Lacan produced more original ideas than any other psychoanalyst except for Freud and Jung. His mind was a veritable cauldron of brilliant insights and an unspoken turmoil, which forced him to recast psychoanalysis in light of the precarious nature of the self, the power of the unconscious and the many ways our culture makes us who we are.
We will examine Lacan's insights by viewing them as a method he was using to make sense of his own internal dilemmas: understanding Lacan through Lacan. This will allow us to obtain an empathic understanding of his seemingly abstruse and "difficult" theories, and see how these apply to us and all of our relationships.
At the the end of this course students will be able to conceptualize human experiences of self and patients in terms of Lacan's ideas, and know how to formulate interventions that incorporate these insights in a practice aimed at freeing patients from the tyranny of what was done to them.