Overview

A Reading of Anxiety follows the sessions of Lacan’s Seminar X, examining its presentation of the structure of anxiety, step by step. Christian Fierens considers why and how the structure of anxiety always depends on speech even if it remains on the threshold between the symbolic and the real and explains that there is a genuine connection between anxiety and the Lacanian object a which puts in doubt the obviousness of any object. The book then explores the importance of anxiety for the practice of the analyst, determines that the object a is fundamentally void and discusses encountering nothingness. Finally, Fierens establishes that this nothingness inside the object and inside anxiety leads to the truth of anxiety. A Reading of Anxiety will be an essential book for students as well as clinicians to find a practical way to cope with anxiety as a clinical approach to the real in psychoanalysis. It will be relevant to all readers interested in the work of Lacan.

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9781032762760

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Reviews

“This fluent, clear, readable translation by Patricia McCarthy of Christian Fierens’ Lecture de l’Angoisse provides an essential resource for any serious clinical investigation of anxiety. Fierens’ Lecture provides an effective tool for working psychoanalytically with anxiety in an epoch when the dominant reaction is to remove it, to delete the cause. It is not proposed as a definitive reading but as Fierens’ own taking on the questions Jacques Lacan articulates in his Seminar and making them his own. In turn, this translation allows readers in English to take on these questions and make them their own. In a way that can only be fruitful, it demands a serious engagement by the reader, an engagement singular to each which will contribute crucially to the reader’s formation and the articulation of their relation to psychoanalysis.” Barry O’Donnell, Ph.D., practises psychoanalysis and is a member of the Irish School for Lacanian Psychoanalysis (ISLP). He is Director of Psychotherapy Programmes in the School of Medicine, University College Dublin and Director of the School of Psychotherapy at St. Vincent’s University Hospital, Dublin. “A helpful and challenging book is this Reading Anxiety by Christian Fierens. Its importance goes far beyond Lacan's Xth seminar whose sessions it follows in order to comment explicitly on them. Very well documented, with references to Freud and to Lacan's own sources of inspiration, it is an indispensable work not only for those who want to get to know Lacan, but also for those who want to explore the clinical and theoretical wiring of anxiety from a Lacanian point of view, including questions of the object (a), desire and Jouissance, the Real, the Symbolic, the Imaginary.” Gertrudis Van de Vijver, Professor in philosophy, Ghent University, practicing psychoanalyst. “Reading Anxiety is an intricate appraisal of Jacques Lacan’s Seminar X, in which Lacan produces the central notion of the ‘object cause of desire’. The beauty of Christian Fierens’ approach is that it is not an explication, but rather a creative reading that invents a new methodology in its theoretical elaboration. Fierens stresses, moreover, the necessity for each reader of Lacan’s work to produce his or her own original reading.” Michael Gerard Plastow, Psychoanalyst (The Freudian School of Melbourne, Association Lacanienne Internationale) and child psychiatrist (Alfred Child and Youth Mental Health Service) “This book presents a comprehensive and engaging reading of one of Lacan's key seminars by one of the finest practicing analysts and teacher of psychoanalysis in the Lacanian community today. Rigorous and admirably accessible, it gives an excellent account of an intricate development of Lacan's notion of anxiety by situating it in the gap between jouissance and desire. There are a few books devoted to Lacan's seminar on anxiety. In a clear and careful reading, Christian Fierens offers insightful treatment of the role of anxiety in Lacan's theory of the subject of the unconscious by illuminating the theoretical elaborations introduced by Lacan in his seminar on anxiety and exploring their clinical implications with remarkable perspicacity.” Jelica Šumič Riha, Institute of Philosophy, Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts “This fluent, clear, readable translation by Patricia McCarthy of Christian Fierens’ Lecture de l’Angoisse provides an essential resource for any serious clinical investigation of anxiety. Fierens’ Lecture provides an effective tool for working psychoanalytically with anxiety in an epoch when the dominant reaction is to remove it, to delete the cause. It is not proposed as a definitive reading but as Fierens’ own taking on the questions Jacques Lacan articulates in his Seminar and making them his own. In turn, this translation allows readers in English to take on these questions and make them their own. In a way that can only be fruitful, it demands a serious engagement by the reader, an engagement singular to each which will contribute crucially to the reader’s formation and the articulation of their relation to psychoanalysis.” Barry O’Donnell, Ph.D., practises psychoanalysis and is a member of the Irish School for Lacanian Psychoanalysis (ISLP). He is Director of Psychotherapy Programmes in the School of Medicine, University College Dublin and Director of the School of Psychotherapy at St. Vincent’s University Hospital, Dublin. “A helpful and challenging book is this Reading Anxiety by Christian Fierens. Its importance goes far beyond Lacan's Xth seminar whose sessions it follows in order to comment explicitly on them. Very well documented, with references to Freud and to Lacan's own sources of inspiration, it is an indispensable work not only for those who want to get to know Lacan, but also for those who want to explore the clinical and theoretical wiring of anxiety from a Lacanian point of view, including questions of the object (a), desire and Jouissance, the Real, the Symbolic, the Imaginary.” Gertrudis Van de Vijver, Professor in philosophy, Ghent University, practicing psychoanalyst. “Reading Anxiety is an intricate appraisal of Jacques Lacan’s Seminar X, in which Lacan produces the central notion of the ‘object cause of desire’. The beauty of Christian Fierens’ approach is that it is not an explication, but rather a creative reading that invents a new methodology in its theoretical elaboration. Fierens stresses, moreover, the necessity for each reader of Lacan’s work to produce his or her own original reading.” Michael Gerard Plastow, Psychoanalyst (The Freudian School of Melbourne, Association Lacanienne Internationale) and child psychiatrist (Alfred Child and Youth Mental Health Service) “This book presents a comprehensive and engaging reading of one of Lacan's key seminars by one of the finest practicing analysts and teacher of psychoanalysis in the Lacanian community today. Rigorous and admirably accessible, it gives an excellent account of an intricate development of Lacan's notion of anxiety by situating it in the gap between jouissance and desire. There are a few books devoted to Lacan's seminar on anxiety. In a clear and careful reading, Christian Fierens offers insightful treatment of the role of anxiety in Lacan's theory of the subject of the unconscious by illuminating the theoretical elaborations introduced by Lacan in his seminar on anxiety and exploring their clinical implications with remarkable perspicacity.” Jelica Šumič Riha, Institute of Philosophy, Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts

Author Information

Christian Fierens is a psychoanalyst and psychiatrist based in Belgium. He holds a PhD on psychosis in Freud’s work and has published several books on Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis, including The Soul of Narcissism and The Jouissance Principle, both published by Routledge.

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