Baudrillard and Lacanian Psychoanalysis

This book is the first to develop a Baudrillardian critique of the problematic way Lacanian psychoanalysis, as a clinical practice and by extension as a source of socio-cultural and philosophical theory, continues its vain attempt to (re)animate a subject of the unconscious. The text throws into question Lacan¿s notion of the ¿real,¿ the unconscious ¿structured as a language,¿ and his construct of surplus, while interrogating the links between psychoanalysis and Marxism. It shows how Lacanian psychoanalysis, with its questionable ethics, transpires as an endlessly recursive simulation model.

Lacan¿s clinical seminar was influential in the intellectual milieu of Paris while Baudrillard was writing. Although frequently referring to psychoanalysis, Baudrillard never wrote a detailed critique of psychoanalysis; the scaffolding of such a work, however, transpires throughout the extent of his writing. The text also outlines Deleuze and Guattari¿s critique of psychoanalysis s