Four Lessons of Psychoanalysis

by Moustafa Safouan

In this delightfully readable and clearly written volume, the world renowned psychoanalyst Moustafa Safouan considers the works of Freud and Lacan. When Safouan met Lacan in 1949, he was all but ready to abandon the field due to the many contradictions and obscurities he found in Freud. Yet thanks to Lacan's early presentation of the father as real, imaginary, and symbolic, Safouan stayed on, working with Lacan until Lacan?s death in 1981. One can track the evolution of Safouan's teaching through his participation in Lacan's published seminars and his early contributions.

Safouan wrote this book in English, starting with a transcript from a series of lectures he delivered to the Lacanian School of Psychoanalysis in San Francisco, in March of 2001. Safouan clears up many of Lacan's own obscurities, although he is quick to point out that there are no contradictions in Lacan.

Readers will find the cause of desire, both through the signifier and through the 'normative' (rather than normal) development of the child. Safouan explains the three forms of lack, the root of subjectivity, the desire of the analyst, the Other as different from the other, the object cause of desire, transference, countertransference and lateral transference, and the analytic act in a narrative that brings these and other concepts together, in a 'dictionary' that could never be divided by terms.

Genres: Psychoanalysis, Psychology, Philosophy

110 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[مَرْيَم م. س. حنا · Rating 3 out of 5]

مش فاهمه حاجة..

[Star! ✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Four Lessons of Psychoanalysis was recommended by How To Read Lacan, as an introductory book. The book focuses on four rather vague 'lessons' on Freudian and Lacanain theory. The book however should be tackled after one has done some background reading on Freud and Lacan. I would recommend reading the 'Introducing Lacan' and 'Introducing Freud' books before tackling this rather short and informative book.

[Oğuzhan · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a relatively concise text. The fact that it requires so little forreading and knowledge about the topic makes it a great book for Freud, Lacan, and psychoanalysis enthusiasts.

[Joey · Rating 3 out of 5]

You definitely need to already familiarize yourself with Freud and lacan briefly but an hour of research should get you to a competency for this text. It's very brief and brass tacks almost to it's detriment. One would appreciate a longer form of engagement in the QA portions as it seemed these lessons were somewhat editorialized. None the less incredibly helpful if you're not spending too much on a copy or can scare up a pdf

[Ben Albertyn]

“Question: Do you think there is a biological basis for the unconscious?

No. Everything I have said can only be taken as proof of how far the unconscious is from having a biological basis, of the subversion of the biological by the signifier.”

[Aung Myat Minn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Of four lessos in this book , only the second is interesting and readable for me ,in which Moustafa explains roughly and briefly demonstrating the basic structure of human nature as the exchange of Language(as the thirdness capable of uniting the pairs) by setting out the notions of sociologists such as Durkheim ,Mercel Mauss , LeviStrauss in order to lead the readers to the concepts of Lacan about Language ,the Other, etc.But the rest of the book are in my opinion unclear in explaining the theories of Freud and Lacan about the Phallus, Symbolic Castration ,Paternal metaphor ,the name of the father ,etc and some of them are different with what I've already understood about them.This last one makes me panic.

[Hegazy Mohamed · Rating 3 out of 5]

رغم صغر حجم هذا الكتاب ، ألا أنه يحمل علماَ جماَ و خلاصة سنين الخبرة و العلم و العمل و يحتاج لمزيد من القراءة المتأنية المنضبطة ، كي تصل إلي الطلب و الرغبة في العلم اللاكاني .

[Suad Ahmed · Rating 5 out of 5]

happened upon this book by chance, and was glad I did alhamdulilah!

[Marawan Awad · Rating 2 out of 5]

مفهمتش حاجة... كتاب للمتخصصين فقط و نظري جدا .... لاكان و فرويد ....

[Hamza Tatawi]

I wante to read