Colette Soler – författare

This book focuses on Lacan's revisions and renewals of psychoanalytic concepts, and shows the ways in which Lacan succeeded in the reinvention of psychoanalysis. It explores those steps that led him to assert an unprecedented formula that says against all expectation that the unconscious is real.

Towards Identity in the Psychoanalytic Encounter addresses the theme of identification and identity in the psychoanalytic clinic as elaborated by Jacques Lacan over the course of his teaching.In psychoanalysis, the subject who is summoned “to speak himself” is by definition lacking in identity. His question is “What am I?” but, as he is only represented by his words, his being is “always elsewhere”, within other words that are yet to come. Thus a paradox: one seeks via speech the identity of a being who, through his speech, is not identifiable. Yet the fact remains, he has a body, and he is riveted to sufferings that psychoanalysis, from Freud to Lacan, identified, which are not accidental, which we call repetition and symptom, and which shift the question of identity because a One, real, is at play in them.Towards Identity in the Psychoanalytic Encounter will be key reading for the study and research of Lacanian psychoanalysis and all practitioners interested in Lacan’s teaching, as well as other discourses such as philosophy, art, literature and history.

Affect is a high-stakes topic in psychoanalysis, but there has long been a misperception that Lacan neglected affect in his writings. We encounter affect at the beginning of any analysis in the form of subjective suffering that the patient hopes to alleviate. How can psychoanalysis alleviate such suffering when analytic practice itself gives rise to a wide range of affects in the patient’s relationship to the analyst?Lacanian Affects: The Function of Affect in Lacan’s Work, is the first book to explore Lacan’s theory of affect and its implications for contemporary psychoanalytic practice. In it, Colette Soler discusses affects as diverse as the pain of existence, hatred, ignorance, mourning, sadness, "joyful knowledge," boredom, moroseness, anger, shame, and enthusiasm. Soler’s discussion culminates in a highlighting of so-called enigmatic affects: anguish, love, and the satisfaction related to the end of an analysis.Lacanian Affects provides a unique and compelling account of affect that will prove to be an essential text for psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, psychologists, and social workers.

Affect is a high-stakes topic in psychoanalysis, but there has long been a misperception that Lacan neglected affect in his writings. We encounter affect at the beginning of any analysis in the form of subjective suffering that the patient hopes to alleviate. How can psychoanalysis alleviate such suffering when analytic practice itself gives rise to a wide range of affects in the patient’s relationship to the analyst?Lacanian Affects: The Function of Affect in Lacan’s Work, is the first book to explore Lacan’s theory of affect and its implications for contemporary psychoanalytic practice. In it, Colette Soler discusses affects as diverse as the pain of existence, hatred, ignorance, mourning, sadness, "joyful knowledge," boredom, moroseness, anger, shame, and enthusiasm. Soler’s discussion culminates in a highlighting of so-called enigmatic affects: anguish, love, and the satisfaction related to the end of an analysis.Lacanian Affects provides a unique and compelling account of affect that will prove to be an essential text for psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, psychologists, and social workers.

Towards Identity in the Psychoanalytic Encounter addresses the theme of identification and identity in the psychoanalytic clinic as elaborated by Jacques Lacan over the course of his teaching.In psychoanalysis, the subject who is summoned “to speak himself” is by definition lacking in identity. His question is “What am I?” but, as he is only represented by his words, his being is “always elsewhere”, within other words that are yet to come. Thus a paradox: one seeks via speech the identity of a being who, through his speech, is not identifiable. Yet the fact remains, he has a body, and he is riveted to sufferings that psychoanalysis, from Freud to Lacan, identified, which are not accidental, which we call repetition and symptom, and which shift the question of identity because a One, real, is at play in them.Towards Identity in the Psychoanalytic Encounter will be key reading for the study and research of Lacanian psychoanalysis and all practitioners interested in Lacan’s teaching, as well as other discourses such as philosophy, art, literature and history.

This book discusses Jacques Lacan’s contribution to understanding the life and work of James Joyce, introducing Colette Soler’s influential reading to English readers for the first time. Focusing on Lacan’s famous Seminar on Joyce, the reader will no doubt learn much from Lacan, but also, as Soler shows, what Lacan learned from Joyce and what perhaps, without him, he would not have approached with so much confidence. Le Sinthome. This is the title Jacques Lacan chose for his seminar devoted to Joyce in 1975–76. He wrote the word 'sinthome' in its original spelling, from the Greek, and thus used the technique so dear to Joyce: the equivocation between the sound that is heard and the graphic representation that is seen. Is it surprising that the author who recognised in 1956 with 'The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious' that the Freudian practice of speech revealed an unconscious that writes – something Jacques Derrida found quite remarkable – would end in 1975–76 with Joyce? Lacan Reading Joyce will be of great interest to professional and academic readers in the respective fields of Lacan and Joyce studies, including psychoanalysts in practice and training, as well as researchers and students in psychoanalytic and modern literary studies.

This book discusses Jacques Lacan’s contribution to understanding the life and work of James Joyce, introducing Colette Soler’s influential reading to English readers for the first time. Focusing on Lacan’s famous Seminar on Joyce, the reader will no doubt learn much from Lacan, but also, as Soler shows, what Lacan learned from Joyce and what perhaps, without him, he would not have approached with so much confidence. Le Sinthome. This is the title Jacques Lacan chose for his seminar devoted to Joyce in 1975–76. He wrote the word 'sinthome' in its original spelling, from the Greek, and thus used the technique so dear to Joyce: the equivocation between the sound that is heard and the graphic representation that is seen. Is it surprising that the author who recognised in 1956 with 'The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious' that the Freudian practice of speech revealed an unconscious that writes – something Jacques Derrida found quite remarkable – would end in 1975–76 with Joyce? Lacan Reading Joyce will be of great interest to professional and academic readers in the respective fields of Lacan and Joyce studies, including psychoanalysts in practice and training, as well as researchers and students in psychoanalytic and modern literary studies.

Has Jacques Lacan's impact on psychoanalysis really been assessed? His formulation that the Freudian unconscious is "structured like a language" is well-known, but this was only the beginning. There was then the radically new thesis of the "real unconscious". Why this step?Searching for the Ariadne's thread that runs throughout Lacan's ever-evolving teaching, this book illuminates the questions implicit in each step, and sheds new light on his revisions and renewals of psychoanalytic concepts. In tracing these, Colette Soler brings out their consequences for the clinic, and in particular, for the subject, for symptoms, for affects, and for the aims of treatment itself. The last section of the book examines the political import of these developments.If many analysts since Freud have dreamt of reinventing psychoanalysis, Colette Soler shows the ways in which Lacan succeeded in this reinvention.

Unquenched desire, the dividing up of the drives, repetition, and symptom are the keywords for the effects that the unconscious, as deciphered by Freud, has on the body. Harmony is not on the agenda, but rather the discordance, unlinking, and arrogance of cynical jouissances. It seems that the discourse of capitalism is today increasing their deleterious consequences – with all of these demonstrative suicides, but also suicides as diverse as those of terrorists, Tibetan monks, those beleaguered by the capitalist enterprise, and all the hopeless of our time. Hence the question that Lacan posed concerning the possible "humanisation" of this denatured animal, about whom Freud did not hesitate to say that he is a wolf to man, even though he has always made community. What will the psychoanalyst say about possible solutions, he whose act excludes the call to norms of any kind? Humanisation? is the 2013–2014 volume of the annual seminar held by the author at the Clinical College of the Lacanian Field in Paris.