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PSYCHOANALYSIS AND LACAN: A WALK THROUGH THE
UNCONSCIOUS AND LANGUAGE
Rawy Chagas Ramos1
Abstract: This article offers a comprehensive analysis of Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory,
emphasizing his critical reinterpretation of Freud and the central role of language in subject formation.
Beginning with biographical and theoretical context, the author explores core concepts such as the
Mirror Stage, the Imaginary, Symbolic, and Real registers, the Oedipus Complex, and the Name-of-the-
Father. The paper also discusses the ethics of desire, the notion of the sinthome, and the subversion of
the subject in contemporary society. It intertwines psychoanalysis, philosophy, linguistics, and clinical
practice, highlighting the ongoing relevance of Lacan’s work in understanding psychic suffering and
modern subjectivity. According to the author, Lacanian psychoanalysis provides a unique listening
framework that resists normative standardization and upholds the singularity of human desire.
Keywords: Lacan; Psychoanalysis; Language; Subject; Desire.
1 Master’s degree in Political Philosophy from the Federal University of Rondônia - UNIR ().
Master’s degree in Canon Law from the Higher Institute of Canon Law of Rio de Janeiro (2018).
Postgraduate degrees: specialist in Counseling and Pastoral Psychology from Faculdade Serra Geral
- FSG (2023); in Teaching in eology from Faculdade Dom Alberto - FAVENI (2023); in Higher
Education Teaching from the University Center of the United Metropolitan Colleges - FMU (2023);
and in Teaching and Management of Distance Education from Faculdade Focus (2023); in Clinical
Psychoanalysis from Faculdade Metropolitana do Estado de São Paulo - FAMEESP (2024). Graduated
in eology from the eological School of the Benedictine Congregation of Brazil (1998) and Ba-
chelor in eology from Faculdade Dehoniana (2016). Training in Clinical Psychoanalysis from the
Institute of Studies and Human Development SUPERAH and CETEP (Center for Studies in erapy
and Psychoanalysis). Holistic erapist from the Brazilian Institute of Holistic erapy (IBRATH) and
Parapsychologist from the Latin American Center for Parapsychology (CLAP). Member of the Inter-
national Council of Psychoanalysis and Integrative erapies (CONIPT). E-mail: rhawy-cr@gmail.
com Lattes CV: http://lattes.cnpq.br/8499444232725816 ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-9677-
7634.
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INTRODUCTION TO JACQUES LACAN’S PSYCHOANALYSIS
The psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (1901-1981) does not only revisit
Freud — it revolutionizes him. Lacan proposed a “return to Freud”, but not as mechanical repetition;
His return was, in fact, a critical rereading, full of intersections with linguistics, philosophy and
anthropology. Instead of seeing the unconscious as a hidden place of the spirit, Lacan (1999) brought
language to the center of psychoanalysis. “The unconscious is structured as a language” — this
phrase is not just a catchphrase, it is the basis on which he built a more enigmatic, but also a deeper
psychoanalysis (Ducrot; Todorov, 1974).
From the 1950s onwards, Lacan began his famous seminars in Paris. His concepts were
worked on orally, in presentations that mixed theory, criticism, philosophy and clinical experience
(Rudinesco, 1993). The themes of these meetings were not random: language, desire, body, subject,
ethics and clinic were revisited in a new light. Lacan proposed that the patient’s speech — his words,
silences, slips and stumbles — be analyzed as signifying structures (Jorge, 2008).
For Lacan, language is not a mere means of expression (Caselli, 2014). It is what constitutes
the subject. What you say not only reveals who you are — it constitutes you as a subject. This linguistic
turn has profoundly inuenced the clinical and theoretical practice of modern psychoanalysis. For
Lacan, the subject of the unconscious emerges in the intertwining between signiers, which implies
that its truth is not interior, but structured by the language of the Other (Fink, 1999).
BIOGRAPHY OF JACQUES LACAN
Training and First Steps
Jacques Lacan was born in Paris in 1901. The son of a bourgeois Catholic family, he
showed a rebellious spirit and a brilliant mind from an early age. His initial interest was in medicine,
especially psychiatry, where he worked at the Sainte-Anne hospital. He was also an intern of Gaétean
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de Clérambaut, whom he considered his only master in the psychiatric eld. There, he already showed
an inclination for psychopathologies, especially paranoia. His 1932 doctoral thesis, “La Psychose
paranoïaque dans ses rapports avec la Personnalité: The paranoid psychosis in its relations with the
personality”, already made it clear that his approach would be original, demonstrating impressive
erudition and sympathy for psychoanalysis, at a time when prejudices hindered its dissemination in
France (Dor, 1990; Rassial, 1997).
