Writings on Psychoanalysis: Freud and Lacan

With several never-before published writings, this volume gathers Althusser's major essays on psychoanalytic thought documenting his intense and ambivalent relationship with Lacan, and dramatizing his intellectual journey and troubled personal life.
"WRITINGS ON PSYCHOANALYSIS the first of three volumes of theoretical writings by Louis Althusser envisaged by Editions Stock and the Institut Mémoires de l'Edition Contemporaine. The idea for the anthology developed and grew as we explored Louis Althusser's archives. Far from being limited to a single article ("Freud and Lacan"), to a few episodes (the "Tbilisi affair" or the dissolving of the Ecole freudienne de Paris), and a personal experience, Louis Althusser's relation to psychoanalysis was alsoemphaticallya theoretical one. It began rather early. In fact, if we can believe his personal diary, Althusser delivered a talk on child analysis on November 13, 1959, which was probably continued on November 16, but no trace of it remains in his archives. On November 16 or 19, Emmanuel Terray, one of his students at the time, spoke on the "psychoanalysis of psychoses''; plainly intrigued by the lecture, which was centered on Freud but also evoked Melanie Klein, Althusser retained his notes. On December 3, 1959, Alain Badiou spoke about Lacan, and Althusser's appointment book contains the following note for December 11: "introduction to Lacan." First stirrings."