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In this podcast episode, I cover chapter 2 of Lacan's Seminar XI: The Four Fundamentals of Psychoanalysis. 
When we read this chapter, we will see Lacan start to cover the unconscious in this chapter. The main focus is on talking about the Freudian unconscious, and some time is spent covering the unconscious that is "structured like a language" (i.e., the unconscious as Lacan thinks of it at this moment in his teaching). 

Full show notes are available over at [S][J][P]. 

In this episode of InForm: Seminar, I respond to some listener questions and talk a bit more about the difference between psychoanalytic training v. psychoanalytic formation. I also say more about treating the real with the symbolic. 

All this content will probably not make much sense if you have not listened to episode 003. 

There is a lot in this session/chapter of the seminar. What stands out as essential to me during this reading is three related threads. In this podcast, what I hope to do is explain these main points to you in a way that helps you engage in your own reading of the seminar. 

I'm not going to go into a lot of depth here. Rather, I'm going to try to point out what stands out to me as noteworthy and comment on these things. 

In this reading, four things really stood out to me: 

• The Fundamentals | The base of psychoanalytic practice.
• Psychoanalysis is a praxis | Theory is a compass, but a compass is a tool for moving/acting. The compass is not the action itself. 
• Training/Formation of a psychoanalyst | Which is about desire. 
• Psychoanalysis as a clinical practice | For Lacan, at this moment, all the above points come back to clinical practice. 

(1) The Fundamentals: 

Ladies and gentlemen, In this lecture , I shall be talking to you about the funmentals of psycho-analysis (p. 1). [...] All this concerns the base, [...] of my teaching (p. 2). I ask the question --What are the fundamentals, in the broad sense of the term, of psychoanalysis? Which amounts to saying --What grounds it as a practice? (p. 6). 

In these quotes, there are a few terms I want to call your attention to: 

• The Fundamentals – of psychoanalysis 
• The Base – of Lacan's teaching
• What grounds – psychoanalysis as a practice. 

(2) Psychoanalytic Praxis: 

I am, in the present circumstances, still asking [...] what is psychoanalysis? (p. 3). 

I love that Lacan is asking himself this! I think this is a question everyone interested in psychoanalysis should always be asking, in particular those who are practicing analysts. 

Soon after this, Lacan says that psychoanalysis is a praxis. 

What is a praxis? [...] It is in the broadest term to designate a concerted human action, whatever it may be, which places man [a psychoanalyst] in a position to treat the real by [through] the symbolic. The fact that in doing so he encounters the imaginary to a greater or lesser degree is only of secondary importance here (p.6) 

(3) The Formation/Training of Psychoanalysts:

To start off, I want to tell you about a distinction that exists in my head when I read this. The difference between training and formation.

• Training is based on standards & rules, it has an end. 
• Formation is based on principles, it is ongoing. 

On page 9 of the text, Lacan says that he wants to focus on what a training analysis seeks...

What is the analyst's desire?  

This question is italicized in the text, so I suspect Lacan emphasized it when he spoke. He follows asking this question by saying,

What must there be in the analyst's desire for it to operate in a corect way? (p. 9) [T]he training analysis has no other purose than to bring the analyst to the point I designate in my algebra as the analyst's desire. 

This is a huge point. 

(4) All of this has to do with the clinical practice of psychoanalysis 

Throughout this chapter, I think there is an important claim being made, sometimes implicitly, but here I think Lacan makes it more explicit --while psychoanalysis can be studied as a theory, it was created to be a clinical practice. 

Analysis is not a matter of discovering in a particular case the differential feature of the theory and in doing so believe that one is explaining why [someone's] daugher is silent [...] the point at issue is to get her to speak. [...] Analysis consists precisely in getting her to speak (p. 11).

After this, Lacan talks about how an understanding of theory is useful in this endeavor, but I think he is saying that psychoanalysis is the application of the theory to some sort of difficulty a person (a speaking subject) is having. 

So it is not like theory is unimportant! It is important! But it is important because of how it can be used. 

