The School of Psychoanalysis Does Not Exist

Abstract

If psychoanalysis is an experience of the lack of any guarantees, how can this experience be guaranteed in the training of a psychoanalyst? This essay examines how the Lacanian School of Psychoanalysis in California formulates this paradox of psychoanalytic formation in theory and practice. The experience of lack that the School works to guarantee is contrasted to the illusory fullness or consistency of being that various “names of authority” promise us in everyday life.