The Language of the Self: The Function of Language in Psychoanalysis

by Jacques Lacan

Book Overview

A classic work on Freud by one of France's foremost philosophers and literary critics.

Jacques Lacan's commentaries on Freud had revolutionary implications not only for the analytic movement but also for contemporary philosophy and literary criticism. Lacan held that if the unconscious, as Freud described it, exists, it functions linguistically, rather than symbolically or instinctually. He refers to the unconscious as a language:...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801858178
• ISBN13: 9780801858178
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 1.23 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.9" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

The Master Speaks

'All speech is demand, the demand for love.'Jacques Lacan was much more than a psychoanalyst. In his investigations of language and his twenty year long seminar in France, he explored a realm of topics interesting to scholars in a variety of fields: sexuality, language, the self, the unconscious. Probably his most groundbreaking work - partially contained in this volume - concerns the importance of language as expressing our desire, our need for love - a desire, by the way, that can never be fulfilled and results in pain and frustration.Anthony Wilden provides a decent translation, but all translations of Lacan's work - like the writings of Derrida - face a very difficult task. Highly recommended...