The Seminar of Jacques Lacan

Book III: The Psychoses 1955­1956

Translated with Notes by Russell Grigg

Sometimes controversial, invariably fascinating, Lacan's psycholinguistic approach to analysis of the psychoses is seen here in virtually unmediated form.

Taking us into and beyond the realm of Freudian psychoanalysis, Lacan examines the psychoses' inescapable connection to the symbolic process through which signifier is joined with signified. Lacan deftly navigates the ontological levels of the symbolic, the imaginary, and the real to explain psychosis as "foreclosure," or rejection of the primordial signifier. Then, bridging the gap between the theoretical and the practical, Lacan discusses the implications for treatment. In these lectures on the psychoses, Lacan's renowned theory of metaphor and metonymy, along with the concept of the "quilting point," appears for the first time.