Depression through a Lacanian Lens: A 10-week online workshop

• Focus: Deconstructing Freud’s Mourning and Melancholia (1917) and shifting from energy redistribution (cathexis) to signifiers, fantasy frames, and topological registers (R-S-I).
• Topics: Freud's Trauerarbeit; the specular image i(a); the identification of the ego with the lost object; the collapse of i(a) into object a as waste (déchet).
• Clinical Vignette: An analysand presenting with severe psychosomatic apathy after losing a parent, showing classic signs of melancholic self-reproach ("The shadow of the object fell upon the ego").
• Applied/Non-Clinical Vignette: Analyzing a public figure's sudden downfall or withdrawal from public life after a loss of power—examining how their entire public identity (i(a)) collapsed when their structural support vanished.

Primary text:

• Freud, Sigmund. (1917). "Mourning and Melancholia." Standard Edition, Vol. XIV, pp. 237–258.
• Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VIII: Transference (1960–1961). Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller, trans. Bruce Fink. Polity Press, 2015. (Selected excerpts on i(a) and the object).

• Focus: The unique status of death in the Real versus imaginary grief, and why mourning is a symbolic operation, not an emotional process.
• Topics: Death as an absolute Hole in the Real (S(Ā)); the role of collective rites in weaving signifiers; unperformed mourning and the return of the ghost (Lacan's reading of Hamlet); disentangling a from i(a).
• Clinical Vignette: An analysand whose mourning is "stuck" because the family refused a funeral, resulting in panic attacks and ghost-like visitations in dreams (unbound Real).
• Applied/Non-Clinical Vignette: Hamlet's Procrastination. Analyzing Hamlet’s paralysis following his father’s death and Gertrude's overhasty marriage—how a lack of proper cultural mourning creates a ghost in the Real.

Primary text:

• Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VI: Desire and Its Interpretation (1958–1959). Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller, trans. Bruce Fink. Polity Press, 2019. (Chapters XII–XX: Reading on Hamlet, Ophelia, and mourning).
• Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book X: Anxiety (1962–1963). Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller, trans. Bruce Fink. Polity Press, 2014. (Chapter X: "Grief and the Object a").

• Focus: Non-mortal losses (break-ups, divorce, loss of position, shattered ideals) as a re-confrontation with the operations of subjectivity.
• Topics: Alienation and the forced choice; Separation and the riddle of the Other's desire ("Che vuoi?"); falling from cause of desire (a) to discarded remnant (déchet); confrontation with structural castration.
• Clinical Vignette: An analysand spiraling into severe obsession/depression after being abruptly ghosted by a long-term partner, stuck on the riddle "What did I fail to be for them?"
• Applied/Non-Clinical Vignette: Mid-Career Identity Collapse / Retirement. A top executive or professional athlete forced into sudden retirement who experiences "depression" because their entire answer to Che vuoi? ("What does the world want from me?") was tied to their career role.

Primary text:

• Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XI: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis (1964). Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller, trans. Alan Sheridan. W.W. Norton & Co., 1998. (Chapters 16 & 17: "Alienation" and "Separation").

• Focus: Processing loss in a psychotic structure where primary identification and the Name-of-the-Father are foreclosed (P_0).
• Topics: Loss as a tear in the Imaginary; why probing lack can trigger overt psychosis; the mechanics of melancholic suicide as a passage à l'acte; stabilization via Ordinary Psychosis, delusion, and the Sinthome (Seminar XXIII).
• Clinical Vignette: A psychotic patient whose imaginary double (a lifelong close friend) moved away, triggering hypochondriacal delusions of bodily disintegration.
• Applied/Non-Clinical Vignette: Art as a Stabilizing Anchor (Sinthome). Examining James Joyce’s writing (Lacan’s Seminar XXIII) or an artist like Yayoi Kusama—how artistic creation serves as a non-analytic, non-clinical repair mechanism to bind loss and prevent psychological collapse.

Primary text:

• Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book III: The Psychoses (1955–1956). Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller, trans. Russell Grigg. W.W. Norton & Co., 1993. (Selected passages on foreclosure).
• Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XXIII: The Sinthome (1975–1976). Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller, trans. A.R. Price. Polity Press, 2016.

• Focus: Lacan’s critique of "clinical depression" and the ethical imperative of bien dire ("speaking well") to counter neurotic inhibition.
• Topics: Sadness as moral cowardice (lâcheté morale) and giving ground on desire (céder sur son désir); truth as half-said (mi-dire); the shift from desire to drive; traversing the fundamental fantasy ($<> a).
• Clinical Vignette: An analysand using endless self-pity and complaint (lâcheté morale) as a defense, whom the analyst confronts via scansion to force them to take responsibility for their desire.
• Applied/Non-Clinical Vignette: Existential/Career Paralysis. A writer or professional suffering from "burnout" or "writer's block," analyzing how their paralysis is actually a secret choice to refuse the risk of putting their work into the world (céder sur son désir), and how bien dire applies to creative courage.

Primary text:

• Lacan, Jacques. Television: A Challenge to the Psychoanalytic Establishment. Ed. Joan Copjec, trans. Denis Hollier, Rosalind Krauss, and Annette Michelson. W.W. Norton & Co., 1990. (Question 1 & Question 3).
• Lacan, Jacques. (1967). "Proposition of 9 October 1967 on the Analyst of the School." In Other Writings, trans. Bruce Fink. W.W. Norton & Co., 2013.

• Fink, Bruce. (1997). A Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis: Theory and Technique. Harvard University Press. (Crucial for differential diagnosis and clinical application).
• Grigg, Russell. (2008). Lacan, Language, and Philosophy. SUNY Press. (Chapter on mourning and symbolic rites).
• Harari, Roberto. (2001). Lacan's Seminar XI: An Introduction. SUNY Press. (Clear breakdown of Alienation and Separation).
• Leader, Darian. (2008). The New Black: Mourning, Melancholia, and Depression. Penguin Books. (Essential contemporary Lacanian clinical text on loss).
• Miller, Jacques-Alain. (1988). "Ordinary Psychosis Revisited." In Psychoanalytical Notebooks, Issue 19.
• Soler, Colette. (2014). Lacanian Affects. Trans. Bruce Fink. Routledge. (Key chapters on sadness, grief, and jouissance).
• Zupančič, Alenka. (2000). Ethics of the Real: Kant, Lacan. Verso. (Chapter on the ethical dimension of bien dire).

To cultivate a brave, confidential, and uninhibited environment for reflection and sharing:

• Live Zoom sessions will not be recorded by the host. If you miss a live meeting, session notes and discussion prompts will be posted in Whop Classroom to keep you connected and on track.
• Participants are asked not to record the Zoom sessions on their personal devices.

• Payment: Full payment (or the first payment of an approved installment plan) must be received prior to the first day of the workshop.
• Before the Start Date: You may cancel your registration anytime prior to the first day of the workshop for a full 100% refund.
• Weeks 1–2: Once the course starts, you may cancel your registration during the first two calendar weeks (prior to the start of the second live Zoom session) for a partial refund of payments made, minus a $45 cancellation fee.
• After Week 2: Absolutely no refunds will be issued after the start of the second live Zoom session.

Remote offerings depend on third-party internet service providers across all participants joining the Zoom call, which may result in varying audio/video quality outside of the Host/Presenter’s control.

• We are not responsible for any losses or missed session time caused by internet connectivity issues on the participant’s end.
• If a major outage occurs outside of participants' control—including a loss of connectivity on the Host/Presenter's end—we will do our absolute best to offer a rescheduled session or make-up time if feasible.