(5) The Four Fundamental Concepts (to be used)

[W]hat conceptual status must we gie to the four of the terms introduced by Freud as fundamental concepts, namely the unconscious, repetition, the transference and the drive? (p. 12). 

And these are the concepts Lacan will be working through in this seminar. 

Notes: 

1. I'm offering a reading, my reading, not the reading of Seminar XI. 
2. Lacan's seminar was originally spoken. It was not a written text. So, even though I'm reading a written text, this writing is based on someone speaking extemporaneously. I think this makes it different than a text that someone wrote. 
3. When Lacan was teaching (i.e., speaking extemporaneously) about psychoanalysis, he would not always talk in a clear line. Instead, he would start making one point and then zig and zag. He would bring up something that occurred to him as he spoke, and he would start to explore "side streets" that branched off from the central thought he had started from. 
4. Thus, in each session of Lacan's seminar, there are usually several paths (i.e., trains of thoughts) that can be followed. 
5. In my reading, I've tried to isolate (extract) what I believe is the main train of thought in each section. I try to highlight what I think is the main thought or point and then offer some commentary on it. 
6. This means I leave lots of interesting content un-highlighted and un-explored.
7. What I believe is the main point of a session of Seminar XI is not what another reader (perhaps you) would see as the main point. Be that as it may, it is the choice I made. I sincerely hope that my reading (and the effort to put that reading into writing here) is of use to you.  

This is the first episode of what I hope will become a somewhat regular thing that I do. It is called InForm: Seminar, and it will be a companion to InForm: Podcast. However, unlike InForm: Podcast, which is always a conversation between at least one other person and me, InForm: Seminar will be just me talking (maybe teaching?) about some aspect of psychoanalysis. 

In this episode, I go into detail about why I'm making InForm: Seminar and what makes it different than my other podcasts.  

Hello and welcome to InForm: Seminar 001

What is InForm: Seminar?
I'm so glad you asked.
I'm going to give you a rather long-winded answer, which starts with some context/background info...

InForm: Podcast & InForm: Seminar

• I make another podcast called InForm:Podcast. 
• Which is a podcast where I try to have Informal & Informative conversations with people about psychoanalysis. 
• I've been doing that podcast for some time.
• When I'm not making that podcast, I do other things... 
• One of those things is being a. University professor. 
• During the COVID years, I started to record my lectures for one of my classes (SWK-6521) as podcasts.  
• At first, I only made them available to students, but recently I made them available to on apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify etc. 
• The response to these podcasts has been good, much better than I had expected it would be. 
• SWK-6521 is a very, very wide spectrum view of tons of different psychoanalytic theory... 
• Lots of breadth, but not much depth on any one of those things. By the end of it, people have a very small taste of all these different psychoanalytic theories/practices.

Lacan & Lacanian Psychoanalysis, yo! 

• This brings me to one of the other things I do: I'm a practicing Lacanian analyst. 
• Out of all the psychoanalytic theories out there, Lacan's theories are the ones that I've chosen to spend the most time learning and the ones I've chosen to orient my practice.

Back to your original question: What is InForm: Seminar?

I want to do in InForm: Seminar is combine a few things. 

• The Informal & Informative aspect of the InForm: Podcast... Sort of its playful "Let's see what happens when we talk about this..." tone. 
• The solo act aspect of my SWK-6521 podcast lectures... This will be just me talking. 
• But with an emphasis on Lacanian Psychoanalysis as opposed to the wide spectrum sort of thing I'm doing in the SWK0-6521 lectures. 

Now, let's talk details

•  I'm busy.  So, I don't know how often I'll be able to do these.
• Thus, there is not going to be a weekly or bi-weekly release schedule. I'll do them when I have both the desire and the time. 
• There will not be a standard length. Some will be short, 10-15 min. Others will be long... an hour, perhaps 90 min. 
• They will be broken up into seasons, and each season will focus on a theme and/or text. 

Wrap: 

• That's it for the first episode/session. 
• Thanks for taking the time to listen. 
• Till next time, please, make some glorious mistakes.