Words still matter: Lacan and the role of the signifier in therapy today

by | Vol 37 (3) 2019

In 1966, Lacan wrote “On an Ex Post Facto Syllabary”, a short rarely read essay that holds a key to what is radical and still important regarding what makes psychoanalysis relevant today, and that is the role of the signifier and the symbolic in mental health treatment. The following article describes Lacan’s critique of Herbert Silberer’s concept of the functional phenomenon as an example of the resistance that theorists and practitioners have towards the role of the unconsious and the symbolic. This is a detailed look at Lacan’s critique, and how the imaginary is still a trap, as well as a discussion of how a focus on the signifier and language serves as an alternative.

Related articles

  • Unconscious structure in Sartre and Lacan

    Throughout his career, Jean-Paul Sartre had a contentious theoretical relationship with psychoanalysis. Nowhere is this more evident than in his criticisms of the concept of the unconscious. For him, the unconscious represents a hidden psychological depth that is anathema to the notion of human freedom. In this paper, I argue that Lacan’s conception of the unconscious-structured-like-a-language overcomes many of Sartre’s most damning objections. I demonstrate that Lacan shares with Sartre a concern to rid the psyche of hidden depths. Both…

  • Peirces Concept of a Sign and the Lacanian Signifier

    According to Peirce the essence of the sign lies in its triadic interrelated structure, namely: a representamen, an object and an interpretant, in which the object is brought in relation to an interpretant by the representamen, such that the interpretant is, in turn, a sign of the same object. Lacans conceptualisation of the signifier shows a surprising resemblance with the ideas of Peirce about the sign. Thus their definitions reflect a same structure: the signifier as well as the sign…

  • A Spinozist Approach to Therapy

    This article examines schizophrenic experience from a phenomenological point of view to determine how it differs from normal experience. The autobiographical investigations of Wouter Kusters serve as a guide. In his famous study on schizophrenia, Alphonse De Waelhens gives a psychoanalytical account of psychotic experiences. For De Waelhens psychosis stems from a lack of desire, a perspective which implies that psychoanalytical therapy should aim to fill this lack. There are several problems arising from this perspective, which however are easily…