The emphasis on the unconscious is back: An interview with Bruce Fink

… psychoanalysis is not a philosophy, it’s a practice.

As an advocate of Lacanian psychoanalysis, it is no surprise that Bruce Fink has been a bit of an outsider in the American psychoanalytic landscape. But quite recently, he says, something has changed. The younger generation of clinicians has started to look beyond what is being taught at many of the old institutes, gravitating toward the thinking of Lacan. And not long ago, Fink got a phone call from the main institute in his hometown, where he used to be persona non grata for decades, now asking him to do a course. From his perspective, it seems like Lacanian psychoanalysis has not only entered the theoretical stage but also the clinical.

Fink got his education in the 80s in Paris where he also attended Jacques-Alain Millers weekly seminar. It is clear though, as we speak, that he never picked up much of a French jargon. He is straight forward, very polite but still rarely silent, and when he answers our questions, he gives the impression of an American professor, which he also used to serve as between 1993 and 2013.

One thing that concerns Fink is how the American society is being atomized. ‘Now, in America, people move on average every year and a half. That’s a scary statistic.’ At the psychology clinic, at the university where he used to taught, loneliness was one of the main reasons for young people seeking therapy. ‘Which is surprising because the college experience in the United States is reputedly a time when you make a ton of friends’ he says. ‘There’s something new and different going on with human beings.’

The interview took place in Copenhagen 14 April 2018 in connection to a two-days seminar on Freud, held by Fink. Apart from being a psychoanalyst, Fink is an author of several books introducing both clinical and theoretical aspects of Lacan’s thinking. He is also today’s premier English translator of Lacan.