The Language of the Self: The Function of Language in Psychoanalysis

by Jacques Lacan

A classic work on Freud by one of France's foremost philosophers and literary critics. Jacques Lacan's commentaries on Freud had revolutionary implications not only for the analytic movement but also for contemporary philosophy and literary criticism. Lacan held that if the unconscious, as Freud described it, exists, it functions linguistically, rather than symbolically or instinctually. He refers to the unconscious as a "the discourse of the Other." In The Language of the Self Lacan offers a significant and fertile return to the heart of the Freudian texts. Originally published in paperback under the title Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis , this book is based on Anthony Wilden's translation of "Fonction et champ de la parole et du langage en psychanalyse," a 1953 article that became a manifesto for a generation interested in a new reading of Freud. Wilden expands and amplifies the text with extensive notes and a commentary that places Lacan's work in the context of contemporary thought.

Genres: Psychology, Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, Language, Nonfiction, Theory, France

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Jacques-Marie-Émile Lacan was a French psychoanalyst, psychiatrist, and doctor, who made prominent contributions to the psychoanalytic movement. His yearly seminars, conducted in Paris from 1953 until his death in 1981, were a major influence in the French intellectual milieu of the 1960s and 1970s, particularly among post-structuralist thinkers.

Lacan's ideas centered on Freudian concepts such as the unconscious, the castration complex, the ego, focusing on identifications, and the centrality of language to subjectivity. His work was interdisciplinary, drawing on linguistics, philosophy, mathematics, amongst others. Although a controversial and divisive figure, Lacan is widely read in critical theory, literary studies, and twentieth-century French philosophy, as well as in the living practice of clinical psychoanalysis.