Often Overlooked Essays in Écrits: "Beyond the 'Reality Principle'"

Here’s the thing about often overlooked essays in Écrits — or, at least, here’s what I learned last fall, while recording these mini-lectures: Even Lacan’s less iconic essays are studded with arresting insights, and many of these insights, when examined closely, shed fresh light on key features of psychoanalytic theory and technique.

“Beyond the ‘Reality Principle’” is no exception. So much so, that I wound up recording three mini-lectures on this essay, all of which are presented in this podcast episode. The first is titled “Free Association,” the second “Addressivity as Relationality,” and the third, for reasons I hope you’ll enjoy as much as I still do, “Apology Screamed.”

Hence, the Lacanian riddle (of sorts) at the end of this episode: What is expressed but not understood, conceptualized but denied, and unconscious insofar as it’s expressed but conscious insofar as it’s repressed?

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