Lacanian psychoanalysis

Article

Lacanian psychoanalysis is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between February 16, 2022 and April 26, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as “find it in Lacanian psychoanalysis”; “doubt the utility or veracity of Lacanian psychoanalysis (Fink warns us)“. It most often appears alongside Ayn Rand, Freud, Lacan.

Metadata

  • Category: Concepts
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: February 16, 2022
  • Last seen: April 26, 2022

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

February 16, 2022 · Original source
Teach’s earlier work centers around Christopher Lasch’s idea of narcissism. Sadly, Porn adds a layer of Lacanian psychoanalysis (I wasn’t smart enough to recognize this myself; other people pointed it out). I’ve been wanting to learn more about Lacan for a while. Partly because I never understood him in school. Partly because Slavoj Zizek is into him and everyone seems to think Zizek is smart. And partly because I recently realized that Kleinian psychoanalysis, which I also never understood, actually has useful insights (hint: compare Part III of this post with the theory of part objects) and for all I know Lacanian psychoanalysis might be the same way.
This kind of hole-filled map suggests I must be missing something here, and a whole lot of people who might know suggest trying to find it in Lacanian psychoanalysis. I already tried the kind of normal book that a normal person might use to try to understand Lacan, and I bounced off of it like putty. So fine. Let’s try to read this abomination and see if we can squeeze something out of it.
April 26, 2022 · Original source
I know this is a weird way to start this book review. But I kept thinking about it while reading A Clinical Introduction To Lacanian Psychoanalysis, by Bruce Fink. Psychoanalysis - like AI alignment - is about how newly-created entities get desires, and what happens if the desire they get isn’t the one other people wanted them to have. Fink writes:
Obsession, in which someone pretends that the Other doesn’t exist, they’re self-contained and don’t need anybody else, there’s no such thing as the unconscious, and nothing can possibly go wrong. Fink describes Ayn Rand characters as a “perfect” example, which I found helpful. Obsessives deal with their fear of sex by focusing on a single aspect of the sex partner (eg breasts, penis) and desperately trying to pretend they’re not a real full person. If you doubt the utility or veracity of Lacanian psychoanalysis (Fink warns us), it probably means you’re obsessive and that’s your defense mechanism.
Why did I read A Clinical Introduction To Lacanian Psychoanalysis?