This article examines central ideas from Jacques Lacan's later psychoanalytic theory on psychosis... more This article examines central ideas from Jacques Lacan's later psychoanalytic theory on psychosis. In the 1950s, Lacan formulated a structural model of psychosis, asserting that the central element of symbolically organized mental life, the Name-of-the-Father, is missing, leading to a latent vulnerability for psychotic episodes. In the 1970s, Lacan made significant changes to this model by introducing two new concepts: Father-of-the-Name and père-version. These concepts are plays on the original Name-of-the-Father concept and refer to two other aspects of the father function: the creative act of naming and embracing modes of life, respectively. Furthermore, in the 1970s, Lacan suggested that creating coherence in mental life does not necessarily require an exemplar of a paternal identification figure. Drawing from the case of the modernist writer James Joyce, he argued that singular inventions can just as effectively establish stability. This argument is elaborated upon by introducing the concepts of "sinthome" and "escabeau."
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative... more This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY
Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 2023
This paper examines the principal ideas from Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic theory of psychosis. ... more This paper examines the principal ideas from Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic theory of psychosis. According to Lacan's theory in the 1950s, the central organizing element of symbolically organized mental life, the Name-of-the-Father, is missing in psychosis. That theory changes with later conceptual developments in Lacan's work that focus on the incompleteness of symbolic functioning. This connects with how, in his works from the late 1960s and the 1970s, Lacan embraces the idea of a fundamental non-rapport and symbolic non-existence at the basis of mental life. In a second step, the paper explores what the Lacanian model of psychosis implies with regard to ethical positioning, addressing the unconscious, handling transference, and crisis and stability in psychosis. A clinical case discussion focuses on a yearlong therapeutic trajectory with a young man with Down's syndrome who suffered from psychotic experiences.
In this chapter Stijn Vanheule discusses how the DSM-5 takes context into account and clarifies t... more In this chapter Stijn Vanheule discusses how the DSM-5 takes context into account and clarifies the “kind of entity” the manual considers mental disorders to be. In the DSM-5 the context of the individual (i.e., the personal life history, social circumstances, and cultural background) is thought to play a minor moderating role in relation to symptom formation and expression. Moreover, as the manual follows a sign-based logic, it coheres with the assumption that biological irregularities lie at the basis of mental distress. The author argues that, by doing this, the DSM cultivates a naive essentialistic view of mental disorders, which is not supported by relevant evidence. Starting from phenomenological psychiatry and Lacanian psychoanalysis, Vanheule proposes an alternative model of symptom formation. Within this model, the symptom is a multidimensional product with certain speech-act specific qualities, biological characteristics, and contextual configuration features covering characteristics that are specific of an individual, family, social context, and (sub-)culture.
... En toch is er 'iets' dat maakt dat we alle-maal bang blijven voor wolven ... op vaa... more ... En toch is er 'iets' dat maakt dat we alle-maal bang blijven voor wolven ... op vaag, omdat deze verhalen meestal van mond tot mond gaan zonder dat duidelijk is wie of wat ... Nog voor er sprake is van enig tastbaar bewijs ontstaat er binnen een gesloten bio-toop een extreme vorm ...
Contrary to Freud, who first trained as a neurologist, Lacan started his career as a psychiatrist... more Contrary to Freud, who first trained as a neurologist, Lacan started his career as a psychiatrist and focused on psychosis. Between 1927 and 1931 he underwent training in several psychiatric clinics. At the Sainte-Anne hospital he worked under the supervision of Henri Claude, and at the Special Infirmary of the Paris police headquarters, under Gaetan Gatian de Clerambault (Roudinesco, 1994). Henri Claude was one of the first clinicians in France to institutionalize the teaching of psychoanalysis, where he combined psychodynamic theory with biological determinism. This theoretical position was subsequently elaborated and termed Organo-Dynamism by Henri Ey, a pupil who trained under Claude together with Lacan. Gaetan Gatian de Clerambault, on the other hand, was less influential at that time, perhaps because he was not a university professor. This is reflected in Lacan’s doctoral thesis, where de Clerambault is only a minor reference (see Lacan, 1932, pp. 126–34, 355). It was nevertheless de Clerambault that Lacan (1966c, p. 65) would later refer to as his ‘only master in psychiatry’, largely owing to his systematic method of examining case studies, which Lacan replicated in his thesis (Lacan, 1947, p. 138). In the period between 1909 and 1933 de Clerambault wrote about the mechanisms of disruption in mental life preceding the crystallization of delusions (de Clerambault, 1942, pp. 455–655) using concepts such as ‘mental automatism’ and ‘passivity syndrome’.
