The Clinical Lacan (The Lacanian Clinical Field) (Lacanian Clincial Field) [Paperback]

Joel Dor (Author), Judith Feher Gurewich (Editor), Susan Fairfield (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Lacanian Clincial Field | Publication Date: September 17, 1998

Joël Dor brings practicality and clinical liveliness to Lacanian psychoanalysis. In this companion text to Introduction to the Reading of Lacan, Dor focuses on the concept of the psychic structures of desire. Using case examples, he explains the crucial difference between symptoms and the actual psychic structure of the subject, a structure that can only be revealed through the discourse of the patient in the psychoanalytic situation.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Joël Dor is professor of psychoanalysis at the University of Paris VII and a member of Association de Formation Psychoanalytique et de Récherches Freudiennes: éspace Analytique.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Other Press; 1 edition (September 17, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1892746050
• ISBN-13: 978-1892746054
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.5 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #281,115 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clear and Easy, July 21, 2000

By 

Paul Jerry (Medicine Hat, Alberta Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Clinical Lacan (The Lacanian Clinical Field) (Lacanian Clincial Field) (Paperback)

Much of the clinical writing on Lacan's work is, simply put, obtuse. There seems to be a bit of a cult of mystification and the less clear a Lacanian description is, the better.

Then, enter Joel Dor. In Dor's slim volume he is clear and his roots as a clinician are apparent. Dor follows the dictum that "structure is diagnosis".

After some helpful comments on the general nature of diagnosis from a Lacanian perspective, Dor discusses perverse and neurotic structures and their treatment. (Dor avoids a discussion of psychotic structures in this volume.)

Dor describes with clarity the dynamics and the nature of perversions and the perverse structure, their origins, and their clinical manifestations. A very helpful chapter on the differential diagnosis of perverse, hysterical and obsessional structres is also included.

Dor also discusses the hysteric structure (for both male and female patients) and presents a view which is not often seen in Anglo-american psychoanalytic theory, the hyteric having seemed to have gone the way of the Dodo as far as diagnosis is currently concerned.

Dor concludes with a discussion of the obsessional structures (placed in contrast to the hysterical structure).

Throughout the text, Dor uses Lacanian concepts with a clarity and consistency that will allow the experienced ans well as the new reader the opportunity to see into the world of Lacanian psychoanalysis in practice.

A helpful companion volume to this work is Dor's Introduction to the reading of Lacan: The unconscious structured like a language. It is worth getting these two books together and using them as companion volumes.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Terrible, August 12, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Clinical Lacan (The Lacanian Clinical Field) (Lacanian Clincial Field) (Paperback)

Dor's articulation of Lacanian clinical structures reads more like a literary dramatization of certain character types than an engaged analysis of various Lacanian structures. Apart from occasionally throwing the terms "castration" and "phallus" about, he mostly lampoons stereotypical forms of neurosis in highly moralistic terms... For instance, he speaks of the "pathetic" attempts of obsessionals to keep women at bay by turning them into objects. Now why would a psychoanalyst refer to any behaviour on the part of his analysands as "pathetic" or even admirable? This book reads more like those popular personality diagnostics than a rigorous Lacanian analysis of psychic structures. If you're looking for a real introduction to the clinical dimension of Lacan's thought read Bruce Fink's _A Clinical Introduction to Lacan_ where you'll find both structural analysis of the three Lacanian types along with case studies. Don't waste your time on Dor.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not Worth It, August 2, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Clinical Lacan (The Lacanian Clinical Field) (Lacanian Clincial Field) (Paperback)

This book is mostly a transcription of lectures, and as such it is basically pretty flimsy. The so-called "structures" are presented quickly in a mere flourish of words, thus there is really no opportunity in such a style and mode of presentation of even beginning to have any kind of real practice in these structures--or even to know what such a thing is. This is a patched-together publication that will do nothing but placate those who have no real desire to encounter Lacan, but just want the tabloid version, which, unfortuneately, is what this "Lacanian Clinical Series" seems to be all about. There's really not much of substance here, but then, this appears to be the trend in most publishing on Lacan in the US nowadays.