Psychoanalysis is a terribly efficient instrument, and because it is more and more a prestigious instrument, we run the risk of using it with a purpose for which it was not made for, and in this way we may degrade it.
Jacques LacanRead
If psychoanalysis clarifies some facts of sexuality, it is not by aiming at them in their own reality, not in biological experience.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Lacan argues that psychoanalysis does not grasp sexuality through biological understanding but through its psychological implications.
In this quote, Jacques Lacan asserts that psychoanalysis does not solely aim to understand sexuality based on biological facts or experiences. Instead, it focuses on the deeper psychological realities that govern human sexuality, suggesting that our understanding of sexuality is more complex and intertwined with our thoughts, beliefs, and social contexts than mere biological definitions.
Themes
PsychoanalysisSexualityPsychologyBiologicalUnderstanding
In practice
Example use cases
In a psychology lecture discussing the nature of human emotions.
More from Jacques Lacan
All quotes βBut what Freud showed usβ¦ was that nothing can be grasped, destroyed, or burnt, except in a symbolic way, as one says, in effigie, in absentia.
Jacques LacanRead
The real is what resists symbolization absolutely.
Jacques LacanRead
I think where I am not, therefore I am where I do not think. I am not whenever I am the plaything of my thought; I think of what I am where I do not think to think.
Jacques LacanRead
The reason we go to poetry is not for wisdom, but for the dismantling of wisdom
Jacques LacanRead
Meaning is produced not only by the relationship between the signifier and the signified but also, crucially, by the position of the signifiers in relation to other signifiers.
Jacques LacanRead
Similar quotes
Feminism is the struggle to end sexist oppression. Its aim is not to benefit solely any specific group of women, any particular race or class of women. It does not privilege women over men. It has the power to transform meaningfully all our lives
Bell HooksRead
You can never argue anyone into the Kingdom of Heaven, you cannot argue anyone anywhere. The only result of arguing is to prove to your own mind that you are right and the other fellow wrong. You cannot argue for truth; but immediately Incarnate Truth is presented, a want awakens in the soul which only God can meet.
Oswald ChambersRead
Dwelling is not primarily inhabiting but taking care of and creating that space within which something comes into its own and flourishes.
Martin HeideggerRead
Maybe you feel pressure to be positive because so many people rely on your good, fake-positive energy? If that's the case, screw everybody else. You're not a bottle of Valium.
Augusten BurroughsRead
In the usual progress of things, the necessities of a nation in every stage of its existence will be found at least equal to its resources.
Alexander HamiltonRead
The movement is everything, the final goal is nothing.
Eduard BernsteinRead