Title:Perversion as Act, Gaze and Structure: A Critical Introduction to a Lacanian Conceptualization
Speaker:Dr.Derek Hook, PhD
Format:
On Demand
Credit:
3 CEUs approved for Psychologists, Social Workers, LPCs/LMFTs and LADCs
Description:This talk will introduce the Lacanian conceptualization of perversion. We begin by examining what is arguably Lacan’s most useful formulation in respect of perversion, namely, that the perverse subject makes themselves the object-instrument of the Other’s jouissance. Each of these related Lacanian concepts (subject-as-object, the ‘big’ Other, jouissance) deserves attention and clarification, and to this end we will consider two short clinical vignettes deriving from psychoanalytic work in a prison context. Each Lacanian concept is, in turn, related to Freud’s remarks on perversion in his Three Essays on Sexuality. We then turn our attention to the question of the disavowal – thought by many Lacanians to be the structural and defining defense of perversion – before turning to question the viability, today, of the assertion that perversion exists as a discrete diagnostic structure.
