The significance of Jacques Lacan.

The contemporary French psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan, has offered a reinterpretation of basic Freudian concepts that is to a great extent based on the structural linguistics of F. de Saussure. Certain fundamental ideas of Lacan, such as his views that "the unconscious is structured like a language" and that "the unconscious is the discourse of the Other" are examined here, and an attempt is made to place them in perspective in psychoanalysis.     

The cabinet of Dr. Lacan

Conclusion Obscurity is not the worst failing, and it is philistinism to pretend that it is. In a series of brilliant essays written over the last fifteen years Stanley Cavell has consistently argued that more important than the question whether obscurity could have been avoided is whether it affects our confidence in the author.Confidence raises the issue of intention, and I would have thought that the primary commitment of a psychoanalytic writer was to pass on, and (if he can) to refine while passing on, a particular way of exploring the mind. Indeed this is how Lacan himself proposes that his work should be judged. The aim of my teaching, he writes, has been and still is the training of analysts.For decades now Lacan has been insisting that the nature of this commitment has been systematically obscured, particularly in North America. Training has become routinized, and analysis itself has become distorted into a process of crude social adaptation. There is much here to agree with. Yet two questions must be raised. Has Lacan devised a more effective method of training analysts? And, would one expect this from his writings?Neither question gets a favourable answer. All reports of his training methods, over which he has now brought about three distinct secessions within the French psychoanalytic movement, are horrifying.¹³ It is now, I am told, possible to become a Lacanian analyst after a very few months of Lacanian analysis. And what pedagogic contribution could we expect from a form of prose that has two salient characteristics: it exhibits the application of theory to particular cases as quite arbitrary, and it forces the adherents it gains into pastiche.¹⁴ Lacan's ideas and Lacan's style, yoked in an indissoluble union, represent an invasive tyranny. And it is by a hideous irony that this tyranny should find its recruits among groups that have nothing in common except the sense that they lack a theory worthy of their cause or calling: feminists, cinéastes, professors of literature.Lacan himself offers several justifications for his obscurity, about which he has no false modesty. At times he says that he is the voice, the messenger, the porte-parole, of the unconscious itself. Lacan's claim stirs in my mind the retort Freud made to a similar assult upon his credulity and by someone who had learned from Lacan. It is not the unconscious mind I look out for in your paintings, Freud said to Salvador Dali, it is the conscious.This article originally appeared as a review (The New York Review of Books, January 25, 1979) of the three books listed under References.     

Theology after the Massacre in Norway

In 2011 Norway experienced its worst violent attack in peacetime and one of the most horrible mass murders ever: one young, white Norwegian killed 77 people, injured 40, and destroyed the Government Building in Oslo. He explained that the terror as a necessary attack on the Social Democracy and the multi‐ethnic and pluralistic society. Was he insane or competent? Was he guilty? In this article I argue that theology can contribute to the debate about guilt, punishment, and evil acts. A contextual theology today should draw from the treasures in the Christian tradition and take part in contemporary discourses about existential and ethical issues.     

The ecstatic and the theory of Jacques Lacan

Historically, psychology attempted to become a science of the mind, but failed for various reasons. These included (a) the apparent barrier between objective and subjective data, (b) ignoring of individual differences, (c) experimenter bias, (d) culture boundedness, (e) insufficient training of observers, and (f) a limited, Newtonian physics view of reality. This article argues that humanistic and transpersonal psychology can lead the way to a more comprehensive and effective science of mind because we have new methods today to deal more effectively with the limits imposed by these problems.     

The Neighbor Between Rosenzweig and Lacan

Death is the persistent kernel of a human life in both Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory and Franz Rosenzweig’s theology. Lacan’s reformulation of the Freudian drive conceives of death as the annihilating force behind each person’s desire. Accordingly, the other assumes death’s absolute impenetrability. Rosenzweig likewise insists that perpetual acknowledgement of death must individuate a human life; however, his theology of revelation allows for the disclosure of the absolute Other in a commandment to love. Two ethics proceed from these two figures of death: a Lacanian ethics of distance and a Rosenzweigian ethics of communitarian love. Finally, I consider whether a Rosenzweigian posture toward the neighbor must be predicated on a transcendent faith.     

The singularity of being: Lacan and the immortal within

Drawing on the work of Eric Santner, Slavoj ?i?ek, and Alenka Zupan?i?, this paper constructs a theory of subjective singularity from a Lacanian perspective. It argues that, unlike the "subject" (who comes into existence as a result of symbolic prohibition), or the "person" (who is aligned with the narcissistic conceits of the imaginary), the singular self emerges in response to a galvanizing directive arising from the real. This directive summons the individual to a "character" beyond his or her social and intersubjective investments. Consequently, singularity expresses the individual's nonnegotiable distinctiveness, eccentricity, or idiosyncrasy at the same time as it prevents both symbolic and imaginary closure. It opens to layers of rebelliousness that indicate that there are components of human life that exceed the realm of normative sociality. Indeed, insofar as singularity articulates something about the "undead" pulse of jouissance, it connects the individual to a paradoxical kind of immortality. This does not mean that the individual will not die, but rather that he or she is capable of "transcendent" experiences, such as heightened states of creativity, that (always momentarily) reach "outside" the parameters of mortal life. Such experiences allow the individual to feel "real" in ways that fend off symbolic abduction and psychic death.     

The passion scale: Aspects of reliability and validity of a new 8-item scale assessing passion.

In this article, the psychometric properties of a new scale aimed at quantifying passion are explored, i.e. passion related to becoming good or achieving in some area/theme/skill.The Passion Scale was designed to be quantitative, simple to administer, applicable for large-group testing, and reliable in monitoring passion.A total of 126 participants between 18 and 47 years of age (mean age = 21.65, SD = 3.45) completed an assessment of Passion Scale, enabling us to investigate its feasibility, internal consistency, construct validity and test-retest reliability.FeasibilityThe overall pattern of results suggest that the scale for passion presented here is applicable for the age studied (18–47).Internal consistencyAll individual item scores correlated positively with the total score, with correlations ranging from 0.51 to 0.69. The Cronbach's alpha value for the standardized items was 0.86.Construct validityPearson correlations coefficient between total score passion scale and Grit-S scale were 0.39 for adults, mean age 21.23 (SD = 3.45) (N = 107).Test-retest reliability: Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICCs) between test and retest scores for the total score was 0.92.These promising results warrant further development of the passion scale, including normalization based on a large, representative sample.