The Origin of the Subject in Psychoanalysis: Rethinking the Foundations of Lacanian Theory and Clinic

This highly original work uses the Big Bang theory as a conceptual tool to address the question of the origin of the subject in psychoanalysis. The Origin of the Subject in Psychoanalysis elucidates the radical discontinuity between Freud and Lacan in the foundations of their psychoanalytic theories and conceptions of the clinic. Alfredo Eidelsztein argues that just as physics conceives the origin of matter, energy and space-time as an absolute beginning, so the appearance of the symbolic order and the subject must be understood as an “ex-nihilo creation” that excludes any form of causal relationship between the “before” and the “after.” He argues that this is a major conceptual difference between Freud and Lacan: the dimension of the signifier, beginning with its appearance, marks an absolute discontinuity from what was before and asserts itself as the condition from which, for the human realm, reality and experience are given. Eidelsztein’s conceptions regarding the origin of the subject, the Big Bang of language and speech, and its discontinuity with the biological body establish the basis on which the psychoanalytic clinic should be sustained. Written in clear and straightforward prose, The Origin of the Subject in Psychoanalysis will be of great interest to scholars of Lacanian psychoanalysis and to Lacanian analysts in practice and in training.