Psychoanalysis and Repetition

<p><b>Addresses unconscious repetition a concept that is crucial to an understanding of Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis.</b></p><p>In <i>Psychoanalysis and Repetition</i> Juan-David Nasio one of the leading contemporary Lacanian psychoanalysts in France argues that unconscious repetition represents the core of psychoanalysis as well as no less than the fundamental constitution of the human being. Through repetition the unconscious memory of the past erupts without our knowledge in our choices and actions to such an extent that for Nasio we are our past in action. While Nasio explains that repetition is both healthy and pathological the book is primarily concerned with the repetition of unconscious trauma as trauma engenders trauma through unconscious fantasms that are expressed in turn as symptoms. Through vivid clinical examples as well as trenchant theoretical explications involving repetition Nasio illuminates a range of fundamental concepts in Freud and Lacan and offers a rethinking of the psychoanalytic tradition in the context of this theme. Nasio's approach is richly interdisciplinary incorporating passages from philosophers Descartes and Spinoza for example and from such literary figures as Pindar Proust and Verlaine. The interdisciplinary fabric of Nasio's discourse conveys the crucial importance of the concept of repetition in psychoanalysis and in the human condition.</p>