How to Read Lacan

Is psychoanalysis dead or are we to read frequent attacks on its theoretical ‘mistakes’ and clinical ‘frauds’ as a proof of its vitality?

Slavoj Zizek’s passionate defence of Lacan reasserts the ethical urgency of psychoanalysis. Traditionally, psychoanalysis was expected to allow the patient to overcome the obstacles which prevented access to ‘normal’ sexual enjoyment; today, however, we are bombarded from all sides by different versions of the injunction ‘Enjoy!’ Lacan reminds us that psychoanalysis is the only discourse in which you are allowed not to enjoy. Since for Lacan psychoanalysis itself is a procedure of reading, each chapter uses a passage from Lacan as a tool to interpret another text from philosophy, art or popular ideology. Lacan is read with Hegel and Hitchcock, with Shakespeare and Dostoevsky.