... Waar de afdeling vooral mee bezig lijkt te zijn, is met het produceren van lege bedden. ... I... more ... Waar de afdeling vooral mee bezig lijkt te zijn, is met het produceren van lege bedden. ... It was a blow to my ego dealing with him because we're used to getting people out at a rapid pace' (Rhodes, 1991, p. 76). Doorverwijzen wordt in deze context een soort sport. ...
After having focused on the signifier for many years, Lacan makes an important shift in the early... more After having focused on the signifier for many years, Lacan makes an important shift in the early 1960s. Problems that he first approached with strict attention to the logic of the signifier are now addressed in terms of the limits of the Symbolic. The new idea he embraces is that some aspects of being cannot be grasped via language and that the registers of libido and drive cannot simply be reduced to the Symbolic. Whereas in the 1950s Lacan argued that the drive is expressed via the signifying chain, by the 1960s he concludes that aspects of the drive resist representation and cannot be articulated in the signifying chain.
Zeitschrift Fur Psychosomatische Medizin Und Psychotherapie, Jul 1, 2006
OBJECTIVES We study the pattern of interpersonal alliances typical of depressive symptoms by mean... more OBJECTIVES We study the pattern of interpersonal alliances typical of depressive symptoms by means of the Core Conflictual Relationship Theme (CCRT) method. In an exploratory manner we examine which CCRT-coded wishes, perceived responses from the other and associated responses of the self predict the magnitude of a score on the Beck Depression Inventory-II. METHODS Interview data from 31 mental health patients were coded (CCRT expanded standard categories system). Relations between the CCRT categories and the dependent variable were examined by combining 1000-fold forward stepwise regression analyses, and multiple regression analyses in which confidence intervals were estimated with the bootstrap technique. RESULTS Three CCRT categories that jointly explain more than half of the variance were selected: diminished levels of the wish to be understood, and elevated levels of disliking others and of feeling helpless. CONCLUSIONS The results and implications for psychotherapy are discussed within a psychoanalytic context. Suggestions for further research are indicated.
This article examines central ideas from Jacques Lacan's later psychoanalytic theory on psychosis... more This article examines central ideas from Jacques Lacan's later psychoanalytic theory on psychosis. In the 1950s, Lacan formulated a structural model of psychosis, asserting that the central element of symbolically organized mental life, the Name-of-the-Father, is missing, leading to a latent vulnerability for psychotic episodes. In the 1970s, Lacan made significant changes to this model by introducing two new concepts: Father-of-the-Name and père-version. These concepts are plays on the original Name-of-the-Father concept and refer to two other aspects of the father function: the creative act of naming and embracing modes of life, respectively. Furthermore, in the 1970s, Lacan suggested that creating coherence in mental life does not necessarily require an exemplar of a paternal identification figure. Drawing from the case of the modernist writer James Joyce, he argued that singular inventions can just as effectively establish stability. This argument is elaborated upon by introducing the concepts of "sinthome" and "escabeau."
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative... more This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY
Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 2023
This paper examines the principal ideas from Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic theory of psychosis. ... more This paper examines the principal ideas from Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic theory of psychosis. According to Lacan's theory in the 1950s, the central organizing element of symbolically organized mental life, the Name-of-the-Father, is missing in psychosis. That theory changes with later conceptual developments in Lacan's work that focus on the incompleteness of symbolic functioning. This connects with how, in his works from the late 1960s and the 1970s, Lacan embraces the idea of a fundamental non-rapport and symbolic non-existence at the basis of mental life. In a second step, the paper explores what the Lacanian model of psychosis implies with regard to ethical positioning, addressing the unconscious, handling transference, and crisis and stability in psychosis. A clinical case discussion focuses on a yearlong therapeutic trajectory with a young man with Down's syndrome who suffered from psychotic experiences.
In this chapter Stijn Vanheule discusses how the DSM-5 takes context into account and clarifies t... more In this chapter Stijn Vanheule discusses how the DSM-5 takes context into account and clarifies the “kind of entity” the manual considers mental disorders to be. In the DSM-5 the context of the individual (i.e., the personal life history, social circumstances, and cultural background) is thought to play a minor moderating role in relation to symptom formation and expression. Moreover, as the manual follows a sign-based logic, it coheres with the assumption that biological irregularities lie at the basis of mental distress. The author argues that, by doing this, the DSM cultivates a naive essentialistic view of mental disorders, which is not supported by relevant evidence. Starting from phenomenological psychiatry and Lacanian psychoanalysis, Vanheule proposes an alternative model of symptom formation. Within this model, the symptom is a multidimensional product with certain speech-act specific qualities, biological characteristics, and contextual configuration features covering characteristics that are specific of an individual, family, social context, and (sub-)culture.