Lacan actively frequented Parisian intellectual circles, maintaining a dialogue with the
surrealists and with philosophers such as Alexandre Kojève, whose Hegelian reading had a signicant
impact on his theoretical construction of the subject (Juranville, 1987). In 1936, he presented his
theory of the “mirror stage”, which would become one of the cornerstones of his conception of the self
and the formation of the subject in psychoanalysis.
Lacan maintained constant dialogue with central gures of French thought, such as Raymond
Aron, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Georges Bataille, which contributed to his work becoming a point
of intersection between psychoanalysis, philosophy and culture (Vanier, 2005). After joining the Paris
Psychoanalytic Society (SPP), Lacan would break with it, founding his own institutions — such as the
French Society of Psychoanalysis and, later, the Freudian School of Paris — that would profoundly
mark the psychoanalytic eld in France and in the world (Harari, 1990).
Personal Life and Intellectual Relationships
He married Sylvia Bataille, ex-wife of the philosopher Georges Bataille, and had a daughter,
Judith, with her. His personal life was intense, often controversial, as was his institutional trajectory
in psychoanalysis. His presence was remarkable both in clinical and intellectual circles, moving
between medicine, literature, philosophy and art, which gave him a unique position in French culture
(Rudinesco, 1993; Didier-Weill, 1997).
In 1964, after years of tension with the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA), he
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was formally excluded from the institution — mainly because of his refusal to adhere to the traditional
training models and because of his practice of analysis with a variable session, which generated great
controversy in the eld (Jorge, 2008; Harari, 1990).
This rupture, however, did not prevent him from continuing to teach, publish and profoundly
inuence the following generations of psychoanalysts, especially through his seminars, which became
the main means of transmission of his teaching (Miller, 2005).
The Creation of Psychoanalytic Schools and Institutions
Lacan created and disbanded institutions, such as the Freudian School of Paris (EFP), founded
in 1964, and, after its dissolution, the School of the Freudian Cause (ECF), in 1981. Such institutional
movements were not only due to administrative issues, but reected his forceful criticism of the
crystallized forms of organization and standardization of psychoanalytic training (Fink, 1999; Nasio,
1993). Lacan maintained that the knowledge of psychoanalysis was not transmitted by conventional
diplomas or certications, but by a singular subjective experience, conducted in the very course of
analysis and supervision.
In this context, he proposed the device of the pass, an unprecedented form of validation
of the analytic experience, in which the analysand himself presented himself as a witness of the
course of his analysis before a commission (Miller, 2009; Dunker, 2011). This proposal marked a
radical turning point in the way in which the training of the analyst is conceived – no longer as an
accumulated knowledge, but as an ethical and subjective crossing.
THE THREE REGISTERS: IMAGINARY, SYMBOLIC AND REAL
The theory of the three registers consists of one of the central pillars of Lacanian psychoanalysis.
Developed by Lacan throughout his seminars, these records represent different dimensions of human
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existence and the psyche, functioning as fundamental clinical and conceptual operators (Jorge, 2008;
Dunker, 2011).
Imaginary – The Illusion and the Mirror
The Imaginary is the domain of image, appearance and illusory identications. It is where
the ego is born, our image in the mirror, our “ideal self”. It is here that the baby, when he sees himself
reected, believes he sees himself whole, cohesive. But this is a mirage. It is the realm of illusions of
completeness. All our vanity, idealizations and search for recognition are born in this record. The risk
is to get stuck in a game of appearances, a mirror trap.
Lacan presents this conception based on his theory of the “mirror stage”, developed in
1936, where the subject recognizes himself in his reected image, forming a matrix of narcissistic
identication (Lacan, 1998; Harari, 1990).
Symbolic – Law and Language
The Symbolic is the order of language, culture and law. It is what inserts us into society.
Here, the gure of the “Name-of-the-Father” (Lacan, 2005) comes in, which teaches us that not
everything is allowed.
This register structures us as subjects. Language crosses us even before we are born. The
name we receive, the stories we are told, the speeches that form us — all of this is symbolic. Moreover,
desire is mediated by the Other, that is, we only desire what the Other points out to us (Quinet, 2006;
Fink, 1999).
Because, the entry into the eld of the symbolic marks the symbolic castration, which limits
jouissance and inaugurates the subject of desire, introduced into lack and language (Jorge; Ferreira,
2005).
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Real – The Unnamable
The Real is that which escapes language and symbolization. It is not “reality”, but what
cannot be said. The raw pain, the trauma, the death—all of this is Real. It is the one that always
returns to the same place because it does not nd inscription in the other records. In Real, we are
confronted with the impossible. There are no words to name it. And it is precisely this lack of naming
that makes the Real disturb us so deeply.
The Real, in Lacan, is the most difcult register to be approached, because it is the unspeakable
and the unrepresentable — that which resists the symbolic and the imaginary (Miller, 2005; Fink,
2015; Kaf ka, 2015).
THE MIRROR STAGE AND THE FORMATION OF THE SUBJECT
The Mirror Stage is one of the most well-known and fundamental concepts of Lacan’s theory.
