Comments on Norman Holland's Book Review of The Works of Jacques Lacan: An Introduction, by Bice Benvenuto and Roger Kennedy

This article comments on Holland's (1990) review of Benvenuto and Kennedy's 1986 work, The Works of Jacques Lacan: An Introduction, contending that Holland dismisses Lacan's theory without taking into account Lacan's later concept of the Real, and that the review presents an oversimplified, misinformed view of Lacan's other concepts, such as the Symbolic and the Imaginary. It is not only language that is crucial for its psychic impact for Lacan, but also traumatic events which have their effects (the Real), the way unconscious family and cultural laws and expectations are signified (the Symbolic), and the way ideal images of self and other create ego fictions (the Imaginary). Some of Lacan's contributions to developmental theory and to the critique of ego psychology and object relations theory are discussed. I disagree with Holland's conclusion that Lacan's theory is antipsychoanalytic and that Lacanian treatment is reduced to word games.