What does it mean to practice psychoanalysis as Jacques Lacan did? How
did Lacan translate his original theoretical insights into
moment-to-moment psychoanalytic technique? And what makes a Lacanian
approach to treatment different from other approaches? These are among
the questions that Bruce Fink, a leading translator and expositor of
Lacan's work, addresses in Fundamentals of Psychoanalytic Technique by
describing and amply exemplifying the innovative techniques (such as
punctuation, scansion, and oracular interpretation) developed by Lacan
to uncover unconscious desire, lift repression, and bring about
change.
Unlike any other writer on Lacan to date, Fink illustrates his Lacanian
approach to listening, questioning, punctuating, scanding, and
interpreting with dozens of actual clinical examples. He clearly
outlines the fundamentals of working with dreams, daydreams, and
fantasies, discussing numerous anxiety dreams, nightmares, and fantasies
told to him by his own patients. By examining transference and
countertransference in detail through the use of clinical vignettes,
Fink lays out the major differences (regarding transference
interpretation, self-disclosure, projective identification, and the
therapeutic frame) between mainstream psychoanalytic practice and
Lacanian practice. He critiques the ever more prevalent normalizing
attitude in psychoanalysis today and presents crucial facets of Lacan's
approach to the treatment of neurosis, as well as of his entirely
different approach to the treatment of psychosis.
Fundamentals of Psychoanalytic Technique is an introduction to
psychoanalytic technique from a Lacanian perspective that is based on
Fink's many years of experience working as an analyst and supervising
clinicians, including graduate students in clinical psychology, social
workers, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, and psychoanalysts. Designed
for a wide range of practitioners and requiring no previous knowledge of
Lacan's work, this primer is accessible to therapists of many different
persuasions with diverse degrees of clinical experience, from novices to
seasoned analysts.
Fink's goal throughout is to present the implications of Lacan's highly
novel work for psychoanalytic technique across a broad spectrum of
interventions. The techniques covered (all of which are designed to get
at the unconscious, repression, and repetition compulsion) can be
helpful to a wide variety of practitioners, often transforming their
practices radically in a few short months.
