ABSTRACT
In sharp contrast with Minkowski, who valiantly applied existential and phenomenological principles to psychotherapy but received little recognition for it, Lacan was a very influential French psychoanalyst, sometimes credited with the label of existential practitioner – without this necessarily being fully warranted. Lacan draws on Heidegger’s work in a minimal fashion, basing himself far more on Freud and the work of linguistics. He remains caught in an ever-narrowing psychoanalytic net of interpretation which in many ways is anything but phenomenological. But he is nevertheless worth considering since he does give an existential slant to his psychoanalytic work. It must be noted that other psychoanalytic authors such as Winnicott, Horney, Kohut, Langs, even Freud and Klein, and certainly Roy Schafer, can be considered as including some existential elements in their theories. Their contributions are not considered here because this book is not about psychoanalysis. Lacan is included because he comes up with some concepts that are clearly Heideggerian and also to some extent Sartrian in nature.