Originally presented in 1936 and reformulated in 1949, it proposes that, between 6 and 18 months of
life, the baby, when he sees himself in the mirror, experiences an experience that inaugurates the “I”
– or more precisely, the image of an “I” (Lacan, 1998; Harari, 1990).
This recognition is illusory, because the reected image appears to be complete and
harmonious, while the baby still perceives himself in a fragmented and uncoordinated way. This
rst identication with the specular image inaugurates the formation of the self in the eld of the
Imaginary, establishing a constitutive alienation (Jorge, 2008; Vanier, 2005).
Narcissism and the Other’s Gaze
This moment also marks the birth of primary narcissism: the subject loves the ideal image he
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sees in the mirror, even though it is not actually that. The presence of the Other’s gaze — usually the
mother or caregiver — is fundamental, as it validates and sustains this image.
The desire to be seen and recognized by the Other inaugurates the dynamics of human
desire, always structuring itself from the desire of the Other (Lacan, 1998; Fink, 1999). The subject,
from then on, will incessantly seek this gaze that constitutes and sustains him, which will be central
to the constitution of his place in the discourse.
Identication with the Image
The image with which the baby identies himself is not a faithful reection of his being, but
an idealized form. It is an identication with something external, which already introduces a split
in the subject between what it is and what it appears to be (Nasio, 1993). Lacan points out that this
alienation is constitutive: we are marked from the beginning by exteriority, by the Other, and by an
image that escapes us (Jorge; Ferreira, 2005). This structure prepares the ground for entry into the
Symbolic, where language will operate even more decisively in subjectivation.
The Illusion of Completeness
The problem? This image brings an illusion of completeness that is never fully realized.
We live trying to rediscover that sense of unity we had in front of the mirror, but we never really
succeeded. This endless search feeds our desire, our neuroses, and, of course, our suffering.
In other words, the mirror image offers a promise of totality that is never realized. The child
experiences a feeling of unity that becomes a reference, but also a source of suffering. From then
on, we spend our lives trying to rediscover this feeling of completeness, but we are always faced
with the lack, with the impossible to be lled — which Lacan relates to the eld of desire and the
structure of neurosis (Miller, 2005; Dunker, 2011). Lacanian psychoanalysis shows that this search for
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completeness is the engine of desire, but also of our deepest anxieties.
The Subject of the Unconscious
Lacan proposed a radically new conception of the subject. Contrary to the modern idea of a
cohesive, autonomous, and rational “I,” Lacan asserts that the subject is divided, barred, and that its
truth lies in the unconscious. This unconscious, in turn, is not the reservoir of repressed contents, as
Freud thought in his rst topic, but rather structured as a language — a chain of signiers that escapes
the control of the self (Lacan, 1998; Fink, 1999).
The notion of subject in Lacan is born in the tension between the signier and desire. The
subject of the unconscious is an effect of language, not a cause of itself. That is why Lacan afrms that
“the unconscious is the discourse of the Other” (Lacan, 1998). In this sense, the subject is an effect of
speech, a crack that is formed in the encounter between desire and law (Jorge, 2008). To understand
this dynamic, Lacan proposes the four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis: the unconscious,
repetition, Transference, and drive — all crossed by the notion of subject as an effect of language
(Lacan, 1985).
THE OEDIPUS COMPLEX AND THE PATERNAL FUNCTION
The Oedipus Complex, fundamental in Freudian theory, was profoundly reworked by Lacan
from the perspective of linguistics and the structure of the signier. He shifts the focus from the
biological to the symbolic, demonstrating that desire is inscribed in a network of signiers that shapes
the subject from its entry into language (Lacan, 1998; Dunker, 2011).
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The Symbolic Law and the Prohibition of Incest
Lacan reformulated the Oedipus complex based on the notion of structure. For him, the
entrance into the Symbolic occurs when the subject is confronted with the Law of the Father – which is
presented as the prohibition of incest, that is, the fundamental prohibition of desire for the mother. This
interdiction is not only moral, but also the foundation of the subject, as it inaugurates the separation
between the subject and the primordial Other (the mother), allowing inscription in language, law and
culture (Jorge, 2008; Nasio, 1996). The function of the law is to structure desire, showing that not
everything is allowed and that desire is always mediated by lack.
The Father’s Name and the Paternal Metaphor
The gure of the father, in Lacan (2005), is not necessarily the real or biological father, but
a symbolic function. The Name-of-the-Father is the signier that intervenes in the eld of maternal
desire to prohibit fusion with the child. It is a metaphor that replaces the mother’s desire and introduces
the subject into the eld of difference and language (Lacan, 1998; Miller, 2005). When this symbolic
function fails — as in the foreclosure of the Name-of-the-Father — the subject is unable to structure
his desire symbolically, which can give rise to psychotic conditions (Jorge; Ferreira, 2005).
