Controversies, Criticisms, and Challenges of a Lacanian Neuropsychoanalysis

Lacanian psychoanalysis is largely, and notoriously, anti-naturalist. There are special challenges in attempting to formulate a specifically Lacanian neuropsychoanalysis. Many Lacanians have criticized neuropsychoanalysis for bio-reductionism, ethical normalization, and an inability to capture the formal contradictions of subjectivity articulated in Lacan’s meta-psychology. This chapter summarizes the arguments behind these criticisms, to contextualize this book in the larger field of controversies over (Lacanian) neuropsychoanalysis. These criticisms will be addressed over the course of this book.