Jean Laplanche's Theory of the Unconscious and Why Gender Matters in Psychoanalysis

featuring Dominique Scarfone, MD

• Sept 27, 2025

• 12:00 - 3:00pm ET

• Location: Virtual

• Source/ Event Link: Psychoanalytic Center of California

“This program is designed to introduce participants to the intellectual legacy of Jean Laplanche by studying an important paper by one of his prominent students, Dominique Scarfone. Jean Laplanche was the author of the classic psychoanalytic dictionary, The Language of Psychoanalysis. He was also the chief translator of the complete works of Sigmund Freud from German into French.

In this seminar, Dr. Scarfone will read the key lecture that he presented to the 51st Congress of the International Psychoanalytic Association in 2019. The paper is titled "The feminine, the analyst and the child theorist." In this paper Scarfone relies upon the conceptual legacy of Jean Laplanche to reflect upon the fundamental role of gender in shaping the unconscious. In the Laplanche/Scarfone model, the unconscious is not a constitutional endowment granted to human being by way of their biological inheritance, but rather it arrives after birth as the infant struggles (and fails) to translate the enigmatic messages about sex and gender that it receives from its caregivers.

Following the presentation, Phillip Lance will facilitate a conversation with Dr. Scarfone and PCC Member Robert Byer to allow for deeper engagement and understanding of the richly dense text. The seminar will include ample time for audience discussion with Dr. Scarfone and the panelists.”