Human beings are speaking beings, and the treatment of a human being in therapy or counseling rests on the basis of language. If we can listen closely to the words we use – and find our wounds in those words – in healing our language, we heal ourselves. Join us for this mind-bending introduction to the thought of French psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan, and explore the pivotal role that Lacanian psychoanalysis places on humanity’s use of language. Survey the post-Freudian scene at Lacan’s time, and explore how Lacan’s “Return to Freud” was actually an intense criticism of what Lacan considered to be a flawed tradition – leading to a revolutationary new paradigm that invites us to reimagine conceptions of subjectivity, gender, self, identity, and even reality. Along the way, we’ll uncover a different view of the unconscious, and discover how the open-endedness built into Lacanian psychoanalysis allows it to live and thrive in the 21st century.