Editing Jacques Lacan (section)

==Writings and writing style==
According to Jean-Michel Rabaté, Lacan in the mid-1950s classed the seminars as commentaries on Freud rather than presentations of his own doctrine (like the writings), while Lacan by 1971 placed the most value on his teaching and "the interactive space of his seminar" (in contrast to [[Sigmund Freud]]). Rabaté also argued that from 1964 onward, the seminars include original ideas. However, Rabaté also wrote that the seminars are "more problematic" because of the importance of the interactive performances, and because they were partly edited and rewritten.<ref name=LTtF-Rabaté2003>{{Citation |last=Rabaté |first=Jean-Michel |title=Lacan's turn to Freud |date=2003 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-lacan/lacans-turn-to-freud/306335BEAEBD023D003CED49DFAD49F9 |work=The Cambridge Companion to Lacan |pages=1–24 |editor-last=Rabaté |editor-first=Jean-Michel |series=Cambridge Companions to Literature |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-80744-9 |access-date=2022-05-26 |archive-date=19 June 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180619053859/https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-lacan/lacans-turn-to-freud/306335BEAEBD023D003CED49DFAD49F9 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Most of Lacan's psychoanalytic writings from the 1940s through to the early 1960s were compiled with an index of concepts by Jacques-Alain Miller in the 1966 collection, titled simply ''Écrits''. Published in French by Éditions du Seuil, they were later issued as a two-volume set (1970/1) with a new "Preface". A selection of the writings (chosen by Lacan himself) were translated by [[Alan Sheridan]] and published by Tavistock Press in 1977. The full 35-text volume appeared for the first time in English in Bruce Fink's translation published by [[W. W. Norton & Company|Norton & Co]]. (2006). The ''Écrits'' were included on the list of [[Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century|100 most influential books of the 20th century]] compiled and polled by the broadsheet ''[[Le Monde]]''.

Lacan's writings from the late sixties and seventies (thus subsequent to the 1966 collection) were collected posthumously, along with some early texts from the nineteen thirties, in the Éditions du Seuil volume ''Autres écrits'' (2001).

Although most of the texts in ''Écrits'' and ''Autres écrits'' are closely related to Lacan's lectures or lessons from his Seminar, more often than not the style is denser than Lacan's oral delivery, and a clear distinction between the writings and the transcriptions of the oral teaching is evident to the reader.

An often neglected aspect of Lacan's oral and writing style is his influence from his colleague and personal friend [[Henry Corbin]], who introduced Lacan to the thought of [[Ibn Arabi]].<ref>Élisabeth Roudinesco, ''Jacques Lacan'' (Malden: Polity Press, 1999), 11, 89, 98, 435.</ref><ref>Jacques Lacan, ''L'éthique de la psychanalyse: Séminaire VII'' (Paris : Seuil, 1986), 224-225.</ref><ref>Jacques Lacan, ''Le Triomphe de La Religion précédé de Discours aux Catholiques'' (Paris: Seuil, 2005), 65.</ref> Similarities have been pointed out between the writing styles of Lacan and Ibn Arabi.<ref>Abdesselem Rechak, ''Le grand secret de la psychanalyse'' (Mandeure: self-published, 2020).</ref>

[[Jacques-Alain Miller]] is the sole editor of [[The Seminars of Jacques Lacan|Lacan's seminars]], which contain the majority of his life's work. "There has been considerable controversy over the accuracy or otherwise of the transcription and editing", as well as over "Miller's refusal to allow any critical or annotated edition to be published".<ref>David Macey, "Introduction", Jacques Lacan, ''The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-analysis'' (London 1994) p. x</ref> Despite Lacan's status as a major figure in the history of [[psychoanalysis]], some of his seminars remain unpublished. Since 1984, Miller has been regularly conducting a series of lectures, "L'orientation lacanienne." Miller's teachings have been published in the US by the journal ''[[Lacanian Ink]].''

Lacan's writing is notoriously difficult, due in part to the repeated [[Hegelian]]/[[Alexandre Kojève|Kojèvean]] allusions, wide theoretical divergences from other psychoanalytic and philosophical theory, and an obscure prose style. For some, "the impenetrability of Lacan's prose... [is] too often regarded as profundity precisely because it cannot be understood".<ref>Richard Stevens, ''Sigmund Freud: Examining the Essence of his Contribution'' (Basingstoke 2008) p. 191n</ref> Arguably at least, "the imitation of his style by other [[Lacanian movement|'Lacanian' commentators]]" has resulted in "an obscurantist antisystematic tradition in Lacanian literature".<ref>Yannis Stavrakakis, ''Lacan and the Political'' (London: Routledge, 1999) pp. 5–6</ref>

Although Lacan is a major influence on psychoanalysis in France and parts of Latin America, in the English-speaking world his influence on [[clinical psychology]] has been far less and his ideas are best known in the arts and humanities. However, there are Lacanian psychoanalytic societies in both North America and the United Kingdom that carry on his work.<ref name="dylan_evans"/>

One example of Lacan's work being practiced in the United States is found in the works of Annie G. Rogers (''A Shining Affliction''; ''The Unsayable: The Hidden Language of Trauma''), which credit Lacanian theory for many therapeutic insights in successfully treating sexually abused young women.<ref>e.g. ''A Shining Affliction'' {{ISBN|978-0-14-024012-2}}</ref> Lacan's work has also reached Quebec, where The Interdisciplinary Freudian Group for Research and Clinical and Cultural Interventions (GIFRIC) claims that it has used a modified form of Lacanian psychoanalysis in successfully treating psychosis in many of its patients, a task once thought to be unsuited for psychoanalysis, even by psychoanalysts themselves<!--pscyhoanalysis not to treat psychosis???-->.<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://www.gifric.com/388.htm | title=Le 388 | access-date=14 March 2015 | archive-date=24 February 2015 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150224104421/http://www.gifric.com/388.htm | url-status=live }}</ref>