Explore UCD

UCD Home >

MDCS40420

Academic Year 2024/2025

Psychoanalysis and Language (MDCS40420)

Subject:
Medicine Clinical Science
College:
Health & Agricultural Sciences
School:
Medicine
Level:
4 (Masters)
Credits:
5
Module Coordinator:
Dr Barry O'Donnell
Trimester:
Spring
Mode of Delivery:
On Campus
Internship Module:
No
How will I be graded?
Letter grades

Curricular information is subject to change.

Sigmund Freud's account of the laws of unconscious mental functioning derives from his work with the formations of the unconscious: dreams, parapraxes, jokes and symptoms. This module studies Freud's account of the joke and the parapraxis and thereby builds on the study of the dream and the symptom in MDCS40410. The formations of the unconscious provide the material for psychoanalytic practice. Both modules cover the mechanisms of the unconscious as discovered by Freud and the recognition of these in terms drawn from linguistics by Jacques Lacan who proposed that the unconscious is structured like a language. Psychoanalysis works on the basis that the subject is constituted in language and it is linguistic material and its laws of operation that that constitute our subjective being and mental life. As Lacan puts it: 'the world of words makes the world of things'.

In psychoanalysis, how does cure through the mere act of talking come about? This module will demonstrate that the unconscious is structured like a language, thereby defining our relationship to reality. Specifically students will learn how the algorithm of the unconscious S/s (Signifier/signified) functions and its application in psychoanalytic practice. Links between this concept S/s and two of Lacan’s models for how the subject is ‘inserted’ into language and culture i.e. the Graph of Desire and Schema R will be developed. The origin of the laws of language in the work of Freud, Ferdinand de Saussure and Claude Levi-Strauss will also be privileged.

In this module students learn
- why psychoanalytic practice attends to the signifier
- the basis of Lacan's formulation that the signifier represents the subject for another signifier
- the application of the Lacanian principles of the function and field of speech and language in psychoanalytic practice.

The Freudian texts covered are:
The Psychopathology of Everyday Life
Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious

The Lacanian texts covered are:
'The function and field of speech and language in psychoanalysis'
Seminar Book V 1957 - 1958, The formations of the unconscious'
'The agency of the letter in the unconscious or reason since Freud'.

About this Module

Learning Outcomes:

On completion of this module students should be able to:1. Demonstrate a critical understanding of Freud's account of the mechanisms that produce jokes and parapraxes 2. Demonstrate a critical understanding of the Saussurian-Jakobsonian account of the laws of language as developed in the work of Jacques Lacan 3. Critically evaluate the difference between the Lacanian basis of psychoanalysis in speech and language and other approaches such as the `ego psychology' and interpersonal. 4.Demonstrate understanding of how attention to speech and language in light of Lacan's teaching makes Lacanian psychoanalysis a distinct clinical practice of consequence.

Student Effort Hours:
Student Effort Type Hours
Lectures

32
Specified Learning Activities

20
Autonomous Student Learning

56
Total

108

Approaches to Teaching and Learning:
peer and group work; lectures; critical writing; reflective learning; in-class discussion case-based learning; student presentations

Requirements, Exclusions and Recommendations

Not applicable to this module.


Module Requisites and Incompatibles
Not applicable to this module.
 

Assessment Strategy  
Description Timing Component Scale Must Pass Component % of Final Grade In Module Component Repeat Offered
Assignment(Including Essay): Essay; non-graded class presentation and written report, which is graded. Timing for submission varies throughout the Trimester. Please check Brightspace and timetable for submission deadlines.

 Week 14 Graded Yes

100

 Yes

Carry forward of passed components
Yes
 

Resit In Terminal Exam
Summer No
Please see Student Jargon Buster for more information about remediation types and timing. 

Feedback Strategy/Strategies

• Feedback individually to students, post-assessment

How will my Feedback be Delivered?

Students are invited to contact the Programme Leader following receipt of grades to learn from their work

Name Role
Mr Liam Barnard Tutor
Print this page
Fill in the following details:
Enter the body of your query here.

From time to time UCD would like to send you further information that we feel, based on your enquiry, would be of interest to you.