Love in Plato's Symposium and Lacan's Transference seminar
Authors
Ball, Terry
Issue Date
2011
Degree
Publisher
The School of Psychotherapy at SVUH
Rights holder
Rights
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Abstract
This article focuses on Lacan’s eighth seminar on Transference, specifically his references to Plato’s Symposium, and more particularly the attention he pays therein to the interaction and dialogue between Alcibiades, Socrates and Agathon. Addressed will be Lacan’s specific take on the development of characters and plot as he outlines the dialectic of love. The interaction between the positions of ‘lover’ and ‘beloved’ will be examined as will the progression, according to the law of metaphorical substitution, which culminates in the birth of love. All of this, in an attempt to better appreciate the dynamics of the transference relationship in the psychoanalytic situation. Author keywords: Plato’s Symposium, transference, love, lover-beloved, dialectic, metaphor