Lacan On Madness

This new collection of essays by distinguished international scholars and clinicians will revolutionize your understanding of madness. Essential for those on both sides of the couch eager to make sense of the plethora of theories about madness available today, Lacan on Madness: Madness, Yes You Can’t provides compelling and original perspectives following the work of Jacques Lacan. Patricia Gherovici and Manya Steinkoler suggest new ways of working with phenomena often considered impermeable to clinical intervention or discarded as meaningless. This book offers a fresh view on a wide variety of manifestations and presentations of madness, featuring clinical case studies, new theoretical developments in psychosis, and critical appraisal of artistic expressions of insanity. Lacan on Madness uncovers the logics of insanity while opening new possibilities of treatment and cure. Intervening in current debates about normalcy and pathology, causation and prognosis, the authors propose effective modalities of treatment, and challenge popular ideas of what constitutes a cure offering a reassessment of the positive and creative potential of madness. Gherovici and Steinkoler’s book makes Lacanian ideas accessible by showing how they are both clinically and critically useful. It is invaluable reading for psychoanalysts, clinicians, academics, graduate students, and lay persons.

This new collection of essays by distinguished international scholars and clinicians will revolutionize your understanding of madness. Essential for those on both sides of the couch eager to make sense of the plethora of theories about madness available today, Lacan on Madness: Madness, Yes You Can’t provides compelling and original perspectives following the work of Jacques Lacan. Patricia Gherovici and Manya Steinkoler suggest new ways of working with phenomena often considered impermeable to clinical intervention or discarded as meaningless. This book offers a fresh view on a wide variety of manifestations and presentations of madness, featuring clinical case studies, new theoretical developments in psychosis, and critical appraisal of artistic expressions of insanity. Lacan on Madness uncovers the logics of insanity while opening new possibilities of treatment and cure. Intervening in current debates about normalcy and pathology, causation and prognosis, the authors propose effective modalities of treatment, and challenge popular ideas of what constitutes a cure offering a reassessment of the positive and creative potential of madness. Gherovici and Steinkoler’s book makes Lacanian ideas accessible by showing how they are both clinically and critically useful. It is invaluable reading for psychoanalysts, clinicians, academics, graduate students, and lay persons.

The current rise in new religions and the growing popularity of New Ageism is concomitant with an increasingly anti-philosophical sentiment marking our contemporary situation. More specifically, it is philosophical and psychoanalytic reason that has lost standing faced with the triumph of post-secular "spirituality". Combatting this trend, this treatise develops a theoretical apparatus based on Hegelian speculative reason and Lacanian psychoanalysis. With the aid of this theoretical apparatus, the book argues how certain conceptual pairs appear opposed through an operation of misrecognition christened, following Hegel, as "diremption". The failure to reckon with identities-in-difference relegates the subject to more vicious contradictions that define central aspects of our contemporary predicament. The repeated thesis of the treatise is that the deadlocks marking our contemporary situation require renewed engagement with dialectical thinking beyond the impasses of common understanding. Only by embarking on this philosophical-psychoanalytic "path of despair" (Hegel) will we stand a chance of achieving "joyful wisdom" (Nietzsche). Developing a unique dialectical theory based on readings of Hegel, Lacan and Žižek, in order to address various philosophical and psychoanalytic questions, this book will be of great interest to anyone interested in German idealism and/or psychoanalytic theory.

What separates the sane from the mad? How hard or easy is it to tell them apart? And what if the difference is really between being mad and going mad? In this landmark work Darian Leader undermines common conceptions of madness. Through case studies like that of the apparently 'normal' Harold Shipman, he shows that madness rarely conforms to the images we might expect. By exploring the idea of 'quiet madness' - that psychosis and an uneventful normal life are absolutely compatible - he argues that we must radically revise our understanding of madness. Once we realise that psychosis can be stable and contained, we have valuable tools to help those who have been less fortunate and whose psychosis has already been triggered. 'Fascinating. A formidable grasp of psychiatric history and a storyteller's flair for detail. What Leader does so effectively is to give us a sense of what it might be like to live inside the mind of a psychotic. A humane and timely book.' New Statesman 'Superb insights, brilliant.' Observer 'Leader's insights could have radical consequences for the way we regard madness.' Daily Telegraph 'Witty, probing. A myth-busting diagnosis of the method in our madness.' Independent 'Provides valuable insights into how psychiatry can help those who have suffered psychosis to rebuild their lives.' Sunday Times

This is the first book of its kind that attempts to distill Lacan’s views on psychosis for both a specialized and non-specialized audience. An attempt is made to present Lacan’s unorganized theories to apply to conceptual paradigms in psychoanalysis and the humanities as well as applied clinical practice. This effort is in the spirit of fostering dialogue and educating different theoretical orientations within psychoanalysis on what Lacan and his followers have contributed to emerging contemporary perspectives on psychotic phenomena in both normative and pathological populations. Within Lacanian circles there is debate over what constitutes psychosis, including defining the ordinary from pathological variants that have historically defined the phenomena as a mental illness. Here psychosis is not defined by hegemonic authoritarian psychiatry, but rather as a conceptual framework or philosophical perspective supported by descriptive narrative and symptomatic phenomenology that challenges preconceived notions of what we typically consider psychosis to entail. In this book a variety of perspectives are presented by internationally respected scholars and clinicians who examine what Lacan had to say about psychosis, from his nuanced theories represented in select texts, including omissions, extrapolations, and new applications, as well as how clinical methodology and technique have been adapted and advanced by practitioners treating psychotic individuals. Lacan on Psychosis will be of interest to academics, scholars, researchers, and practitioners in the fields of psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, philosophy, cultural theory, the humanities, and the behavioral sciences.

This is the author's most influential work of literary theory and criticism in which she explores the relations between literature, philosophy, and psychoanalysis.

Cutting-edge philosophers, psychoanalysts, literary theorists, and scholars use Freud and Lacan to shed light on laughter, humor, and the comic. Bringing together clinic, theory, and scholarship this compilation of essays offers an original mix with powerful interpretive implications.

The author occupies a unique position in psychoanalysis today, and his work represents a synthesis of the traditions of Lacan, Winnicott and Bion. This volume collects fourteen of his papers together with a substantial introduction. The papers range widely across clinical and theoretical issues including borderline states, the true and false self, and narcissism. On Private Madness has achieved the status of a modern psychoanalytic classic, and this new impression will be welcomed by all those admirers of the author who wish to have these seminal papers collected together.