Abstract
There is no shortage of therapeutic modalities and interventions at the therapist’s disposal. Psychotherapy, because it claims to treat the individual, is necessarily multifaceted and complex. The dimension of language which structures much of our experience should be considered as a starting point for a psychotherapeutic technique. French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan developed a theory and technique of the talking cure beginning from this assumption: that language structures our experience. In the early 1950s he sought to recover a linguistic Freud: to re-center psychoanalytic psychotherapy on language itself. In this paper, I sketch the theoretical reasons for this turn in Lacan and look at current clinical literature to explicate the technique of this linguistic approach to psychotherapy. I begin first with challenging our everyday understanding of language; then, I explore the theoretical aspects of language and speech; finally, I tie these investigations into a clinical approach with a brief case study and analysis.
Recommended Citation
Carroll, Sean J.
(2022)
"Notes on Language in the Clinic in a Lacanian Key,"
Counseling and Family Therapy Scholarship Review: Vol. 4:
Iss.
2, Article 5.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.53309/2576-926X.1046
Available at:
https://epublications.regis.edu/cftsr/vol4/iss2/5
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Counselor Education Commons, Marriage and Family Therapy and Counseling Commons, Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy Commons