{"agent_id":"lacan","agent_name":"Jacques Lacan","slug":"the-return-to-freud","label":"The return to Freud: is ego psychology a development of analysis or a betrayal of it?","topic":"The return to Freud","question":"Is ego psychology a development of analysis or a betrayal of it?","position":"An analysis that sets out to strengthen the ego strengthens the agency of misrecognition. Freud decentred the subject; ego psychology recentred it and called that a development.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"An analysis that sets out to strengthen the ego strengthens the agency of misrecognition.","n":[]},{"t":"Freud decentred the subject; ego psychology recentred it and called that a development.","n":[1,2,3,4,5]}]],"texts":"*The Function and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis* (the Rome discourse, 1953); *The Freudian Thing* (1955); *The Situation of Psychoanalysis and the Training of Psychoanalysts in 1956*; Seminars I and II. Reception: Heinz Hartmann's ego psychology and the conflict-free sphere; Kris and Loewenstein; the American object-relations and adaptive traditions; Roudinesco's history of the French movement.","works":["*The Function and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis* (the Rome discourse, 1953)","*The Freudian Thing* (1955)","*The Situation of Psychoanalysis and the Training of Psychoanalysts in 1956*","Seminars I and II"],"reception":"Heinz Hartmann's ego psychology and the conflict-free sphere; Kris and Loewenstein; the American object-relations and adaptive traditions; Roudinesco's history of the French movement.","status":"The founding polemic of his teaching, and still the dividing line between the Lacanian field and most of the anglophone profession.","era":"1901-1981","discipline":"Psychology","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Seminar II, The Ego in Freud's Theory","page":"p. 53","canonical":"","quote":"I'm going step by step. In the course of recent months, years even, I think I have sufficiently emphasized that the unconscious is the unknown subject of the ego, that it is misrecognised [méconnu] by the ego, which is der Kern unseres Wesens, Freud writes in the chapter of the Traumdeutung on the dreamprocesses, with which I have asked you to get acquainted - when Freud discusses the primary process, he means…","label":"Seminar II, The Ego in Freud's Theory, p. 53"},{"n":2,"work":"Psychoanalysis and Its Teaching","page":"p. 397","canonical":"","quote":"Any other place for the analyst leads him back to the dyadic relation, which has no other outcome than the dialectic of misrecognition, negation, and narcissistic alienation that Freud repeatedly indicates throughout his work to be the ego's doing.","label":"Psychoanalysis and Its Teaching, p. 397"},{"n":3,"work":"Seminar II, The Ego in Freud's Theory","page":"p. 52","canonical":"","quote":"The subject's question in no way refers to what might ensue from weaning, abandonment, vital lack of love or affection, or whatever, it concerns his history in as much as he fails to recognise [méconnait] it, and that is what his entire behaviour really does express in spite ofhimself, in so far as he tries obscurely to recognise it.","label":"Seminar II, The Ego in Freud's Theory, p. 52"},{"n":4,"work":"Seminar I, Freud's Papers on Technique","page":"pp. 171–172","canonical":"","quote":"So this particular ignorance is not ignorance pure and simple. It is what is concretely expressed in the process of Verneinung, and which, in the subject's static totality, is called misrecognition [méconnaissance]. Misrecognition is not ignorance. Misrecognition represents a certain organisation of affirmations and negations, to which the subject is attached.","label":"Seminar I, Freud's Papers on Technique, pp. 171–172"},{"n":5,"work":"Seminar I, Freud's Papers on Technique","page":"pp. 197–198","canonical":"","quote":"In other words, will a part of the subject still remain on the level of this sticking-point which we call his ego? Does the analysis only deal with what we consider to be a given, namely the subject's ego, the internal structure which could be improved by exercise? That is how someone like Balint and one whole trend of analysis have come tothink that, either the ego is strong, or else itis weak.","label":"Seminar I, Freud's Papers on Technique, pp. 197–198"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"the-unconscious-is-structured-like-a-language","label":"The unconscious is structured like a language: is this linguistics, or a metaphor borrowed from it?"},{"slug":"the-phallus-and-sexual-difference","label":"The phallus and sexual difference: does 'The woman does not exist' say anything about women?"},{"slug":"the-variable-length-session","label":"The variable-length session: a technical consequence of the theory, or an abuse the profession was right to stop?"},{"slug":"the-style-the-mathemes-and-the-topology","label":"The style, the mathemes and the topology: necessary to the subject matter, or obscurity mistaken for depth?"}]}