Overview

Analyzed by Lacan brings together the first English translations of Why Lacan, Betty Milan's memoir of her analysis with Lacan in the 1970s, and her play, Goodbye Doctor, inspired by her experience. Why Lacan provides a unique and valuable perspective on how Lacan worked as psychoanalyst as well as his approach to psychoanalytic theory. Milan's testimony shows that Lacan’s method of working was based on the idea that the traditional way of interpreting provoked resistance. Prior to Why Lacan, Milan wrote a play, Goodbye Doctor, based on her experience as Lacan's patient. The play is structured around the sessions of Seriema with the Doctor. Through the analysis, Seriema discovers why she cannot give birth, namely, an unconscious desire to satisfy the will of her father who didn’t authorize her to conceive. She ceases to be the victim of her unconscious, grasps the possibility of choosing a father for her child and thus becoming a mother. Goodbye Doctor has been adapted into a film, Adieu Lacan, by the director Richard Ledes. Analyzed by Lacan features an Introduction by Milan to both works as well as a new interview with Mari Ruti about her writing and Lacan.

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Reviews

Betty Milan’s portrait of Lacan destroys the clichés collected about him like his antics and opaque riddles. Using both memoir and theatrical staging, Milan defines the conditions for a successful psychoanalysis, that exercise in mutual trust and openness. In the end, Lacan appears as wise but not infallible, a human being like us all, yet determined to let the truth speak. * Jean-Michel Rabaté, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of Pennsylvania, USA, and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences * It is astonishing and almost miraculous that Milan has succeeded to evoke her analysis with Lacan with such clarity and precision. She has managed to turn it almost into a thriller. I read the book with curiosity, interest, and pleasure. It responds to all the questions that the non-initiated might have about the mysterious analytic sessions that Lacan conducted. In addition, as a writer, Milan transforms her analytic testimony into a literary feat. * Michèle Sarde, Georgetown University, USA * A stunning introduction to Lacan’s theoretical and clinical work. How better to appreciate the thinking and practice of this exceedingly important theoretician and clinician than to bear witness to an insider’s experience, to feel it almost as one’s own? Captivating reading not only by a former analysand but by a seasoned writer who truly knows her way around words. * Lois Oppenheim, Montclair State University, USA *

Author Information

Betty Milan is the author of novels, essays, plays, and crônicas that have been published in Brazil, France, Spain, Portugal, Argentina, and China. She has also written for Brazil’s leading newspapers and magazines, including the news daily Folha de S.Paulo, Veja magazine, and Veja.com. Before turning to writing, she earned her medical degree at the University of São Paulo and trained in psychoanalysis with Jacques Lacan in France, where she served as his assistant at the Department of Psychoanalysis, University of Paris 8.

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