The Life and Death of Psychoanalysis

The author believes the discovery of psychoanalysis cannot be separated from Freud's self-analysis and the foundational act of writing about his own dreams. Now that the hype, the 100 years of excitement and building up of the institution of psychoanalysis, is in decline, the time seems ripe for a return to the question of the truth of the discovery of the unconscious. This book seeks to take up this crisis and return psychoanalysis to a discourse relevant to contemporary thought as a more personal story of what it means to become a psychoanalyst. The work is divided into three sections, each organized around a major thinker whose work is defined by a definitive engagement with psychoanalysis: Adorno, Lacan and Badiou. A careful reading of these thinkers, attempting to deconstruct their understanding of psychoanalysis, including how this work has shaped the author'¬"s identity as a psychoanalyst, marks each section.

Jamieson Webster argues that the life and death of psychoanalysis hinges on the question of desire itself, bringing this question back to the center of psychoanalytic theory and practice. Pursued through her own relation to the field, she recounts the story of her training through the interpretation of three significant dreams, as well as her encounter with three thinkers for whom the problem of psychoanalysis remains crucial: Adorno, Lacan, and Badiou. In blurring the line between the personal and the theoretical, this book explores how one, through the difficult work of transference and reading, can live out the life of desire that tests the very limits of what it means to be human.