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The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis (The Seminar of Jacques Lacan , Book 11)

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First, let me start off by saying that I am an intellectual historian with a great passion for the history of ideas, especially those dealing with the mind and how it works-- psychoanalytic thought in particular. I'm well used to reading works that are dense, difficult, and jargon-laden. I'm also quite familiar with intellectual traditions that Lacan is responding to, borrowing from, and those that he himself has inspired (most notably the tradition of French psychoanalytical feminism a la Irigaray, Cixous, Kristeva, etc). I say all this not to pat myself on the back, but to provide some context for this review: I am *not* someone who hates books just because they're difficult, or because they're about such rarefied subjects.

However, I cannot in good intellectual faith recommend this book to anyone. Partly, I freely admit, this is because I really don't think Lacan has really all that much to say. While I don't deny the fact that he *was* instrumental in putting a structuralist (and then post-structuralist) turn in psychoanalysis in some of his early essays (such as appear in "Ecrits") as well as pioneering contraversial new techniques of therapy, such as the variable-length session). But since those early daysthen, his reputation was due more to his charismatic personality and his influential friends within the French academic world, rather than because he had all that much to say.

This book is a perfect example of that. Taken from one of his mid-period seminars (essentially series of lecture courses), Lacan babbles, obfuscates, metaphorizes,and jokes his way through a set of vaguely philosophical points about the mind that could probably have been adequately summarized in a single lecture, or maybe 20-30 pages. (Note to readers of Freud, Jung, Adler, etc. Please be aware that, unlike those guys, Lacan makes no references whatsoever to practical therapeutic experiences to back up his claims; this is pure theoretical speculation. Also, don't expect Lacan's use of terms like 'drive', 'unconscious' or 'transference' to have anything in common with the more conventional psychoanalytical meanings of those terms.) His use of metaphors has a haphazard quality to it that, at times, borders on the nonsensical-- particularly when he starts borrowing them from fields that he clearly doesn't understand very well himself, such as topology. That said, it's undeniable that Lacan's audience was enamoured of his performance. The questions and answers that are included here show a rapt and almost fawning reverence for the man they affectionately refer to as "The Master". But what does a reader, not able to bask in the warm glow of Lacan's personal charisma, get out of this? Not much.... a tiny handful of rehashed ideas, and a few witty phrases here and there, but mostly one gets a lot of dense, pointless verbiage from a man who seems like he's trying to hide the fact that he's got nothing new to say .

If you're going to read Lacan, read some of the real stuff-- when he was actually putting forth new (and at the time, revolutionary) ideas like his essays on "The Mirror Stage", "The Form and Function of the Letter", and "Agressivity in Psychoanalysis"-- or, if you must, some of the early seminars. But by this point, Lacan had long since ceased to be someone worth paying attention to-- and this book simply isn't worth the trouble it takes to get through it. (There are a lot of difficult works that *are* worth the trouble-- Hegel's "Phenomenology of Spirit", Marx's "Das Kapital", Heidegger's "Being and Time", and even a lot of works by the other post-structuralists with whom Lacan is often associated-- but believe me, this just isn't one of them).

Lacan must be read with care. He is not for everybody. He is for those who are interested in the mind, in desire, in language. Specifically, for those who have developed an interest in "theory" or "post-structuralism", which he helped to develop. In this volume Lacan sets out some key concepts in his thinking - but he does not do so systematically! Do not expect him to explain everything to you in a clear, linear fashion. Rather, he plays on words and on ideas, he maneuvers and evades, he skirts around the issue, and comes back to it. Have patience if you choose to read him - discuss his writings with others. If you do this, you may come to understand why Lacan is regarded with so much respect in France and has virtualy reared an entire generation of first-rate theorists and thinkers.

It will help (but will not guarantee understanding) if you have some background in Freud, even if it is only a slight one. Good luck!

Lacan is not easy to follow, by intent, yet the elegance of his thought processes bring real depth to psychoanalysis and the limitations of language in expressing our evolutionary struggles to identify the conflict between our internal processes and the world outside. Multiple rereadings will bring clarity. I keep a copy in my office for reference.

Most people who have read Lacan did so in an academic context, which can sour one's experience of truly useful texts. Yet I encourage those of you interested in learning more about psychoanalytic theory, and the way humans ARE in general, to pick up the Four Fun Concepts. Of course its content is difficult and subject to debate, but the benefits of reading Lacan, especially in conjunction with Freud (and even Irigaray, if need be) are immense. A MUST for artists, writers, historians, Psych students, feminist theorists, and anyone else who likes to learn and think.

this is jacques lacan's 11th seminar. he said this seminar had two aims, one of concern to analysts and the other to those interested in discovering whether psycho-analysis is a science.

and before lacan began his talk about the four fundamental concepts of psycho-analysis, he thanked his hosts for space in the ecole normal superieure after his excommunication from the international psycho-analytical association, and paralleled his excommunication from the predominantly english speaking psycho-analytical organization with spinoza's excommunication from the church in 1656, exactly two hundred years before the birth of freud. in his opening remarks lacan informs his listeners that the word fundamental in latin, fundamentum, has several meanings, one of the word's meaning identified with the word pudendum. what better way to capture his listeners' attention? talk of female genitalia is expected to be as scandalous as once was knowledge of the holy scripture beyond the walls of the monastery, and left to the authorities, the church fathers, to disseminate exclusively from father to acolyte. so here with his 11th seminar lacan spoke of the four fundamental concepts of psycho-analysis, a topic intended for the acolyte and the layman within the psycho-analytical community, and, with his permission, his spoken words to be arranged as text to be published for any and all curious readers. rest assured, the guardians of the secrets know lacan's seminars are far less known than the bible, or perhaps, unfortunately, as popular as the works of spinoza within the walls of the university.

attending lacan's first seminar at the ecole normal superieure is the 19 year old jacques-alain miller, the future editor of lacan's papers. several of miller's questions to lacan at the seminar appear in the text.

in the 11th lacan took his 1st step, to the unconscious. and his 2nd step to the concept, repetition, freudian repetition, and the experience of psycho-analysis. he discussed trauma, the real, phantasy and the dream, and mentioned kierkegaard's `repetition'.

inspired by merleau ponty's last book `the visible and the invisible,' lacan inserted between the 2nd and 3rd steps, an expiation of the scopic function and the gaze, optics, art, sartre, and descartes as scientist, mathematician and philosopher, before addressing the two remaining concepts, transference and drive.

and by delineating differences and similaries in meaning and use of terminology and concepts, lacan explored, in addition to whether psycho-analysis is a science, the suggested question, if psycho-analysis might not also be an art form or a branch of philosophy, or a member of linguistics. as fun and as freewheeling as lacan seemed to be, he made clear what he was teaching was a grave undertaking.

I love Lacan, and refer to him often in my own work in the Anthropology of Gender, but this particular book is rather befuddled and vague, and I would never submit my own students to it. It may be due to translation (sadly enough, I do not read French), but if you are interested in Lacan's approach to psychoanalysis, I suggest you read Ecrits, unless you are an intellectual masochist.