University College Dublin

Modules
Human Sexuality and the Logic of Sexuation
From the time of Sigmund Freud’s controversial ‘Three Essays on a Theory of Sexuality’ [1905] it has been possible to investigate human sexuality in terms of the sexual drive and human subjectivity irrespective of moral or ideological positions on gender, sexual orientation or sexual identities. That is, in a way that is not entirely determined by one’s biologically gendered state and the cultural expectations attached to it, how we take up a position as a man or as a woman is unique and fundamental to the emergence of one’s subjective disposition. This module traces Freud’s development of a theory of human sexuality and follows it into the work of Jacques Lacan whose term sexuation differentiates the question of human sexuality from non-clinical ideologically motivated approaches to sexualities. The content of this module has a crucial bearing upon our response to the sexual issues of our time ranging from sexual abuse, suicide among young men, addictions, femininity – particularly with the question of transgender – to the task each faces in taking up a position as a sexed being, however this may be put into practice.

Transference and the Interpretation of Desire
Transference is one of the fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis and has entered the language of psychotherapy and psychiatry. This module provides access to the emergence of the term as it is elaborated in Sigmund Freud’s work. Central to this exploration is a close reading of the major case history which illuminates Freud’s discovery of the phenomena of transference – the ‘Dora’ case, ‘Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria’. Also guiding this study is Jacques Lacan’s Seminar on Transference where Plato’s Symposium provides major support. Desire is another fundamental term, introduced into psychoanalytic vocabulary in the work of Jacques Lacan. This module provides access to key parts of Lacan’s teaching on desire including study of his reference to Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Psychoanalytic Conceptions of Psychosis
This module consists of close reading of two of Sigmund Freud’s major case studies – the study of paranoia based on a reading of Judge Daniel Paul Schreber’s autobiography documenting his mental illness and Freud’s own lengthy treatment of the Russian émigré, Sergei Pankejeff, referred to as the ‘Wolf Man’. These texts provide the foundation for any psychoanalytic theory of psychosis. The module relates this theory to contemporary psychiatric and psychological practices treating psychotic illness.

Ethics, Research and Clinical Applications
Jacques Lacan’s The Ethics of Psychoanalysis stands as a major contribution to our understanding of psychoanalysis as an ethical practice. In order to situate the ethics of psychoanalysis Lacan differentiates the psychoanalytic position from the tradition of humanist ethics which grew up in response to the work of Aristotle. Central to Lacan’s teaching is his reading of Sophocles’ Antigone, the Greek tragedy that Western civilisation carries with it twenty-five centuries after its first production. This study of ethics informs the psychoanalytic approach to research and its challenge to the reduction of research to the collection of data in accordance with prescribed, evidence-based methodologies. Psychoanalysis encourages an open approach to what constitutes science arguing that the rigour of logical argument and mathematical hypothesis can underpin scientific endeavour as productively as empirical measurement and assessment. The contemporary debate surrounding research and science is examined with a view to understanding the need for a scientific method that takes cognisance of the laws of the unconscious. Three clinical applications of psychoanalytic practice and theory are addressed by professionals working psychoanalytically therein: in addiction the administration of enjoyment by both addict and treatment service is explored; in criminality the implications of Freud's concept of criminality occurring to assuage a previously present sense of unconscious guilt will be addressed; in queer theory the importation of psychoanalytic terms to articulate a critique of the subject in modern culture is assessed.

Psychoanalysis in Context
This module introduces students to the theories of madness and its treatment over the ages as presented in the work of Michel Foucault and Henri Ellenberger. Central to this study are the different positions taken on the relation between the normal and the pathological. This content allows greater appreciation of the context within which Freud first proposed his clinic of the unconscious.

In addition the module introduces students to work from the field of philosophy of crucial relevance to the psychoanalytic field. In particular there is a focus on Hegel’s theory of desire and of the Master – Slave dialectic. There is also consideration of contemporary discussion of the concept of subjectivity and Jacques Lacan’s theory of the four discourses is also studied in this context.

The module also includes a reading of Jacques Lacan’s text Family Complexes in the Formation of the Individual in order to appreciate the psychoanalytic theory of familial effects in mental life as well as study the contemporary concept of the conjugal family, recently the subject of a referendum.

The Symptom and the Dream
Sigmund Freud proposes that the dream and the psychological symptom are representations of the existence of unconscious mental functioning. They are the privileged formations for exploring this activity. This module offers an examination of these formations of the unconscious through a close reading of Freud’s theory of the grammar and syntax specific to primary process unconscious thinking. Two of Freud's seminal texts, The Interpretation of Dreams and the case history known as that of the ‘Rat Man’ provide the content of the module.

Child Psychoanalysis - Theory and Application
This module presents key instances of the relationship between psychoanalysis and the child beginning with a reading of Freud’s case history account of his treatment of phobia in a five-year-old boy ‘Little Hans’ which progresses through the elaboration by the boy of myth that can sustain him in the face of annihilating terror. The pioneering work of Melanie Klein and Donald Winnicott will also be studied given their respective influence in approaches to treatment of children presenting with psychological disorder.

Psychoanalysis and Language
This module studies Jacques Lacan’s seminal statement that the unconscious is structured like a language. The consequence is that the material of our mental life is linguistic. This is why there can be a clinical practice whose material is speech and which addresses fundamentally the question of being in the world. The recognition of language as constitutive of human subjectivity occurs repeatedly in the work of Freud. Jacques Lacan supports his theory of subjectivity with the science of linguistics as articulated in the work of Ferdinand de Saussure and Roman Jakobson as well as with the anthropology of Claude Levi-Strauss.

Dissertation
Students will prepare and submit a 8,000 - 10,000 word thesis at the end of the second semester of the second academic year of taking the Graduate Diploma programme. In preparation, they will be expected to submit a comprehensive dissertation proposal including a literature review by the end of semester one of second year. Direction and supervision in formulating their proposal and progressing their written work will be provided over year two of the programme. The dissertation should be evidently informed by the student’s experience of the psychoanalysis including their own psychoanalysis.