About the Lacanian School of Psychoanalysis

Mission Statement

Founded in 1990, the Lacanian School of Psychoanalysis was created within the historical context of the psychoanalytic movement to conduct education, research, and treatment for the benefit of the local community. LSP has been created to transmit Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, offer a formation process to prelicensed and licensed clinicians, and provide clinical supervision of psychoanalysis from a Lacanian perspective, also known as control analysis.

Board of Directors

The Board of Directors is composed of seven directors who oversee all fiduciary, legal, and mission-driven decisions by consensus or the vote of a quorum of directors. The directors, elected by the membership, serve a two-year term, and must include at least three Analysts of the School. Elections are organized by the Board of Directors in place. An Executive Committee is formed by the Officers of the Board: President, Vice President, Treasurer, and Secretary.

Program Committee

The Lacanian School has offered a yearly training in psychoanalysis since 1994, and both the position of the teacher and the student are fundamental in the formation of the analyst of the future and the transmission of psychoanalysis in Lacan’s return to Freud. In addition to taking courses as part of their analytic formation, the Lacanian School encourages its pre-Candidates, Candidate Analysts, and Analysts to engage in the transmission of psychoanalysis in their own social link through teaching seminars, organizing conferences, special events, Cartels, and reading groups.

The Program Committee is tasked on an annual basis to request and review proposals submitted by the School’s membership, to give feedback, and ultimately to format and schedule the curriculum for each academic year at LSP. The Program Committee reports to the Meeting of the Analysts in order to ensure that the Lacanian School’s program promotes and reflects what the School requires as fundamental to the formation of the psychoanalyst in the aftermath of Lacan’s return to Freud. It thereby reviews each year’s program to ensure that certain key elements of that formation are reflected in the curriculum. In addition to reporting to the Meeting of the Analysts, the Program Committee’s Board member(s) report monthly to the Lacanian School’s Board of Directors.

In addition to creating the program for each year, the Program Committee is responsible for organizing and supporting key events in the School such as the Work Day of the School, the Days of Assembly, and provides support to members of the School organizing special events in their communities as part of the School’s program. Members of the Program Committee volunteer and are approved by the Board.

If you are a current member of LSP and are interested in learning more about this Committee or would like to join to help with their work, or if you have a proposal to submit, please reach out at programcommittee@lacanschool.org.

Meeting of Analysts

The Meeting of Analysts is a monthly 90-minute meeting and is composed of all the Analysts of the School. The analysts oversee all aspects of psychoanalytic training and transmission. They review admissions materials, conduct interviews, and make admission decisions. The School’s Referral Coordinator oversees the process of referrals for personal analysis. This meeting considers demands for palimpsests and passages.

The analysts formulate and revise requirements of formation in the two tracks: Clinical and Scholar. Working groups of analysts form for a particular purpose and dissolve as tasks are finished; any of these groups may consult or work with school members. If anyone cannot attend, that analyst agrees to read minutes of the meeting to be up to date with advising in the School. Reach out regarding the Meeting of Analysts by sending an email to admin@lacanschool.org.

Guarantee of the Lack of the School

The President and Vice President are submitted to the bylaws in their functions as officers of the Board. But also, crucially, they serve an analytic function, a guarantee of the place of the lack in the School. In a growing and complex Psychoanalytic School with a long history, where the leaders may find themselves taking a master’s position, along with its power and its blindness, leadership itself requires the address to a lacking Other; to check the ego, superego, or emergent symptoms that may come to interfere with the functioning of the School as a psychoanalytic space.

The President and Vice President serve this function for one another as well as for the School and its members, and therefore both must be analysts. The symbolic structures of the School are grounded in speaking and in the impossibilities of the Symbolic, the beyond of speaking which touches the Real. These structures apply not only to the clinic and to formation, but also to all social links within the School.

Since the lack serves a productive space in the clinic by breaking down imaginary identifications, paranoia, and excessive anxiety, the lack also serves that function regarding unconscious processes at play in any working group in the School. The President and Vice President work together to create and sustain a savoir of the unconscious, welcoming and sustaining the Other of speech in every aspect of the School.

Bylaws & Legal Status

Since 2019, the Lacanian School has been incorporated as a 501(c)(3) entity, organized and operated exclusively for charitable purposes. These Bylaws must comply with California law but are subject to change by the Board to better reflect the needs, purpose, and functioning of the School.

PDF The most recent version of LSP's Bylaws

Ethical Complaints Process

LSP maintains a documented process for handling ethical complaints involving members of the School.

PDF LSP's Process for Handling Ethical Complaints