Psychoanalysis

“My dear Professor, I am sending you a little more about Hans-but this time, I am sorry to say, material for a case history. ”The boy woke up one morning in tears; asked why he was crying, he said to his mother: “When I was asleep I thought you were gone and I had no Mummy to coax with” [The child’s word for caress. It is therefore,] “An anxiety dream.”
In 1909 the publication of the case-history “caused a great stir and even greater indignation”. Would the findings of a psychoanalysis of a suffering child meet with the same agitations and scorn as Freud’s case history of the analysis and recovery of Little Hans? Or, can we learn from it and find hope? It’s my hope that this paper, rather than giving a chronological account, can remind us of the mental activities driving the...

As chamadas fórmulas da sexuação não surgiram de repente na obra de Lacan, mas foram sendo construídas, tijolo por tijolo, durante anos em seus seminários e escritos.
Talvez se possa localizar a pedra angular desta construção mais claramente no texto A significação do falo, de 1958. Este é um texto fundamental na álgebra lacaniana, embora as expressões ainda não fossem escritas ali em forma de algoritmos, as relações dos sexos com o falo estão todas apresentadas.
Lacan (1958) começa esta conferência afirmando que “o complexo de castração inconsciente tem uma função de nó”. Não se trata de um nó tal como seria abordado nos seminários dos anos 70, ou seja, enquanto cadeia borromeana, mas sim no sentido plano, como um point capitoné ou um cruzamento de pontos. Lacan ressalta...

The case of Eliabeth Von R – Freud’s first full analysis – is important to look at in detail as it shows how the psychoanalytic technique was developed by Freud. He himself underlines its significance: “I derived from this analysis a literally unqualified reliance on my technique.”2 Throughout his work with the patient his contention that her symptoms are intimately linked to her personal history and experiences is affirmed. Taking this approach to the treatment leads him to uncover the root of Elisabeth Von R’s hysterical symptoms. He is steadfast in his belief that the symptoms origin can be uncovered through free association in sessions and through the appropriate interventions of the analyst that will continue to allow the patient uncover repressed material. In examining this case...

Freud's paper "On Narcissism" (1914) is considered to be one of his most important writings. He had developed his ideas over a decade prior to this publication and he continued to refine them during the subsequent decade. His paper is interesting because it includes the hesitations and ambiguities of a theory in its beginnings. This is also true of what he says about the ego which is so closely linked with Narcissism.

The paper on Narcissism highlights the ego and its functions which play such a central role in the psyche. In analytic work, the ego therapies are considered "inauspicious". If we do not wish to pursue the "orthopaedics of the ego" as Lacan calls it, how do we deal with the ego in psychoanalysis? Ego's place as outlined by Freud appears in neurosis, in repression,...