About Lacan

Abstract

Jacques Lacan, also known as the French Freud, is one of the most influential and also one of the most criticized psychoanalysts after Freud. His controversial reputation partially originates from the dialectical nature of his thinking and from the attempt to avoid the often unavoidable deterministic influence of language. In this sense, Lacan’s theories and his radically different viewpoint present an important contribution to the psychoanalytical view on a human and human pathology. Lacan, who denoted his work as a return to Freud, also created new and innovative concepts, especially his theory of language that considerably distanced him from Freud . On the following pages I present Lacan’s basic concepts in order to introduce the reader into the world of this controversial thinker.