ARTICLE
The unconscious as a message from the Other. Theory and practice of psychoanalysis according to Jean Laplanche
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Instytut Psychologii UJ
Submission date: 2018-01-12
Final revision date: 2018-04-24
Acceptance date: 2018-04-25
Publication date: 2018-08-29
Corresponding author
Antoni Grzybowski
Instytut Psychologii UJ, Wojska Polskiego 18 C/C m.2, 87-800 Włocławek, Polska
Psychoter 2018;185(2):21-34
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ABSTRACT
The purpose of this article is to present the most important aspects of Jean Laplanche's theory. The work is divided into three parts: the first concerns the critical method of reading Freud's works, which was a starting point for Laplanche's own theory; the second presents key aspects of the general theory of seduction and other theoretical postulates connected with it; the third includes aspects of the psychoanalytic method raised by the French psychoanalyst in a practical context. Deriving from the student community of Jacques Lacan, Laplanche proposed a new approach to the theory and practice of psychoanalysis, which led him to critically read the works of Sigmund Freud and look at psychoanalysis primarily through the prism of its unique method. One of Laplanche's main postulates was the return to the Freudian theory of seduction, which the creator of psychoanalysis rejected at some stage of his work. This theory was intended to explain the etiology of neuroses by demonstrating that sexual abuse by an adult occurred in the early life of neurotic patients. According to the French psychoanalyst, the theory of seduction, though wrongly rejected, required extension and modification, so that it may have corresponded to the analytical experience and at the same time could form the core of psychoanalytic theory. To this end, he developed an original concept of the "general" theory of seduction, which could cover non-pathological childhood experience. This concept became the basis for a new way of understanding the theory and practice of psychoanalysis proposed by Laplanche.