Lacan and Culturalism

A Chronicle of an “Untimely” Resistance to Psychoanalysis

Bibliographic Data

ID8333766
AuthorsNicolas Guérin (0000-0001-9458-485X, Laboratoire de psychologie clinique, psychopathologie, psychanalyse, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume71
Issue1
Pages33-60
Publication date2023-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0003-0651 • E-ISSN: 1941-2460
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/00030651231154623
OpenAlexW4287404410
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited17

Although neither Sigmund Freud nor Jacques Lacan ever neglected the place of culture and the social field for the subject, they always opposed “culturalist” ideas, even when such ideas no longer used this label. It is important to examine what both of these figures said about culturalism, but it is just as pertinent to return to other criticisms of this movement, which developed in the United States during the last century, because at present this movement has returned covertly within French psychoanalysis. First, “culturalism” is neither a specifically American problem nor one that belongs to the past. Second, some decisive criticisms of this movement remain both germane and original: they are able to throw light on a theoretical current that, at least in France, now characterizes a dominant orientation of psychoanalytic work. Third, although Lacan himself foresaw it, the misuse of some of his notions has unexpectedly served as a Trojan horse that has enabled culturalism to return

Culturalism · Political science · Politics · Psychoanalysis · Resistance (ecology) · Law · Philosophy · Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics · Psychology

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