Why psychoanalysis still matters?

There's a bit of a category mistake here given that Zizek isn't a practicing analyst and constantly says so -- he's using the analytic theory to make arguments about philosophical concepts. And while he is good at that, you can't understand him if you expect him to fix your compulsive symptoms (or whatever) because that's not what his writing is about. It is already quite specialized to begin with and demands a good background in the European tradition.

Lacan at his prime is often sensationalized for his cult of celebrity and unusual fame with the artists of his time, but clinically speaking he was adamant about debunking prevailing psychological superstitions, effectively building his whole theory against any sense that an analyst could ever properly understand their patient from the outside without first understanding what their inner mental language and inner code was built like. This was a fundamental emphasis for him that he radicalized.

Psychoanalysis has evolved further since then (rounding to ~ half a century by now?) although it's not too well represented in literature departments. Nonetheless, plenty of classical concepts even from Lacan's time, like projective identification from Melanie Klein, are incredibly useful in understanding transference today (transference itself is a bedrock psychoanalytic concept from Freud himself). But this is going back to say that you need to be versed in the rudimentary Freudian concepts and then the thinkers in the generations after Freud before you reach better terms to cry pseudoscience -- that's an opinion though. Reading someone like Bruce Fink may help you if you since he writes clearly and, well, American-ly. At any rate, if you're not seriously interested and are just venting your dismissal, consider dabbling around books by someone like Gary Edelman instead, who isn't a psychoanalyst by any stretch but dedicates his major book on neuroscience to Freud.

/r/askphilosophy Thread