Lacanian Affects: The function of affect in Lacan's work

by Colette Soler, Bruce Fink (Translator)

Affect is a high-stakes topic in psychoanalysis, but there has long been a misperception that Lacan neglected affect in his writings. We encounter affect at the beginning of any analysis in the form of subjective suffering that the patient hopes to alleviate. How can psychoanalysis alleviate such suffering when analytic practice itself gives rise to a wide range of affects in the patient’s relationship to the analyst? Lacanian The Function of Affect in Lacan’s Work, is the first book to explore Lacan’s theory of affect and its implications for contemporary psychoanalytic practice. In it, Colette Soler discusses affects as diverse as the pain of existence, hatred, ignorance, mourning, sadness, "joyful knowledge," boredom, moroseness, anger, shame, and enthusiasm. Soler’s discussion culminates in a highlighting of so-called enigmatic anguish, love, and the satisfaction related to the end of an analysis. Lacanian Affects provides a unique and compelling account of affect that will prove to be an essential text for psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, psychologists, and social workers.

182 pages, Paperback

First published May 7, 2015

About the author

Colette Soler is a psychoanalyst trained by Jacques Lacan, and a founding member of the School of Psychoanalysis of the Forums of the Lacanian Field.

Reviews

[Marius · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not a psychoanalyst, I have limited knowledge on Lacan, maybe basic stuff.
But the 30% of this book that I did understand were like gems. Glimpings of light and obscure dark.
This is not a book about emotions.
The affects talked about are placed in the RUNC (real unconscious), the place where all laws of meaning and language fail but which nevertheless constitutes the Subject. This locus is where anguish comes from, enigmatic affects (absent of meaning, cause-effect), jouissance, way of being, symptoms and synthome.
I had a lacanian dictionary to help me out but damn, the concepts are so abstract and by themselves are void of any certitude.
The idea of enjoyed-knowledge, the truth as half-spoken truth, there can never be absolute truth because the real always has it's half as a lack of lack, a "plug", a void from which lalangue operates...
Meaning and dechipering can only go as far, but the Real is like Tao, the moment you speak about it...it is no longer Real. The real is where uncertainty, lack, meaning don,'t exist yet it is everywhere.
Altough this is not a book for the general public, my interest in Lacan grows, as his teachings being sooo paradoxical, abstract they get by that fact closer to the reality of human experience.
Incredible.