Psychology After the Unconscious ― From Freud to Lacan

"Ian Parker has been a leading light in the fields of critical and discursive psychology for over 25 years. The Psychology After Critique series brings together for the first time his most important papers. Each volume in the series has been prepared by Ian Parker and presents a newly written introduction and focused overview of a key topic area. Psychology After the Unconscious is the fifth volume in the series and addresses three central questions: - Why is Freud's concept of the unconscious important today? - Does language itself play a role in the creation of the unconscious? - How does Lacan radicalize Freud's notion of the unconscious in relation to cultural research? The book provides a clear explanation of Freudian and Lacanian accounts of the unconscious. It also highlights their role in offering a new way of describing, understanding and working with the human subject in clinical settings and in cultural research. Part One shows how the unconscious is elaborated in Freud's early case studies inStudies on Hysteria, while Part Two focuses on Lacan's re-working of the unconscious and its relationship to language and culture in his influential public seminars. The book also provides access to key debates currently occurring in Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis, exploring both the clinical dimension and the consequences for psychological and cultural research. Psychology After the Unconscious is essential reading for students and researchers in psychology, psychosocial studies, sociology, socialanthropology and cultural studies, and to psychoanalysts of different traditions engaged in academic research. It will also introduce key ideas and debates within critical psychology to undergraduates and postgraduate students across the social sciences"--

Ian Parker was Co-Founder and is Co-Director (with Erica Burman) of the Discourse Unit. He is a member of the Asylum: Magazine for Democratic Psychiatry collective, and a practising psychoanalyst in Manchester. His research and writing intersects with psychoanalysis and critical theory. He is currently editing a book series Lines of the Symbolic (on Lacanian psychoanalysis in different cultural contexts) for Karnac Books. He edited the 2011 four-volume Routledge major work Critical Psychology, and is editing the series Concepts for Critical Psychology: Disciplinary Boundaries Re-Thought. His books on critical perspectives in psychology began with The Crisis in Modern Social Psychology, and How to End It (Routledge, 1989), and continued with Discourse Dynamics: Critical Analysis for Social and Individual Psychology (Routledge, 1992). His recent books include Qualitative Psychology: Introducing Radical Research (Open University Press, 2005) and Revolution in Psychology: Alienation to Emancipation (Pluto Press, 2007).