysis throughout his career.

The distinction between Freud and Lacan based on institutional grounds provides a theoretical demarcation point between structural and poststructural analysis. Freud's theories might best be considered to represent a structural approach to human nature. Freud believed in a single metanarrative, one overarching set of beliefs about the nature of human behavior. Thus, Freud can be seen as a structuralist in the sense that he believed that human behavior was subject to a set of universal underlying structures that applied across cultures. In contrast, Lacan was heavily influenced by the French intellectuals of his day who were considering alternative models of human behavior. Lacan's influences included the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, the philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and the novelist-philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. These French intellectuals were more interested in discovering local, relational truths, usually embedded in language and social circumstances. In contrast to the structuralists, these thinkers have been called poststructuralists. Some have argued that Lacan's work serves as a transition from the structural to the poststructural theory of human nature in organizations because of his belief in the subjectivity of language and its relationship to the unconscious.

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