ABSTRACT
The end of a Lacanian analysis requires one additional step: the realization that for all its elusiveness, self-knowledge as such can be "well-spoken" to others, referring to one's style of dealing with the unconscious, or the unknown, as evidenced by a more captivating way of speaking about it. Although Lacanian psychoanalysis is most certainly not the only way to make lasting shifts in explanatory style, might it provide new data on what happiness has to do with the role of creativity in the way people speak about people to others? For Lacanian psychoanalysis, "wanting to be" like someone else is more or less a prerequisite to beginning the treatment. For the analyst, it's a given that negative thoughts of any sort cannot be outwitted by cognitive-behavioral interventions when they're still packing the punch of unconscious investments in their validity: those strangely powerful fixations on unrealistic or dubious models for aspiration.
