This book is the first to develop a Baudrillardian critique of the
problematic way Lacanian psychoanalysis, as a clinical practice and by
extension as a source of socio-cultural and philosophical theory,
continues its vain attempt to (re)animate a subject of the unconscious.
The text throws into question Lacan's notion of the 'real, ' the
unconscious 'structured as a language, ' and his construct of surplus,
while interrogating the links between psychoanalysis and Marxism. It
shows how Lacanian psychoanalysis, with its questionable ethics,
transpires as an endlessly recursive simulation model.
Lacan's clinical seminar was influential in the intellectual milieu of
Paris while Baudrillard was writing. Although frequently referring to
psychoanalysis, Baudrillard never wrote a detailed critique of
psychoanalysis; the scaffolding of such a work, however, transpires
throughout the extent of his writing. The text also outlines Deleuze and
Guattari's critique of psychoanalysis stressing how the alternative they
propose remains within the oppressive terms of our current world.
This book is an essential resource for social, critical, cultural,
literary, feminist, and psychoanalytic theory. While of interest to
students, researchers, and scholars of Jean Baudrillard's work and
Lacanian psychoanalysis, this book particularly addresses those for whom
not all is well with psychoanalysis, opening towards renewed directions
through questioning.
