Book Review: Lacan Écrits A Selection

Описание: Jacques Lacan - Écrits: A Selection

Jacques Lacan’s Écrits: A Selection represents one of the most radical reinterpretations in the history of psychoanalysis. Reworking Freud’s discovery of the unconscious through the concepts of language, structure, and subjectivity, Lacan defines the human subject as something formed by language itself. This collection includes nine key essays written between 1936 and 1960.
The opening essay, “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I,” explains how the ego is formed. According to Lacan, when an infant recognizes its reflection in the mirror, it perceives an image of bodily unity at a time when it is still physically uncoordinated. This joyful identification produces the first sense of “I,” but it is also a misrecognition: the ego is built on an external, illusory image. Human identity, therefore, begins with alienation, as the subject forever seeks to reconcile itself with this external ideal.
In “Aggressivity in Psychoanalysis,” Lacan explores how aggression is structurally rooted in human relations. The ego, born from the mirror image, is inherently defensive and competitive. Aggression is not an accidental impulse but a product of the narcissistic structure of the ego and its constant rivalry with the other.
“The Function and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis” forms the theoretical core of Lacan’s return to Freud. The unconscious, he argues, is not a hidden instinctual realm but structured like a language. What determines the subject is not biology but the symbolic order of language. Through language, the subject enters the realm of the Big Other — the network of law, culture, and social norms — and desire is shaped within this structure.
In “The Freudian Thing” and “The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious,” Lacan examines how meaning arises through signifiers. The unconscious speaks through slips, dreams, and jokes, revealing that reason and meaning depend on the symbolic structure of language.
“On a Question Preliminary to Any Possible Treatment of Psychosis” introduces one of Lacan’s most important ideas: the Name-of-the-Father. This is not the biological father but a symbolic function representing law and prohibition. When this function is missing, the symbolic order collapses, producing psychosis.
“The Direction of the Treatment and the Principles of Its Power” focuses on the ethics of psychoanalysis. The analyst must not impose his own desire or moral position on the patient. Instead, analysis should lead the subject to confront the truth of their own desire. The goal is not satisfaction but the recognition of desire itself.
In “The Signification of the Phallus,” Lacan redefines the phallus as a symbolic signifier rather than a biological organ. It represents the position of desire and the structure of lack that drives human subjectivity. The phallus is a symbol of what is missing, the unattainable object that sustains desire.
The final essay, “The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire,” presents Lacan’s most advanced theory of the subject. The subject is born from a gap within the chain of signifiers, from absence rather than essence. Desire is endless; it moves from one signifier to another, always seeking but never finding full satisfaction.
Across these writings, Lacan builds his well-known triad: the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Real. The Imaginary is the realm of images and ego formation. The Symbolic is the order of language, law, and culture. The Real is that which cannot be symbolized, the impossible, the remainder that resists representation. At the intersection of these three orders stands the human subject, divided, alienated, and driven by desire.
Ultimately, Écrits: A Selection offers three major contributions to modern thought. First, the idea that the subject is structured by language. Second, the understanding that desire is endless and never fully satisfied. Third, the view that psychoanalysis is an ethical practice that explores the limits of desire rather than the pursuit of knowledge.
Lacan’s writings, though conceptually dense, transform psychoanalysis into a theory of meaning, language, and the fragmented modern self. Interweaving philosophy, linguistics, and anthropology, Écrits positions psychoanalysis not merely as therapy but as a central theory of human subjectivity in the twentieth century.