Psychoanalytic Training in the School of Lacan - Part 7

“The goal of my teaching has always been, and remains, to train analysts.”

What does it take to train as a Lacanian psychoanalyst? Lacan’s famous return to the truth of Freud is a major critique of what has gone wrong with Psychoanalysis. Freud’s students have deviated from the radical core of Freud’s work and regressed to what Lacan had characterized many a time as a return to “General Psychology.” Lacan’s return to Freud is nothing short of a proposal for analytic training that is true to the spirit of the unconscious, to an ethics indicated by desire and later by the drive.

At the heart of this training—from one’s analysis, control analysis, attending seminars, organizing and participating in cartels, teaching, la passe, and being involved in the activities of the School—is the question of whether or not one finally gets to assume the analytic position, the discourse of the analyst, and continues to be involved in the many aspects of the transmission of the truth of Lacan and Freud.

It has been said, and Lacan said so himself, that most of his seminars and writing are about training analysis.

This project involves not just the usual reading and familiarizing with Lacanian concepts—for example, the Imaginary, Symbolic and Real—but reading these categories to analyze how they guide and inform the training, technique, and practice of analysis. Therefore, we will go through some of Lacan’s writing and seminars, from the early to late Lacan.

This year-round seminar is designed to help candidates and precandidates as they traverse their singular journey to becoming a Lacanian-Freudian psychoanalyst.

Readings will be announced a month before the start of the seminar.

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Dates and times: 5:30–8:00pm Pacific Time, last two Thursdays each month, September 2025 to June 2026; no classes in December 2025.

Fee: $500 or School Tuition.

Contact: Marcelo Estrada, marcelo.estrada@gmail.com.