"In this book, Lacan scholar and psychoanalyst Bruce Fink delves into one of the seminars he translated: Desire and Its Interpretation. He does not seek to accurately phrase what Lacan said, but rather explains and contextualizes the key problems Lacan was working on during that era of his teaching. The book not only serves as a guide to reading the seminar; it also provides an outstanding standalone discussion of core questions and concepts in Lacanian psychoanalysis." --Stijn Vanheule, Ghent University, author of Why Psychosis is Not So Crazy "Why don't we want what we want? In this eloquent guide to one of Lacan's most important and misunderstood concepts, Bruce Fink blends clinical insight and theoretical clarity, shedding light on what animates us, our torment, our passion--desire. Written in accessible prose, this book explores Lacan's seminar on Desire and Its Interpretation, making it an indispensable resource. Fink turns desire inside out, showing how Lacan pushes Freud beyond the Oedipal. This compelling book not only serves as a valuable companion to Lacan's seminar but also provides profound clinical insights into the complex nature of desire, thus appealing to students as well as practitioners." --Patricia Gherovici, psychoanalyst and author of Transgender Psychoanalysis "This extraordinary introduction to Lacan's thinking starts with the clarification of "desire," but then expands into a comprehensive, clear, and profound review of Lacan's entire body of psychoanalytic theory, including its relationship to psychoanalytic techniques and a very detailed analysis of the Lacanian clinical approach.

There is no other text that I know of that approaches the problem of translating Lacan's formulations in such a perfect way, making it available to the psychoanalytically informed reader. It provides new focus and depth to contemporary controversies and conflicts in psychoanalytic thinking and closes a major persisting gap in the interchange of psychoanalytic science and profession." --Otto Kernberg, Professor Emeritus, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York This companion to Lacan's Seminar VI guides readers through an examination of desire, fantasy, dream interpretation, death, object a, and the signifier of the lack in the Other as they are elaborated by Lacan. Bruce Fink draws on his extensive experience as a practicing analyst and as a leading translator of Lacan's work (including Seminar VI), in this highly accessible exploration which includes both close textual analysis and illustrative clinical vignettes. Seminar VI, Desire and Its Interpretation, and Fink's discussion of it here constitute a timely intervention for clinicians, for whom an engagement with desire is pivotal to the direction of the treatment, and for students and scholars interested in philosophy, sociology, anthropology, comparative literature, art, film, and social and political theory, for whom desire, fantasy, and object a may be useful conceptual tools. Combining rigorous analysis and a clear writing style, this guide provides an invaluable new resource. Bruce Fink is a practicing Lacanian psychoanalyst and analytic supervisor. He has authored nine books on Lacan, as well as A Clinical Introduction to Freud (2017).

He has translated numerous works by Lacan into English, including Écrits: The First Complete Edition in English, and Seminars VI, VIII, XVI, XVIII, and XX.