For Better or Worse

In this book, the author draws on his 25-year-long engagement with Lacan's works to explore some of the uncharted territories in his wide-ranging contributions to the field of psychoanalysis. Following Freud's argument that psychoanalysis is a tripartite paradigm, the book is divided into three separate, yet interlocking parts. In the theoretical section, the book addresses such rarely studied issues as Lacan's conception of time, his outlook on the superego, and his lifelong interest in organisational life. In the clinical section, the book opens up new critical perspectives on Lacan's theory of action, his conception of obsessional neurosis, and the vexed issue of the structure (and discourse) of perversion. Finally, in the 'applied' section, the reader is offered new interpretations of some of Lacan's most enduring comments on sublimation, the creative impulse, literature and the visual arts.