Open to all!
12th April 2024
Carmelite Community Centre
Dublin 2
€30 ticket
€20 Student ticket
One possible definition of the contemporary civilisation in which we live is that which is condensed in the formula of 'Civilisation of the Image.' This underlines both the centrality and pervasiveness that the dimension of the image has assumed in contemporary capitalism, in an era in which, as Lacan recalls, we are witnessing the degradation of the symbolic function and the rise to the zenith of the object of jouissance. The developments of technology applied to the digital world have radicalised a process of virtualisation of existence that had already begun earlier, creating an unprecedented condition - in which alongside new opportunities, it becomes possible for the subject to fall into a drift of isolation and pathological dependence on the mirror object transmitted by the virtual image.
In this seminar we will attempt to investigate these new forms of civilisation's malaise linked to a hypertrophy of the image - among which we can also include mental anorexia - trying to question them from the point of view of the function of the gaze.
What becomes of the gaze as a lost object in this clinic? Is it still possible to speak here, as Lacan does in Seminar XI, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, of a split between eye and gaze? These will be the fundamental questions we will try to answer.
Domenico Cosenza, Psychologist and Psychotherapist, PhD in Psychoanalysis from the University of Paris VIII.
Psychoanalyst in private practice in Milan, Italy.
Analyst Member of the School (A.M.S) and past President of the Lacanian School of Psychoanalysis (SLP) (2013-2016) and member of the World Association of Psychoanalysis (WAP).
He was A.S. (Analyst of the School) from May 2017 to May 2020.
President of Euro Federation of Psychoanalysis (EFP) from July 2017 - July 2021.
He teaches at the Clinical Section of Milan and is frequently invited to teach in other clinical sections throughout Europe and America . He also teaches Eating Behaviour Psychopathology in the Department of Psychology at Pavia University. He has a lengthy and extensive experience of working in clinical institutions for Eating Disorders in Italy, and is vice-President of the FIDA (Federazione Italiana Disturbi Alimentari, [Italian Federation of Eating Disorders]).
He is the author of several books, among them:
Jacques Lacan e il problema della tecnica in psicoanalisi (Roma: Astrolabio, 2003; Madrid: Gredos, 2008);
Il muro dell’anoressia (Roma: Astrolabio, 2008; Madrid:Gredos 2013; 2 Spanish edition, Barcelona: Xoroi 2021);
La comida y el inconsciente. Psicoanalisis y trastornos alimentarios (Buenos Aires: Tres Haches, 2013);
Introducción a la clinica psicoanalitica de la anorexia, bulimia y obesidad, Logos n. 8 (Buenos Aires: Grama, 2014);
Le refus dans l’anorexie (Rennes:Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2014; Belo Horizonte: Scriptum 2018);
Il cibo e l’inconscio psicoanalisi e disturbi alimentari (FrancoAngeli, Milano 2018; Barcelona: NED, 2019);
Clinica dell’eccesso. Derive pulsionali e soluzioni sintomatiche nella psicopatologia contemporanea (FrancoAngeli, Milano 2022; Belo Horizonte:Scriptum 2024);
A Lacanian Reading of Anorexia (London-New York: Routledge 2023).
Special discount for copies available at the weekend!