The authors use examples from their own clinical practice to explain the development of Lacanian theory.

After Lacan combines abundant case material with graceful yet sophisticated theoretical exposition in order to explore the clinical practice of Lacanian psychoanalysis. Focusing on the groundbreaking clinical treatment of psychosis that Gifric (Groupe Interdisciplinaire Freudien de Recherches et d'Interventions Cliniques et Culturelles) has pioneered in Quebec, the authors discuss how Lacanians theorize psychosis and how Gifric has come to treat it analytically. Chapters are devoted to the general concepts and key terms that constitute the touchstones of the early phase of analytic treatment, elaborating their interrelations and their clinical relevance. The second phase of analytic treatment is also discussed, introducing a new set of terms to understand transference and the ethical act of analysis in the subject's assumption of the Other's lack. The concluding chapters broaden discussion to include the key psychic structures that describe the organization of subjectivity and thereby dictate the terms of analysis: not just psychosis, but also perversion and obsessional and hysterical neurosis.

Willy Apollon's profile page

Danielle Bergeron's profile page

Lucie Cantin's profile page

Robert Hughes' profile page

Kareen Ror Malone's profile page

Willy Apollon , Danielle Bergeron , and Lucie Cantin are Training Analysts at Groupe Interdisciplinaire Freudien de Recherches et d'Interventions Cliniques et Culturelles (Gifric). Apollon is the coeditor (with Richard Feldstein) of Lacan, Politics, Aesthetics, also published by SUNY Press. Robert Hughes is Assistant Professor of English at Augusta State University. Kareen Ror Malone is Professor of Psychology at State University of West Georgia and coeditor (with Stephen R. Friedlander) of The Subject of Lacan: A Lacanian Reader for Psychologists, also published by SUNY Press.

"Although this is a dense book, and difficult reading for one not well versed in the language of Lacanian thought, it is also a very rich clinical book, well worth the investment of wading through the language. If one is willing to immerse one's self in the language, and through this language engage with the conceptualizations, one then encounters the very rich clinical vignettes in ways that vitally enliven and illuminate this very difficult work we do." — The American Journal of Psychoanalysis

"An increasing number of clinicians find themselves interested in Lacan but do not have much clinical literature to see how the theory can be applied beyond the academy and into their own consulting rooms. This book addresses that lack. It is one of the best I have read and certainly the most complete in terms of including clinical examples of adequate length and sophistication." — Mardy S. Ireland, member of the Après-Coup Psychoanalytic Association and Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California

"Case histories hold an inherent fascination, I think, and in this book they are no exception. They offer a concrete way of grasping the concepts, but they also give a sense of, and a feeling for, the suffering individual. After Lacan shows how suffering is alleviated by the treatment described. In itself, this would suffice to justify reading on. But the conceptual clarity and the elegance of the exposition equally solicit the reader's continued attention. This is a book that many have been waiting for." — Juliet Flower MacCannell, author of Figuring Lacan: Criticism and the Cultural Unconscious and The Hysteric's Guide to the Future Female Subject