... En toch is er 'iets' dat maakt dat we alle-maal bang blijven voor wolven ... op vaa... more ... En toch is er 'iets' dat maakt dat we alle-maal bang blijven voor wolven ... op vaag, omdat deze verhalen meestal van mond tot mond gaan zonder dat duidelijk is wie of wat ... Nog voor er sprake is van enig tastbaar bewijs ontstaat er binnen een gesloten bio-toop een extreme vorm ...
Contrary to Freud, who first trained as a neurologist, Lacan started his career as a psychiatrist... more Contrary to Freud, who first trained as a neurologist, Lacan started his career as a psychiatrist and focused on psychosis. Between 1927 and 1931 he underwent training in several psychiatric clinics. At the Sainte-Anne hospital he worked under the supervision of Henri Claude, and at the Special Infirmary of the Paris police headquarters, under Gaetan Gatian de Clerambault (Roudinesco, 1994). Henri Claude was one of the first clinicians in France to institutionalize the teaching of psychoanalysis, where he combined psychodynamic theory with biological determinism. This theoretical position was subsequently elaborated and termed Organo-Dynamism by Henri Ey, a pupil who trained under Claude together with Lacan. Gaetan Gatian de Clerambault, on the other hand, was less influential at that time, perhaps because he was not a university professor. This is reflected in Lacan’s doctoral thesis, where de Clerambault is only a minor reference (see Lacan, 1932, pp. 126–34, 355). It was nevertheless de Clerambault that Lacan (1966c, p. 65) would later refer to as his ‘only master in psychiatry’, largely owing to his systematic method of examining case studies, which Lacan replicated in his thesis (Lacan, 1947, p. 138). In the period between 1909 and 1933 de Clerambault wrote about the mechanisms of disruption in mental life preceding the crystallization of delusions (de Clerambault, 1942, pp. 455–655) using concepts such as ‘mental automatism’ and ‘passivity syndrome’.
... Waar de afdeling vooral mee bezig lijkt te zijn, is met het produceren van lege bedden. ... I... more ... Waar de afdeling vooral mee bezig lijkt te zijn, is met het produceren van lege bedden. ... It was a blow to my ego dealing with him because we're used to getting people out at a rapid pace' (Rhodes, 1991, p. 76). Doorverwijzen wordt in deze context een soort sport. ...
After having focused on the signifier for many years, Lacan makes an important shift in the early... more After having focused on the signifier for many years, Lacan makes an important shift in the early 1960s. Problems that he first approached with strict attention to the logic of the signifier are now addressed in terms of the limits of the Symbolic. The new idea he embraces is that some aspects of being cannot be grasped via language and that the registers of libido and drive cannot simply be reduced to the Symbolic. Whereas in the 1950s Lacan argued that the drive is expressed via the signifying chain, by the 1960s he concludes that aspects of the drive resist representation and cannot be articulated in the signifying chain.
Zeitschrift Fur Psychosomatische Medizin Und Psychotherapie, Jul 1, 2006
OBJECTIVES We study the pattern of interpersonal alliances typical of depressive symptoms by mean... more OBJECTIVES We study the pattern of interpersonal alliances typical of depressive symptoms by means of the Core Conflictual Relationship Theme (CCRT) method. In an exploratory manner we examine which CCRT-coded wishes, perceived responses from the other and associated responses of the self predict the magnitude of a score on the Beck Depression Inventory-II. METHODS Interview data from 31 mental health patients were coded (CCRT expanded standard categories system). Relations between the CCRT categories and the dependent variable were examined by combining 1000-fold forward stepwise regression analyses, and multiple regression analyses in which confidence intervals were estimated with the bootstrap technique. RESULTS Three CCRT categories that jointly explain more than half of the variance were selected: diminished levels of the wish to be understood, and elevated levels of disliking others and of feeling helpless. CONCLUSIONS The results and implications for psychotherapy are discussed within a psychoanalytic context. Suggestions for further research are indicated.
The Freudian concept of Nachträglichkeit is central to the psychoanalytical understanding of trau... more The Freudian concept of Nachträglichkeit is central to the psychoanalytical understanding of trauma. However, it has not received much attention within the contemporary field of trauma studies. This paper attempts to reconstruct the logic inherent to this concept by examining Freud’s remarks on the case of Emma. Furthermore, it is argued that Nachträglichkeit offers an interesting perspective on both (a) the well-established yet controversial finding that traumatic reactions sometimes follow in the wake of non-Criterion A events (so-called minor stressors or life events) and (b) the often-neglected phenomenon of delayed-onset PTSD. These two phenomena will appear to be related in some instances. Nachträglichkeit clarifies one way in which traumatic encounters are mediated by subjective dimensions above and beyond the objective particularities of both the event and the person. It demonstrates that the subjective impact of an event is not given once and for all but is malleable by subsequent experiences.
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