The Divided Subject and Castration
Symbolic castration, as developed by Lacan, does not concern a physical mutilation, but the
entry of the subject into the eld of lack. To be castrated, in symbolic terms, is to recognize that one
is not everything to the other, that there is a point of loss that constitutes desire (Fink, 1999; Quinet,
2006).
This operation founds the divided subject (sujet barré), alienated in language and moved by a
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desire that is never fully satised. Castration is, therefore, what enables the constitution of the subject
as desiring – and, paradoxically, as incomplete (Didier-Weill, 1997). Therefore, the Lacanian subject
consists of a divided subject, alienated in language and moved by a desire that is never fully realized.
DESIRE IN LACAN: LACK, METONYMY AND OBJECT
In Lacanian theory, desire occupies a central place. But it is not desire in the sense of
something that can be easily satised. Desire, for Lacan, is the desire of the Other — it is structured
from the lack, from what we lack and that cannot be fully fullled (Quinet, 2006; Fink, 1999). This
lack is not a sign of pathology, but an ontological structure: we are missing beings from the beginning,
and it is this constitutive loss that drives our desire (Jorge, 2008; Harari, 1990).
Jouissance is the term Lacan uses to designate that which goes beyond the pleasure principle
— an experience that can be both pleasurable and painful, and that often approaches the unbearable.
The subject sometimes seeks jouissance even when it causes him suffering, as in cases of symptomatic
repetition (Miller, 2009; Nasio, 1996). This distinction between desire and jouissance allows us to
understand symptoms that return, repetitions that insist, even against the rational interest of the
subject.
In effect, Lacan revolutionized the way we understand desire. He proposed a profound
reformulation of the understanding of desire. It is not a simple will, nor an impulse to be satised, but
an incessant movement, which is born of the entry into the symbolic – that is, of the moment in which
the subject is captured by language. Upon entering language, something is irretrievably lost, and this
loss founds the eld of desire (Lacan, 1998; Dunker, 2011).
Lacanian desire does not aim at a xed object. It works in a metonymic way: it slides from
one signier to another, without ever reaching an end point. The subject desires what the Other desires,
or what he supposes the Other desires. In this sense, desire is always in displacement, sustained by a
signifying chain that constantly refers to a beyond (Ducrot; Todorov, 1974; Fink, 1999).
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It is in this context that Lacan introduces the concept of object a, which became one of the
pillars of his theory. It is the object cause of desire, not an object that can be fully obtained, but a point
of lack that moves the subject. Object a is a leftover from the operation of symbolic castration—a lost
part of the subject that returns as the cause of his desire. It can manifest itself in the look, in the voice,
in the body, in dreams, in fantasies, in love — but it is never reduced to a real object (Lacan, 1985;
Jorge; Ferreira, 2005). Precisely because it never completes itself, it keeps the desire moving.
Desire, therefore, is the very structure of the subject in Lacanian theory. It is lack, it is
displacement, it is continuous tension. The human subject is, essentially, a desiring subject — and this
is what constitutes him, what makes him live and suffer, what moves him towards the Other, in search
of the impossible (Fink, 2015; Vanier, 2005).
LANGUAGE AS A STRUCTURE OF THE UNCONSCIOUS
If there is something that denes Lacanian psychoanalysis, it is the afrmation that the
unconscious is structured as a language (Araújo, 2001; Lacan, 1998). This is not a simple metaphor, but
a rigorous theoretical conception, sustained by dialogue with structural linguistics. Lacan appropriated
the ideas of Ferdinand de Saussure and Roman Jakobson to develop his theory, according to which the
unconscious works through signiers, operating with displacements, condensations and metaphors —
just like the mechanisms of language (Ducrot; Todorov, 1974; Saussure, 1945).
Unlike the initial Freudian notion of “repressed content”, Lacan conceives the unconscious as
a chain of signiers. This chain is not irrational, but follows its own logic — the logic of the unconscious,
which manifests itself in dreams, faulty acts, symptoms, and formations of the unconscious in general
(Fink, 1999; Jorge, 2008). The analyst, therefore, becomes a reader of the subject’s speech, someone
who listens to what is said and, above all, what escapes — what the subject does not know what he
says.
For Lacan, the signier is more determinant than the signied. What matters in psychoanalysis
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is not so much the explicit meaning of a speech, but how it is articulated in the signifying chain that
constitutes the subject. The subject is an effect of the signier, and not its creator. We are spoken
before we speak. Language precedes us and shapes us — it is the matrix that organizes our subjectivity
(Lacan, 1998; Fink, 2015).
