Lacan Beyond the Basics: The Formation of the Subject
A Seminar presented by Sharon R. Green
Seminar Overview
All psychoanalytic work is guided by the philosophical and metapsychological assumptions that underlie the clinician’s understanding of the nature of the psyche and the processes involved in the formation of the subject. These assumptions, whether conscious or unconscious, guide our interventions and goals for analysis and psychotherapy. Issues such as a person’s degree of freedom and responsibility for their destiny hinge upon these assumptions.
Our understanding of the relationship between subject and Other also shapes our ethical stance towards our work. This is especially crucial because psychoanalysis involves an asymmetrical relationship with its implied promise that suffering will be alleviated or that answers will be given to our most urgent existential questions. Lacan even goes so far as to define the unconscious as “the discourse of the Other”.
Beyond the basics of the three Lacanian registers of the psyche — the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Real – in relationship to the singular subject, we will study concepts such as desire and lack; alienation and separation; the fundamental fantasy; the dialectical structure of identity; the drives and jouissance.
Although the primary lens for this seminar will be clinical, a Lacanian understanding of the subject opens new perspectives from which to reflect upon contemporary forms of individual symptoms and cultural madness. Scholars of any discipline who are interested in a deeper understanding of Lacan’s metapsychology are welcome.
Seminar participants will explore the formation of the subject from the perspective of Lacan’s metapsychology through a close reading of the book On Being Normal and Other Disorders by Dr. Paul Verhaeghe as well as supplemental readings.
The Surgeon by Jan van Hemessen
Fees & Registration
Six consecutive Thursdays. 7:00 – 8:30 p.m. PDT via Zoom from Seattle
April 29, May 6, May 13, May 20, May 27 & June 3
Cost: $200.00. The seminar is limited to ten participants.
Please register by contacting Sharon directly at srgreen1@gmail.com
Sharon R. Green, LICSW, is an active member of the IAAP (the International Association of Analytical Psychology) and a founding member of the New School for Analytical Psychology. Sharon’s psychoanalytic practice is informed by her earlier life engagement with photography, film-making and dance, and her clinical experiences working with individuals with severe mental illness, chronic and life-threatening medical conditions, and persons with HIV/AIDS. While trained as a Jungian analyst, Sharon continues to pursue her study of Lacanian psychoanalysis through the University of Ghent, Belgium. Sharon has a private practice of psychoanalysis and clinical consultation in Seattle, Washington.
Dates and Learning Objectives
Six consecutive Thursdays. 7:00 – 8:30 p.m. PDT via Zoom from Seattle
April 29, May 6, May 13, May 20, May 27 & June 3
Cost: $200.00. Seminar is limited to ten participants.
Continuing Education
CEU Learning Objectives (9 CEUs offered – including ethics):
- To better understand the clinician’s underlying assumptions about the nature of the psyche and the goals of analysis
- To increase understanding of the dynamics involved in the formation of the Lacanian subject and its relation to the Other
- To increase critical thinking about the relationship between diagnosis and an ethical praxis from a Lacanian perspective
Participants are encouraged to register early in order to receive the assigned reading list. In addition to obtaining your own copy of the book On Being Normal and Other Disorders, supplemental readings will be provided to those who register for the seminar.
Please register by contacting Sharon directly at srgreen1@gmail.com
About the New School for Analytical Psychology
Our School embraces education as a never-ending dialogical process that does not hold fast to a single theory or ideology. Our approach to knowledge is one that honors the ancient yet emphasizes our embeddedness in a contemporary cultural context. An ethical obligation to the ‘other’ is a prime concern.
Our profession faces complex conditions of suffering and evolution, and each journey has a unique destiny that cannot be known in advance. The inherent ambiguity of our field creates anxiety in its practitioners, and there is a tendency to withdraw into defensive bastions of theory and practice. The New School group shares a deep concern about the fundamentalist tendencies in all analytic schools. We value the scholarship and clinical approaches of multiple traditions with their unique perspectives on our ever-fascinating, ever-evolving field of reflective endeavor.