ABSTRACT
Lacan’s interest in paranoia predates his interest in psychoanalysis; it is the subject of his first major work, his doctoral dissertation (Lacan, 1932). In this work, Lacan discusses a psychotic woman whom he calls ‘Aimée’, whom he diagnoses as suffering from ‘self-punishment paranoia’ (paranoïa d’autopunition)—a new clinical category proposed by Lacan himself. Lacan returns to the subject of paranoia in his seminar of 1955-6, which he devotes to a sustained commentary on the Schreber case. Lacan finds Freud’s theory about the homosexual roots of paranoia inadequate and proposes instead his own theory of FORECLOSURE as the specific mechanism of psychosis.