This point is central: the unconscious manifests itself through language — in lapses,
silences, puns, ambiguities. That is why the symptom must be heard as a text, a singular writing of the
subject. Each one speaks their unconscious in their own way, with their own word games, deviations
and repetitions. The analyst’s role, then, is not to correct or interpret in an authoritarian way, but to
welcome this speech and help the subject to get involved in it, to locate himself in his own signifying
web (Dunker, 2011; Didier-Weill, 2009).
LACAN’S CLINICS: FIRST AND SECOND CLINICS
Lacan developed two major clinical approaches throughout his career, which the
psychoanalytic literature came to name as the First Clinic and the Second Clinic (Dunker, 2017; Fink,
2015). These two moments are not rigidly opposed, but represent different ways of understanding
and intervening in psychic suffering, based on the evolution of his theory of registers (Imaginary,
Symbolic and Real) and the role of the symptom.
In the First Clinic, Lacan is strongly anchored in the logic of the signier. Inuenced by
structural linguistics, he conceives the symptom as a formation of the unconscious, structured as a
language. The symptom is read as a metaphor — an enigma that conceals a repressed desire — and the
analyst’s work is interpretative: listening, punctuating, interpreting, working with the displacements
and condensations of the subject’s speech (Lacan, 1998; Nasio, 1993). The subject, in this perspective,
is the barred subject ($), alienated in language, divided by the desire of the Other. The analyst acts as
the one who conducts free association, seeking to pierce the veil of neurotic repetition.
From the 1970s onwards, Lacan began to reformulate his clinic, giving rise to what is known
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as the Second Clinic. In this approach, the focus shifts from the symbolic to the Real — that which
escapes symbolization. The symptom, now called sinthoma (with th, in the manner of the old term
used by James Joyce), ceases to be something to be deciphered and is now seen as a singular subjective
tie, an invention that allows the subject to sustain himself in the face of the unbearable of the real
(Lacan, 2005; Miller, 2009). The sinthoma is not necessarily pathological; it is, in many cases, what
makes the subject’s consistency possible. Therefore, it should not be dissolved, but understood in its
sustaining function.
This clinical change points to a theoretical and ethical shift: from a clinic of interpretation
to a clinic of subjective reconstruction (Didier-Weill; Safouan, 2009). The analyst, in the Second
Clinic, ceases to be the one who interprets the truth of the subject and becomes a partner in the
journey, someone who sustains the bond and recognizes the singular invention of the analysand. It is
a clinic closer to reality, to what is not said, but insisted on — and which can only be supported by the
construction of a singular way of existing.
THE BORROMEAN KNOT: A TOPOLOGY OF THE PSYCHE
Lacan has always shown an interest in formal and mathematical structures, using topological
gures to think about the unconscious and the constitution of the subject. The Borromean Knot is
perhaps one of his most ingenious constructions. These are three rings intertwined in such a way that
if one falls apart, all the others also fall apart. This image represents the interdependence between the
three registers of psychoanalysis: Real, Symbolic and Imaginary (Lacan, 2005; Fink, 2015).
This topology offers a new way to understand the structure of the subject. Each register
— R (Real), S (Symbolic) and I (Imaginary) — fullls an essential function. When they are well
intertwined, even if the subject suffers, he maintains a certain subjective consistency. However, if
one of the registers fails or is disconnected from the others, there may be structural ruptures, as in
psychoses, where the connection between the symbolic and the real is precarious or non-existent
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(Jorge, 2008; Dunker, 2011). For this reason, the Lacanian clinic is interested in understanding how
these registers are articulated or disarticulated in each subject, observing the specic modes of their
binding.
Later in his work, especially in Seminar 23 – The Sinthoma, Lacan introduces a fourth link
to the Borromean Knot: the synthoma. This element, inspired by his reading of James Joyce, is not
to be confused with the traditional symptom, but is understood as a subjective invention that allows
the subject to sustain himself even when there are aws in the binding of the three registers (Lacan,
2005; Miller, 2009). The sinthoma operates as a kind of supplementary knot, which holds together the
subject’s psychic plot.
This Borromean approach represents one of Lacan’s most innovative contributions to the
clinic. It breaks with the idea of a universal structure of the psyche and proposes that each subject
builds his or her own knot, with unique ways of tying together. Clinic, in this context, becomes an art
of listening and recognizing this singularity — it is no longer a matter of interpreting in the classical
sense, but of respecting and sustaining the singular mode of existence that the subject has produced
in order to live (Didier-Weill; Safouan, 2009; Nasio, 1996).
PSYCHOPATHOLOGY IN LACAN: NEUROSIS, PSYCHOSIS AND PERVERSION
Lacan kept the three great clinical pictures inherited from Freud – neurosis, psychosis and
perversion – but gave them a new, structurally based approach. Instead of categorizing subjects by
manifest symptoms, Lacan proposed to understand these structures from the subject’s relationship
with the signier, castration and the Other (Nasio, 1993; Jorge, 2008).
In neurosis, there is a successful paternal metaphor: the subject undergoes symbolic castration
and accepts the interdiction of incestuous desire. However, this acceptance is not without consequences.
