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The Seductions of Psychoanalysis: Freud, Lacan and Derrida
The Seductions of Psychoanalysis reflects on the history of psychoanalysis, its conceptual foundations and its relation to other disciplines. John Forrester probes the origins of psychoanalysis and its most beguiling concept, the transference, which is at once its institutional axis and experimental core. He explores the most seductive of all recent psychoanalytic traditions, that inspired by Jacques Lacan, whose radical questioning of psychoanalytic effects has been continued implicitly by Michel Foucault and explicitly by Jacques Derrida. Other key questions addressed include the significance of speech in the talking cure, and the relationship between the 'real' of psychoanalysis and the fictionality of the 'truth' it offers. Dr Forrester also focuses on the relationship between psychoanalysis and the feminine, on analysis and gossip, on the borderline of seduction and rape, and on the women who have played such a crucial role in the history of psychoanalysis, as patients, analysts or both.
- GenresPsychoanalysisPsychology
440 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
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About the author
John Forrester
16 books6 followersLibrarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 8, 2025
Fantastic! I can't recommend it enough. A great collection of diverse essays and some great gems in there too. There isn't as much Derrida in there as I thought there'd be but he does play a significant role in a few of the papers. Forrester explores Freud and Dora, Lacan and ends with Foucault. His book "Thinking in Cases" is also excellent. I look forward to reading his other works.
May 13, 2018
John Forrester's text is less a coherent book than a series of loosely-connected essays - similar, in this respect, to Malcolm Bowie's Freud, Proust and Lacan: Theory as Fiction, but even less focused.
The section on Freud contains Forrester's reflections on the case of Anna O. (Ch.1), an examination of the relationship between psychoanalysis and medicine (Ch.2), a discussion of the case of Dora (Ch.3), an analysis of the differences between rape and seduction (Ch.4), and a brief chapter on self-fulfilling prophecies (Ch.5).
Forrester worked on the translations of Lacan's Seminar I and II, and he draws on that experience for this section of the book. Echoing Kojève, he provides the reader with a long history and explanation of Lacan's main ideas, with a special focus on the first two seminars (Ch.6). That is followed by a long discussion of Lacan's ideas about language in comparison with J.L. Austin (Ch.7) and a chapter on the notion of time (Ch.8).
The final part of the book claims to focus on Derrida, but in fact this is true only of Ch.9, in which Forrester examines the interplay between Derrida and psychoanalysis. Ch.10 is a rather brief and bizarre discussion of gossip and psychoanalysis, while Ch.11 diverges still further from previous themes by reading Dostoevsky's novel The Gambler in light of the notion of transference. The book closes (Ch.12) with a meditation on Foucault's relationship to psychoanalysis, undoubtedly the most interesting part of the book, and yet apparently tangential to its project.
I wonder if Forrester's book (and Bowie's, too) are marked by an anxiety that their readers will struggle to deal with the Lacanian concepts they are putting forward - both texts, after all, provide a lengthy overview of Lacan's work that seems completely redundant to today's reader. The work that results is scholarly and learned, but it lacks a certain edge that, especially now that the period of high theory has passed, makes it look decidedly mediocre.
The section on Freud contains Forrester's reflections on the case of Anna O. (Ch.1), an examination of the relationship between psychoanalysis and medicine (Ch.2), a discussion of the case of Dora (Ch.3), an analysis of the differences between rape and seduction (Ch.4), and a brief chapter on self-fulfilling prophecies (Ch.5).
Forrester worked on the translations of Lacan's Seminar I and II, and he draws on that experience for this section of the book. Echoing Kojève, he provides the reader with a long history and explanation of Lacan's main ideas, with a special focus on the first two seminars (Ch.6). That is followed by a long discussion of Lacan's ideas about language in comparison with J.L. Austin (Ch.7) and a chapter on the notion of time (Ch.8).
The final part of the book claims to focus on Derrida, but in fact this is true only of Ch.9, in which Forrester examines the interplay between Derrida and psychoanalysis. Ch.10 is a rather brief and bizarre discussion of gossip and psychoanalysis, while Ch.11 diverges still further from previous themes by reading Dostoevsky's novel The Gambler in light of the notion of transference. The book closes (Ch.12) with a meditation on Foucault's relationship to psychoanalysis, undoubtedly the most interesting part of the book, and yet apparently tangential to its project.
I wonder if Forrester's book (and Bowie's, too) are marked by an anxiety that their readers will struggle to deal with the Lacanian concepts they are putting forward - both texts, after all, provide a lengthy overview of Lacan's work that seems completely redundant to today's reader. The work that results is scholarly and learned, but it lacks a certain edge that, especially now that the period of high theory has passed, makes it look decidedly mediocre.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews