Synopses & Reviews
The entire legacy of Jacques Lacan is permeated by his deep interest in psychosis and psychotic phenomena. This book examines Lacan's contribution to our understanding of psychosis, proposing that his workcan best be framed in terms of four broad periods. Each period contains a different set of key concepts, together with a number of crucial texts containing references to psychosis. Stijn Vanheule explains the precise meaning of these concepts and their implication for the clinic of psychosis, focusing on Lacan's discussion of clinical cases and literary works, and his critical dialogue with related disciplines such as psychology, psychiatry, philosophy, and linguistics. Synthesising ideas from Lacan's entire oeuvre, this book, now in paperback, sheds light on the evolution of his theory and provides a valuable tool for students and scholars.
Review
"[Vanheule's] clear expository style displays an impressive command of Lacanian theory that will be instructive for anyone who wishes to grasp the difficult logic of Lacan's project. […] The Subject of Psychosis may be the clearest and most rigorous analysis of Lacanian theory in print." - Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association
"This text offers an excellent reading of Lacan's development of a theory of the subject of psychosis that should serve as a springboard into the practise of the psychoanalytic clinic today." - Theory and Psychology
"The Subject of Psychosis: A Lacanian Perspective is an extraordinarily clear decomposition of Lacan's trajectory from surrealist concerns with representations of madness to literary attempts to signifierise it." - Psychoanalytical Notebooks
"An important contribution to Lacanian work in English, Vanheule's text is a much-needed, theoretically clear, lucid, sophisticated and critical understanding of Lacanian theory on psychosis." - Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society
Synopsis
This book discusses what Jacques Lacan's oeuvre contributes to our understanding of psychosis. Presenting a close reading of original texts, Stijn Vanheule proposes that Lacan's work on psychosis can best be framed in terms of four broad periods.
About the Author
Stijn Vanheule is a Clinical Psychologist, Professor in the Department of Psychoanalysis and Clinical Consulting at Ghent University, Belgium, and a Psychoanalyst in private practice (member of the New Lacanian School for Psychoanalysis). He is the author of the Palgrave Pivot Diagnosis and the DSM: A Critical Review and of multiple academic papers.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction
PART I: FIRST ERA: THE AGE OF IMAGINARY IDENTIFICATION
2. Psychosis as a Disorder at the Level of the Imaginary
PART II: SECOND ERA: THE AGE OF THE SIGNIFIER
3. Towards a Structural Study of Psychosis
4. Foreclosure and its Vicissitudes
5. A Novel Approach to Hallucinations
6. Delusions Scrutinized
PART III: THIRD ERA: THE AGE OF THE OBJECT A
7. The Object a and Jouissance in Psychosis
PART IV: FOURTH ERA: THE AGE OF THE KNOT
8. Psychosis within the Logic of Knotting and Linking
Bibliography
Index