The subject suffers from symptoms, inhibitions and anguish, the result of the tension between the
repressed desire and the symbolic law. The neurotic is immersed in an excess of signication —
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everything has a “why”, a meaning to be unveiled. The symptom, in this case, functions as a substitute
formation for the fulllment of the forbidden desire (Fink, 1999; Dunker, 2011).
In psychosis, on the other hand, the foreclosure of the Name-of-the-Father occurs, that is,
the paternal metaphor fails to take hold. Without this organizing signier, the subject does not fully
enter the eld of the symbolic, and the real erupts in a brutal way. This can manifest in delusions,
hallucinations, and psychotic triggering phenomena. Language, here, does not function as structuring
mediation, but as fragmentation and rupture — the symbolic cannot buffer the real (Lacan, 1998;
Harari, 1990; Jorge; Ferreira, 2005).
Perversion, in the Lacanian conception, is not a moral deviation, but a stable clinical structure.
The wicked do not reject the law, but place themselves as an exception to it. Instead of being castrated,
he positions himself as the one who embodies the object of the Other’s desire, operating in a logic of
challenge and staging of castration (Nasio, 1996; Fink, 2015). The perverse, unlike the neurotic, does
not suffer for desiring what he cannot, but makes the Other suffer, placing himself as an instrument
of the Other’s jouissance.
Psychopathology in Lacan, therefore, is not a descriptive classication of symptoms, but
a structural reading of the subject. Each structure determines a singular form of relationship with
desire, language and the Other. It is this structural position that guides the analyst’s work, much more
than the symptomatic appearance (Didier-Weill; Safouan, 2009; Miller, 2005).
THE ETHICS OF PSYCHOANALYSIS IN LACAN
Ethics, for Lacan, is not to be confused with moral codes or universal rules about good
and evil. It is an ethics of desire, in which the subject is called upon to take responsibility for the
position he occupies in relation to what moves him. Lacan takes up the Freudian tradition, but shifts
psychoanalysis to a territory where there is no place for ideals of adaptation or social conformity
(Lacan, 1988; Fink, 1999).
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In Seminar 7 – The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, Lacan (1988) states that the only ethical
commandment of psychoanalysis is: “Do not give in to your desire”. This maxim does not invite
unconscious impulsiveness, but proposes that the subject does not betray himself by renouncing what
constitutes his most authentic desire. To do so, it is necessary to break with the expectations imposed
by the Other — whether social, family or ego ideals — and confront the singular truth that inhabits
the subject (Didier-Weill; Safouan, 2009; Dunker, 2011).
This ethic is anything but comfortable. It requires the courage of the subject to endure
anguish, lack, and the impossibility of plenitude. It also requires the willingness to let go of protective
fantasies and face the division that constitutes it. The ethics of desire is, therefore, an ethics of truth,
in which the subject is implicated in his speech and responsibility, without appealing to external
justications or blame (Freud, 1996; Bleichmar; Bleichmar, 1992).
Lacan harshly criticizes the so-called “adaptive psychotherapies”, which intend to adjust the
subject to the current social norm. For him, psychoanalysis does not aim at the normalization of the
individual, but at the recognition of his subjective singularity, even if this makes him strange in the
eyes of the world. The Lacanian clinic, therefore, sustains a radical ethical position: it does not seek
to cure in the traditional sense, but to make room for the subject to invent his own way of living with
desire (Miller, 2005; Nasio, 1996).
Lacanian ethics, therefore, is profoundly subversive. It does not promise happiness or
adjustment, but invites the crossing of subjective truth. Like a lighthouse, desire illuminates the path
— not the destination, but the path, always singular, always under construction (Simanke, 2002;
Fingermann; Ramos, 2009).
THE SINTHOMA CLINIC
The concept of sinthoma (with “th”) represents one of the most important inections in
Lacan’s theory and clinic. If, in his rst clinic, the symptom was understood as a formation of the
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unconscious to be interpreted – an enigma to be deciphered – in the turn promoted from Seminar
23 – The Sinthoma, Lacan himself states that there are symptoms that cannot be interpreted, but that
must be sustained by the subject (Lacan, 2005; Fink, 2015).
Unlike the neurotic symptom, structured as a metaphor for repressed desire, the sinthoma is
a singular form of jouissance, a solution invented by the subject to deal with the real, which escapes
symbolization. It functions as a tie between the Real, Symbolic, and Imaginary (RSI) registers —
and may be the only way in which the subject nds some psychic consistency (Miller, 2009; Dunker,
2011). The clinic of sinthoma does not aim at healing in the traditional sense, but at the possibility of
doing something with suffering, transforming it into a way of existing.
