Lacanian

Part of speech: adjective, noun

Definitions

1. Relating to the psychoanalytic theories of the French thinker Jacques Lacan, especially his ideas about the unconscious and language
2. Describing the ideas, methods or followers associated with the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan and his reinterpretation of Freud
3. Of or pertaining to the psychoanalytic school founded by Jacques Lacan, which emphasizes language, desire and the unconscious

Etymology: Jacques Lacan was a French psychoanalyst whose seminars, delivered in Paris from the 1950s until his death in 1981, reshaped how many readers thought about the unconscious, language and desire. "Lacanian" is simply the adjective built from his surname by adding the suffix "-ian," the same ending found in words like "Freudian" and "Kantian," and it means relating to Lacan or to his ideas and followers. The interesting part is what the suffix does here: it turns a proper name into a label for an entire school of thought rather than for one man's work. Readers and critics use "Lacanian" to describe approaches in psychoanalysis, philosophy, literary criticism and film theory that draw on his concepts, such as the mirror stage and the idea that the unconscious is structured like a language, even when those approaches depart from Lacan himself.