In this course, we will present and study together Lacan's Seminar VIII.  This is an English (translated by Cormac Gallagher and his group) printed version of  Lacan's year-long seminar on transference given in 1960-61.  He uses an analysis of the various characters in Plato's Symposium in which Socrates tells Alcibiades that is it not Socrates he loves, but rather Agathon.  What he "loves" in Socrates is something Lacan calls the agalma, a Greek word indicating something precious and specific to Alcibiades that has nothing to do with Socrates as a person.  Using this example, Lacan begins to nuance various aspects of the "little other", the object of desire and the analyst in the situation of transference, developing an increasingly refined description of the possibilities of what the analysand actually seeks in their relationship with the analyst.  This leads to Lacan's later concept of the object petit a, the object around which the drive circulates, which itself evolves through the next 20 years.

Participants will be able to download a copy of Seminar VIII from the website of LacanToronto.ca and will be guided each week as to which sections we will be focusing on.

Participants are advised to have a copy of Dylan Evans, 1996, An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis, Routledge, London and New York.

Other papers will be referred to or distributed in class.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1.  Participants will have the opportunity to participate in a classic cartel-like set of meetings in which Lacan's Seminar VIII is read and studied together, with guides who will orient the members of the group, elucidate and elaborate concepts, and encourage discussion and application of the concepts.

2.  Participants will have the benefit of an in-depth reading of parts of Lacan's seminar on transference which will nuance their understanding of the transference object in a therapeutic analysis.

3.  Participants will learn about various technical/treatment implications associated with the Lacanian concepts associated with transference.

4.  Participants will learn about some of the historical and philosophical contexts of the topic of transference as spoken and written written by Lacan, which will deepen their appreciation of the sources, breadth and applications of his theories.