Lacan is inspired by the work of James Joyce to develop this conception. In Joyce, he sees a
subject who, faced with the risk of psychotic triggering, has invented a way to tie the records together
through literary writing. His work was not only art, but sinthoma — a subjective solution that allowed
him to escape destructuring (Lacan, 2005; Fingermann; Ramos, 2009). This reveals how, beyond the
classic clinic, the creative act can be a legitimate form of tying.
In this clinic, the analyst no longer occupies the place of decipherer, but that of witness and
partner on the journey. Its role is to sustain listening, to accompany the subject in the construction of
a new relationship with his synthoma, allowing him to nd a less painful way of inhabiting it (Didier-
Weill; Safouan, 2009; Mezêncio et al., 2014). Instead of seeking the disappearance of the symptom,
Lacanian psychoanalysis proposes that the subject reinvent his position in the face of jouissance.
This approach proves to be particularly potent for non-neurotic cases or cases outside the
traditional diagnostic norm. It inaugurates a clinic of the singular, which respects subjective solutions
and recognizes that each one must nd their own way to tie the knot — even if this form does not pass
through language, but through art, writing, and everyday invention (Rabanal; Millet, 1998; Souza;
Guarreschi, 2018).
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THE ROLE OF THE ANALYST IN LACANIAN PSYCHOANALYSIS
In the Lacanian clinic, the analyst is not a counselor, a spiritual guide or a technician of
the mind, as Safouan (1985) emphasizes. Its role is much more complex and subtle: the analyst must
sustain the place where the subject can speak, listen to himself and nd his desire. It acts as a support
for the analysand’s desire, without seeking to impose meanings or adapt the subject to social norms
(Lacan, 1998; Bleichmar; Bleichmar, 1992).
Unlike the classical neutrality of the Freudian tradition, the Lacanian analyst operates with
acts. A silence, a precise intervention, a repetition or even the cutting of the session can have effects
of rupture and transformation. The analyst is attentive to the signiers that return, to the lapses, to the
inconsistencies of speech — he listens to what escapes the subject’s conscious control (Miller, 2005;
Nasio, 1996).
A key concept in this perspective is that of the “Subject Supposed to Know” (S.S.S.). When
entering into analysis, the subject attributes to the analyst a knowledge about his unconscious. It is this
assumption of knowing that sustains transference and drives the desire to know. However, the analyst
does not respond with knowledge — he sustains the emptiness, the lack, allowing the analysand to
construct something of his own, a knowledge that can only emerge from the crossing of analysis
(Dunker, 2011; Saouan In Didier-Weill; Safouan, 2009).
Another fundamental aspect is the function of the cut, Lacan’s technical innovation. The
session of variable duration does not follow chronological time, but is conducted by listening to
the exact moment in which something from the unconscious is revealed. The cut creates a hole in
the signifying chain, a point of suspension that can make desire emerge or break the repetition of
jouissance (Lacan, 1985; Fink, 2015; IF-EPFCL, 2008). This gesture is, at the same time, clinical,
ethical and political.
The analyst, in this logic, is an operator of desire and language. Its function is minimal,
but decisive. He does not lead, but leads astray; it does not interpret authoritatively, but punctuates
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accurately. Their presence is marked by a radical listening that allows the subject to take responsibility
for his speech and for his truth (Jorge, 2008; Fingermann; Ramos, 2009). The Lacanian clinic is thus
a clinic of subjectivation and singularity.
THE SUBVERSION OF THE SUBJECT IN LACAN
Lacan did not want to adapt the subject to society, to common sense or to normality, that
is, he did not propose a psychoanalysis aimed at adapting the subject to social norms, to the ideal
of the ego or to common sense. His project was different: to subvert the subject. This subversion
occurs in the eld of the unconscious, by making the subject confront what he does not want to know
about himself, what returns in symptoms, dreams, and faulty acts, as a repressed truth that insists on
emerging (Lacan, 1998; Freud, 1996; Fink, 1999).
Lacanian psychoanalysis does not aim at healing in the medical sense of the term, but at the
transformation of the subject through speech. Lacan recovers the Freudian notion that the subject is
divided — the famous barred subject ($) —, structured in and by language, and crossed by the desire
for the Other (Bleichmar; Bleichmar, 1992; Nasio, 1993). It is not, therefore, a matter of nding a “true
self” or a hidden essence, but of assuming the structural lack, which is constitutive of the human
condition.
To subvert the subject, in this context, is to lead him to recognize that he is not the master
of his own desire, that he does not control his speech, and that he does not dominate what he says
or does. This does not lead to hopelessness, but to what Lacan calls ethical responsibility in the face
of desire. When the subject accepts his lack, he can invent new forms of existence — less alienated,
more singular (Lacan, 1988; Dunker, 2011; Didier-Weill; Safouan, 2009).
