This course is designed to be beginner friendly to those who do not have much familiarity with Lacan.

Jacques Lacan (1901-81) was a French psychoanalyst who pioneered what he described as a “return to Freud.” Lacan’s yearly seminars made extensive references to Freud’s writing and critiqued, extended, and innovated psychoanalytic theory into a new school of psychoanalysis.

This course offers a close reading of Lacan’s Seminar VII, The Ethics of Psychoanalysis. Lacan argued those who work psychoanalytically are “submerged in what are strictly speaking moral problems.” He argued that psychoanalysis has a unique position contrasted with other major schools of ethics. Ethics concerns the way in which people relate to the actions they take in life, and these actions are related to an overall good which they aspire to attain. For beginning analysts, Lacan aimed to provide a “skeleton,” a “vertebrate solidarity,” with which to embody their practice.

This course offers a close reading of Lacan’s seminar. Each session has assigned readings from within the Seminar, lectures which cover the primary concepts and themes, and discussion questions to facilitate participants' engagement with the material.

The course aims to make Lacan’s theoretical contributions practical by helping clinicians approach their clinical work ethically. Lacan’s teaching on the origins of guilt, unconscious desire, and the ethics of speech all help clinicians orient themselves to the most effective position in relationship to their patients and provides a universal goal for psychoanalytic treatment.

Instructor: Adam Schneider PhD is a licensed mental health counselor (LMHC) in private practice in the Seattle area. His clinical experiences include residential, wraparound outpatient, intensive outpatient, partial hospitalization, and psychiatric inpatient settings. His research interests include Lacanian psychoanalysis, treating psychosis in inpatient settings, and the intersection of psychoanalysis and Catholicism.

Learning objectives:

• Participants will be able to characterize psychoanalysis as an ethical discipline for patients and clinicians.
• Participants will be able to define Lacan’s conceptualizations of “Das Ding,” “unconscious desire,” and morality.
• Participants will be able to articulate the origin of guilt and its function in clinical work according to Lacan. 
• Participants will be able to apply the ethical importance of speech to their clinical work.
• Participants will be able to describe an alternative to empathy in relating to patients based on Lacan’s formulation of “loving one’s neighbor.”
• Participants will be able to characterize Lacan’s ideas about the overall aim of psychoanalytic treatment.

Fees: $250 for Members and $300 for non-members.
Class Size: Class is limited to a maximum of 35 participants.
Refund Policy: Refunds less a $35 handling fee will be given up until one week before the first class.

This presentation has been approved for a total of 9.0 CE’s for licensed mental health counselors and associates, marriage and family therapists and social workers by the Washington State Society for Clinical Social Work.