Friday, March 14, 2008

Zizek, Slavoj. "How to Read Lacan." Lacan.Com.

Is, then, psychoanalysis today really outdated? It seems that it is, on three interconnected levels: (1) that of scientific knowledge, where the cognitivist-neurolobiologist model of the human mind appears to supersede the Freudian model; (2) that of psychiatric clinic, where psyhoanalytic treatment is rapidly losing ground against pills and behavioral therapy; (3) that of the social context, where the image of a society, of social norms, which repress the individual’s sexual drives, no longer appears valid with regard to today’s predominant hedonistic permissiveness. Nonetheless, in the case of psychoanalysis, the memorial service is perhaps a little bit too hasty, commemorating a patient who still has a long life ahead. In contrast to the “evident” truths of the critics of Freud, my aim is to demonstrate that it is only today that the time of psychoanalysis has arrived. On reading Freud through Lacan, through what Lacan called his “return to Freud.” Freud’s key insights finally become visible in their true dimension. Lacan did not understand this return as a return to what Freud said, but to the core of the Freudian revolution of which Freud himself was not fully aware. . . . Read the rest here: http://www.lacan.com/zizhowto.html.

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