This subversion also has ethical, political, and social consequences. It destabilizes
normative ideals, standards of behavior, totalizing discourses about what is right or healthy. Lacanian
psychoanalysis, in this sense, is radically critical: it invites the subject to think of himself as an
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exception, as a singularity, as an invention. It rejects normalization and afrms the value of the
symptom as a way of existing (Rabanal; Millet, 1998; If-Epfcl, 2008).
The subversion of the subject is, therefore, also a form of freedom. Not freedom to do
everything you want, but freedom not to be reduced to what the Other expects. A freedom that is born
from listening to one’s own speech and the desire that insinuates itself there.
LACAN AND CONTEMPORANEITY: WHY DOES IT STILL MATTER?
Even after his death in 1981, Lacan remains one of the most provocative and indispensable
thinkers for understanding the subject in contemporary times. In a world marked by a logic of
performance, medicalization of suffering, and emotional positivism, Lacanian psychoanalysis offers
a radical listening, which resists the norms of “functioning well” (Dunker, 2011; Fink, 1999).
Lacan teaches us that suffering is not a defect to be corrected, but an expression of the
unconscious, something that insists on returning — and that only nds acceptance when there is
space for speech. The symptom, far from being an “error of the system”, carries an enigmatic message
that can be deciphered or simply listened to, without haste, without ready answers (Lacan, 1998;
Bleichmar; Bleichmar, 1992). This position goes against contemporary discourses, which often try to
erase the malaise with immediate interventions and standardized solutions.
In times of toxic positivity, social networks, and idealizations of the “happy self”, Lacanian
psychoanalysis proposes another way: listening to what escapes the image, what pierces the discourse,
what does not t. The unconscious continues to produce effects, desire continues to operate, and
language continues to mark the subject — even if he tries to silence them (Simanke, 2002; Fingermann;
Ramos, 2009). The Lacanian clinic remains one of the rare spaces of singularity, where the subject
can speak without being judged, corrected or adapted.
Indeed, Lacan matters and he reminds us that the human is not total, it is not complete, it
is not perfect. It is lack, it is desire, it is incompleteness — and that is precisely what moves us. In a
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world that values excess and overcoming, Lacan bets on limitation as a possibility of creation. His
work does require effort. But it is this effort that produces displacement and truth (Miller, 2005;
Didier-Weill; Safouan, 2009).
More than ever, Lacan matters. He reminds us that the human is lack, it is desire, it is
uniqueness. And that there is beauty and power in it. His work is not easy, but it is necessary. And it
continues to challenge generations to think, feel and listen differently.
Lacan’s relevance is, therefore, not in offering answers, but in sustaining good questions.
And this is what makes his psychoanalysis so alive, so challenging and so necessary in the twenty-
rst century.
FINAL CONSIDERATIONS: THE LACANIAN CROSSING OF THE CLINIC OF WORD
AND DESIRE.
Jacques Lacan’s work is, without a doubt, one of the most challenging and thought-provoking
milestones in the history of psychoanalysis. He not only took up Freud’s concepts, but took them to a
new level, bringing language, topology, mathematics, and philosophy to the center of clinical debate.
Throughout this article, we have seen that Lacan does not offer easy answers. On the contrary,
it complicates — in the best sense of the word. Because understanding the human subject requires
this: to get out of the commonplace, abandon simplistic solutions and open oneself to the enigma that
is desire, speech, and symptom.
Lacan shows us that there is no “cure” in the traditional sense. There is listening, welcoming,
elaboration, invention. Psychic suffering is not an error to be corrected, but a legitimate expression
of what is missing – and what constitutes us. Each subject is unique, and your clinic should be too.
Today, in times of excessive medicalization, the rush for diagnoses, and a market logic that
seeks to standardize even human suffering, Lacanian psychoanalysis remains an act of resistance. It
sustains listening to the singular, valuing the unconscious, respecting the subject’s time.
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Jacques Lacan remains alive in his work, in his seminars, in his readers, in his analysts —
and above all, in the subjects who continue to ask themselves the question: “What is it that moves
me?” And it is precisely this question that keeps psychoanalysis alive.
Indeed, in times marked by totalizing discourses, quick solutions and a growing
homogenization of the human experience, Lacanian psychoanalysis imposes itself as a way of ethical,
rigorous and profoundly human listening. Lacan invites us to think beyond the surface, to face what
is most intimate and enigmatic in the subject: his desire, his lack, his truth.
His work, often considered arid or hermetic, reveals itself, on the contrary, as an open map
to the uniqueness of each one. An invitation to read, to listen and, above all, to take responsibility
for what constitutes us. Lacan reminds us that the subject’s knowledge is in his speech — and that
psychoanalysis, when faithful to it, remains not only current, but necessary.
Therefore, more than a theoretical system, Lacanian psychoanalysis is an experience. A
journey that begins with the word, but which is only sustained by desire — that silent, insistent and
unnished engine, which pushes us to live, to repeat, to desire... and, perhaps, to reinvent it.
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