Lacanian Psychoanalysis between the Child and the Other explores what topology can contribute to clinical work with children, emphasizing that psychoanalytic listening goes beyond the individuals who attend a session. This kind of listening does not seek for what is hidden inside; rather it seeks to create a continuous topological transformation, with topology regarded as the most sophisticated way in which structure, structuring and playing can be thought. Using Lacan’s theoretical framework, the book provides a new perspective on working with children, re-examining fundamental Lacanian concepts such as structure, subject, lack, Other, clinic and, of course, child itself. It charts how time and space are knitted together for children in psychoanalysis, and how a Lacanian approach can enable clinical practitioners and researchers to venture into cultures of childhood, helping them conceptualize and intervene in the process of knitting and unknotting. The book will be of interest to psychoanalytic child clinicians in practice and training, as well as researchers in the field of child psychoanalysis.

Lacan did not say or write very much about the psychoanalysis of children. There is no doctrine of the psychoanalysis of children in his work. Instead, his 1956-1957 seminar on 'the object relation' and his 'Note on the Child' of 1969 have been adopted by Lacanian analysts working with children as providing essential coordinates for direction in their clinical work. This book is the result of inviting psychoanalysts of the Lacanian orientation working with children around the globe to theorise and conceptualise that work. The Lacanian psychoanalyst works with the notion of the subject as a 'speaking being', but the child subject brings particular exigencies to the psychoanalytic work. Contributors attend to these exigencies in their essays by articulating the precise particularities of the direction of the treatment and psychoanalytic work with children.

This volume gathers together the recent writings of the analysts and members of the Freudian School of Melbourne and the Belgian analyst Christian Fierens, displaying the ongoing interrogation by the School of Lacanian psychoanalysis into its history, theories and practices. Within the framework of Lacan’s interventions in Freudian psychoanalysis, the book in particular highlights Lacan’s inventions in theoretical discourse and clinical practice, including the no-sexual relation, the discursive structures of language, the school, the cartel and the pass. Theoretical shibboleths such as the Oedipus complex are questioned, while the historical writings of Sabina Spielrein are read and interpreted anew. Chapters also engage with the psychoanalysis of children, the questions posed by the psychoses to psychoanalysis and the intersection of creativity and the arts in new and original ways. Bringing together a range of expert contributions, this text will be an illuminating resource for scholars and practitioners of psychoanalysis.

In a groundbreaking integration of the work of Lacan, Winnicott, and Tustin, Catherine Mathelin reveals how a child's symptoms can be a striking reflection of its parents' unresolved conflicts. She shows how her patients' art, much of it reproduced here, can communicate both initial anguish and progress in treatment, and draws on her experience of working on a neonatal unit to argue compellingly that a child's mental health can be endangered even before birth. "This is a book hard to put down, filled with the most fascinating brief case vignettes of parents and children who live in worlds disconnected from each other, hoping for experts to heal their suffering." -Anni Bergman, coauthor of The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant

"Lacan did not say or write very much about the psychoanalysis of children. There is no doctrine of the psychoanalysis of children in his work. Instead, his 1956-1957 seminar on 'the object relation' and his 'Note on the Child' of 1969 have been adopted by Lacanian analysts working with children as providing essential coordinates for direction in their clinical work. This book is the result of inviting psychoanalysts of the Lacanian orientation working with children around the globe to theorise and conceptualise that work. The Lacanian psychoanalyst works with the notion of the subject as a 'speaking being', but the child subject brings particular exigencies to the psychoanalytic work. Contributors attend to these exigencies in their essays by articulating the precise particularities of the direction of the treatment and psychoanalytic work with children. Contributions consider and explore the effects of new technologies, bio-medicine, and the discourses of global capitalism and neo-liberalism upon the constitution of new child subjectivities and their correlative psychopathologies; inventions and reinventions of the role and function of the 'father'; the scope and value of differential diagnosis; the child as 'symptom' in and of 'the system'; and ultimately, guidelines for a specifically Lacanian direction of the treatment with children."--Provided by publisher.

This book vigorously engages Lacan with a spiritual tradition that has yet to be thoroughly addressed within psychoanalytic literature—the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition. The book offers a unique engagement with a faith system that highlights and extends analytic thinking. For those in formation within the Orthodox tradition, this book brings psychoanalytic insights to bear on matters of faith that may at times seem opaque or difficult to understand. Ultimately, the authors seek to elicit in the reader the reflective and contemplative posture of Orthodoxy, as well as the listening ear of analysis, while considering the human subject. This work is relevant and important for those training in psychoanalysis and Orthodox theology or ministry, as well as for those interested in the intersection between psychoanalysis and religion.

This book presents the radically new theory of subjectivity found in the work of Jacques Lacan. Against the tide of post-structuralist thinkers who announce "the death of the subject," Bruce Fink explores what it means to come into being as a subject where impersonal forces once reigned, subjectify the alien roll of the dice at the beginning of our universe, and make our own knotted web of our parents' desires that led them to bring us into this world. Lucidly guiding readers through the labyrinth of Lacanian theory--unpacking such central notions as the Other, object a, the unconscious as structures like a language, alienation and separation, the paternal metaphor, jouissance, and sexual difference--Fink demonstrates in-depth knowledge of Lacan's theoretical and clinical work. Indeed, this is the first book to appear in English that displays a firm grasp of both theory and practice of Lacanian psychoanalysis, the author being one of the only Americans to have undergone full training with Lacan's school in Paris. Fink Leads the reader step by step into Lacan's conceptual system to explain how one comes to be a subject--leading to psychosis. Presenting Lacan's theory in the context of his clinical preoccupations, Fink provides the most balanced, sophisticated, and penetrating view of Lacan's work to date--invaluable to the initiated and the uninitiated alike.