Jacques Lacan and the Logic of Structure ─ Topology and Language in Psychoanalysis

Lacan postulated that the psyche can be understood by means of certain structures, which control our lives and our desires, and which operate differently at different logical moments or stages of formation.Jacques Lacan and the Logic of Structure offers us a reading of the major concepts of Lacan in terms of his later topological theory and aims to show how this was always a concern for Lacan and not only an issue in the last seminars.

Ellie Ragland discusses how various stages of formation can be uncovered topologically within language itself, and operate to place certain properties – fantasy, the drive, jouissance, discourse and ethics in language itself. In this way she explores not only how language actually works in tandem with the properties, but also gives a different idea of what knowledge actually is and what implications that may have for reimagining and reworking differential/diagnostic structures.

Jacques Lacan and the Logic of Structure is a compelling exponent of the innovative approaches Lacan takes to rethinking what psychoanalysis is and what it can do to enlighten psychoanalysts and treat patients. It will be essential reading to psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic psychotherapists, training graduate students in the fields of film, literary, gender and cultural studies.

Ellie Ragland is Professor of English and Honorary French Professor as well as Frederick A. Middlebush Chair at The University of Missouri where she teaches psychoanalytic theory and world literature.She is author of seven authored and edited books on Lacanian psychoanalysis. She is a practicing psychoanalyst and is a member of the New Lacanian School and the World Association of Psychoanalysis.