Psychoanalytic Theory

One individual whose contribution to developmental theory has often been overlooked (despite his voluminous writings) has been Jacques Lacan. It needs to be pointed out here that while the developmental expansions of Klein and Winnicott are those of ego psychology which focus on the "healthy ego," and ways to strengthen the ego, these should not be confused with the developmental notions of Lacan. Lacan's philosophical roots are structuralism and existentialism, life perspectives that are somewhat antipathetical to the more socially-oriented perspectives of the ego psychologists.

In this regard, Lacan characterizes the work of ego psychologists as little more than societal brainwashing whereby analysts--as the priests of societal values--convince the mind to obey social modes and norms of behavior. Lacan views t

. . .
und through such "signifiers" as those aspects of the dream that are forgotten or doubted. The signifiers or those phenomena that allude to the unconscious message are said by Lacan to be akin to worldly language uses such as metaphor and metonymy. The "metaphor" and "metonymy" in the unconscious are translatable to the mental operations of condensation, displacement and representability. As to what is being signified, this is the message existing in the unconscious which is spoken through the symbolic form of dream. Lacan states that the manifest dream is both built from signifiers and organized by signifiers. The messages of the unconscious in general are the many personal meanings which define a person's subjective existence. In any dream, not only are the manifest elements built from signifiers, they are said to be multiply derived from the individual's latent thoughts. Latent thoughts are in more than one dream element and dream elements are derived from diverse aspects of latent thoughts. What the analysis of dreams can therefore yield is psychopathology or things that have been repressed by the personality. Lacan has also referred to the unconscious as "the discourse of the Other." In other to understand what he
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Halle Dreams, Psychoanalysis Lacan's, Lacan Freud, Conclusions Based, Unconscious Lacan's, Lacan Lacan's, Differences Lacan, Freud Freud's, Regarding Lacan's, Anna Freud, psychoanalytic theory, notions unconscious, unconscious mind, contributions field, lacan's notion, language symbols, notions lacan, language-like structure, ego psychologists, freudian notions, symbols language symbols, dreams slips tongue, unconscious language-like structure, lacan's contributions field, language-like structure discourse,
Approximate Word count = 2379
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)

More Essays on Psychoanalytic Theory