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CONGRESS 2025 – SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22nd
ROYAL MARINE HOTEL, DUN LAOGHAIRE AND ON-LINE
Psychoanalysis and history: Reflections on Seminar XII
Seminar XII was given by Lacan at a moment of crisis, of a turning point in the history of psychoanalysis, and it includes reflection on the location of psychoanalysis as such in history. Key questions – ‘crucial problems’ posed for psychoanalysts – include the inclusion of the clinician and researcher in the phenomena they describe, and the position of the analyst. We see in Seminar XII an account of the ‘extimate’ nature of psychoanalysis, in dimensions of space, of the place of the clinic in culture, and of time, of the historicity of psychoanalytic theory and practice. This paper extracts elements of the argument from the
seminar and its engagement with contemporary psychoanalytic debates to explore how our psychoanalysis today might, in the light of decolonial critiques, reflect upon itself.
Ian Parker is a practising psychoanalyst in Manchester working with the Red Clinic, and co-author, with David Pavón-Cuéllar, of Psychoanalysis and Revolution: Critical Psychology for Liberation Movements (2021, 1968 Press)
