ABSTRACT
The text ‘On a Question Prior to Any Possible Treatment of Psychosis’ is Lacan’s most important paper on the topic of psychosis. The paper provides a framework for addressing the precise status of psychosis qua clinical structure. In Lacan’s theory psychosis is not an ‘illness’ or a ‘disorder’ but a mode of relating to the signifier, the Other, and the symbolic order, which is why he thinks of it as a structure. This chapter provides a detailed discussion of all parts of ‘On a Question Prior to Any Possible Treatment of Psychosis,’ focusing on its internal coherence, the link with Lacan’s Seminar, and the literature Lacan is referring or alluding to. Topics that pass in review include clinical issues, like the status of hallucination and delusions or the triggering of acute psychotic episodes, and conceptual questions, like the status of the unconscious, the Oedipus complex, and the subject in psychotic structure.
