What's now grouped under the umbrella of "ego psychology" was once called "classical Freudianism." Lacanians also, at times, adopt the position of representing the "true Freudians." I have some questions for Lacanians who oppose "ego psychology"--or, more broadly, the dominant theoretical & technical line in psychoanalysis across continental Europe and the US in the 40s-60s, which was theoretically grounded in Freud's structural model and technically focused on analysis of transference and resistance.

What exactly are the Freudian critiques--not the Lacanian ones--of that theoretical & technical line? The Lacanian critiques I've encountered all use his language and theoretical framework (and so can at times seem to assume their validity as a premise), and I also find many of them seem to argue against strawmen (e.g., the idea that classical analysts had for their patients the treatment aim of normative adaptation to society). I haven't come across critiques grounded in Freud himself--that is, critiques of the claim that midcentury ego psychology represents a conservative fidelity to Freud's thought & technique that lay out the ways it in fact significantly diverges from, misreads, or misrepresents Freud. What are the theoretical concepts and technical principles being argued against, and what is the Freudian case against them?

I would love for any Lacanians to try to respond in your own words, and I'd also welcome links to papers that engage with these questions. In either case, I'm interested only in arguments that narrowly draw on Freud himself for making the case against midcentury "ego psychology"/"classical Freudianism" and don't employ Lacan or Lacanian language or concepts in any way and that have concrete references for ideas or positions they're critiquing and don't build strawmen out of classical/ego psychological thought & technique.

My supervisor has me reading stuff by the post-Freudians/psychodynamic therapists and I have to say it's very heavy on phenomenology. Their goal is to describe their concepts with as much detail and variety as possible. It reminds me a lot of academia.

Lacan, and Freud, on the other hand, focus much more on the structures and principles underlying these diverse phenomena. Lacan especially almost never gives case studies but these papers are filled with them.

They both have their place I suppose but I find Lacan's writings much much more inspired.

hi everyone!
I'll skip the part about introducing myself and my background, I'll just say that I'm a psychologist and I'm getting my education in my country. I work within a different approach, but I'm EXTREMELY interested in psychoanalysis and the psychodynamic approach in general, and so I have a few questions - they might seem stupid to you, sorry, but I genuinely want to turn to experts for advice. I'll also warn you that English isn't my native language, so sorry if there are any mistakes here.^^

If we don't go into details and if we acknowledge HOW complexly everything is structured, what would you advise someone who is just starting their journey in psychoanalysis, in general? As if you were going back to the very beginning of your own journey: what would you recommend to that version of yourself?

I'm also very concerned about the question of literature — textbooks, manuals, guides, anything on psychoanalysis. Could you recommend must-reads at a basic level, something on various aspects, some SSS+-tier books? And in particular - I'm interested in clinical psychoanalysis/the psychodynamic approach, I would be incredibly grateful for pointers specifically in that direction, because I find it hard to find something on personality disorders/addictions/other clinical situations there.

And the last (but not least) question: I constantly hear that in psychoanalysis and the psychodynamic approach there are a great many different directions and schools, for example, "relationalists," the Lacanian school, and many, many others. Is there some kind of list of all possible directions/modalities/whatever this even is, so that I could choose something for myself? And I'd also be glad for book suggestions for these approaches, if you can recommend something worthwhile on this or that direction…

Thank you so much! You'll be helping me incredibly, good luck <З

I’m doing a personal research project to help me select writings of Freud for personal study and teaching. I’ve made a survey to help me in this. The estimation tools I’ve used say it should take around 10 minutes to complete.

So, if you have 10 minutes to spare and have opinions about Freud, I’d greatly appreciate it if you’d share them with me via this survey.

The survey can be found here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfYTtLDWlAUQVf0SSFRwlcFCiZ_Vye-vzmdmMn-SEd_ahaAjA/viewform

Feel free to share this link with anyone you think might be interested, and let me know if you’re curious about the results (assuming I get enough responses to have anything meaningful).