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A Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis: Theory and Technique, by Bruce Fink, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. 1997. xiii + 220 pp., $37.95.
I wish to begin this book review by stating two of my prejudices. First, I believe the transcripts of Lacan's seminars, at least as translated from French into English, are so obscure, ambiguous, and difficult to read that I think at times they are simply unintelligible. This means that anyone who attempts to read Lacan in English translation will be faced with a Rorschach test for interpretation. Perhaps Lacan intended it this way, so that with all the ambiguities and changes of his positions over the years, each author who attempts to explicate Lacan's work essentially presents his or her own version. This is not the fault of the author but rather an inevitable result of such incredibly obscure exposition, which even someone with a strong philosophical background finds impossible to decipher with any confidence. Perhaps it is different in French; there is no doubt that some of Lacan's puns and allusions are lost in translation. Fink has attempted to present his version of Lacan, which seems to lean rather heavily on Lacan's son-in-law, Jacques-Alain Miller, whom Fink praises highly, but who is a very controversial figure on his own. This nicely printed book also contains extensive footnotes and a bibliography of recommended reading.
My other prejudice is to be unalterably against Lacan's practice that Fink calls "scansion." This is the notorious "five minute hour," in which Lacan suddenly interrupts the psychoanalytic session, sometimes only a few moments after it begins, and declares it to be at an end. Fink gives a clear explanation of the theory behind this. He writes, "Once they have said what is important, there is no need to continue the session; and indeed if the analyst does not 'scand' or end the session there, patients are likely to supply filler till the end of the psychoanalytic 'hour' and forget the important things they said earlier on" (p. 16). Fink describes a friend of his who was in analysis with a Lacanian and "for more than a week at one point in his analysis, his analyst sent him on his way after sessions lasting no more than...