Abstract

The ‘mixed’ response to Žižek amongst Lacanian psychoanalysts is so commonplace as to be clichéd. Hated by some, loved by others, probably read by all: indexing a certain fear of Žižek that owes in some respect to the sense that the new kid in town is always more fascinating than the crusty old sage. But of course there is much more to it than that! Is it not the case that in Žižek’s own words where he restates his desire to give examples from popular culture, to ‘avoid jargon’, to ‘achieve clarity’, to provide indeed an ‘idiot’s’ guide to Lacan, that he actually sets up the very obstacles for Lacanian psychoanalysts to read him with a ‘clear conscience’. Žižek’s own ‘short cuts’ as such appear to offer to some Lacanians an opportunity to compromise their desire! In this article I want to look at little bits of Žižek where he says something about the practice of psychoanalysis that might be both interesting to Lacanian psychoanalysts, where, we can read Žižek with Lacan, and maybe put to rest some of the evident panic-mongering that sometimes mobilizes an anti-Žižekian stance. I will take as my compass, the first section in Lacan’s own work on The Direction of the Treatment and the Principles of its Power in order to stage Žižek’s engagement with Lacanian theory as both clinically derived and clinically interesting. Perhaps, my effort will in the words of T.S. Eliot, lead us to an overwhelming question: why not Žižek? In any case, we will discover along the way what happens when a little bit of Žižek gets stuck in the throat