Lacan and Psychotherapy

The photograph is of the French philosopher and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. To me Lacan is one of the greatest minds of the twentieth century. He revised Freudian theory so that it reflected modern interests and concerns and not those of the twentieth century. For Lacan psychoanalysis meant the possibilty not of 'knowing' who we are, but the possibility of starting to know who we are. We begin our lives with a fragmented personality which we see as 'whole' from this our problems stem.We are are constantly subject to a desire which can never be satisfied, even when we obtain our desire our focus turns to another object.In analysis the analysand is helped towards discovering the truth of his, or her, desire. For Lacan the unconscious is ' the discourse of the other' : this means that our unconscious desire is structured, given form, by the desire of Others and our deepest feelings through our connection with others.

Lacan is not an easy read, but he never intended to be he compared reading his work with the equivalent of mining tiny nuggets of gold from a great mine working. If you want to read more on Lacans ideas follow this link:

http://changingminds.org/disciplines/psychoanalysis/articles/lacanian_psychoanalysis.htm