Episode Overview

Podcast: New Books Network – New Books in Psychoanalysis
Host: Matt Pjeknik
Guest: Betty Milan
Book Discussed: Analyzed by Lacan: A Personal Account (Bloomsbury, 2023)
Date: January 1, 2026

This episode features a fascinating conversation with Betty Milan, a Lacanian psychoanalyst and prolific writer, about her latest book Analyzed by Lacan: A Personal Account. The episode explores Milan’s direct analytic experience with Jacques Lacan (1973–78), her creative and theoretical work inspired by that experience, the uniqueness of Lacan’s clinical methods, the creative crossing of psychoanalysis and theater, and the invention of psychoanalysis in a Brazilian context – drawing on both personal history and reflections on Carnival culture.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Motivation for the Book and Writing Process

• Milan began Analyzed by Lacan during the COVID-19 pandemic, encouraged by a companion to finally document her experience with Lacan (03:40).
  • Quote:
    Betty Milan: “I was closed at home. I had the photos of my... my little boy in front of me, and I started writing. And I had a friend that had done her analysis with me that came once a week so that we could work together on the book. In three months it was ready...” (03:53)
• Although Milan had previously written novels and plays inspired by her analysis, the memoir was her first nonfiction account of her analytic experience with Lacan.

2. Creation and Evolution of Creative Work

• Milan discusses her process of writing in different genres: translation, novels, and plays—each form allowed her to process and dramatize her analytic encounter differently.
  • Transformation from personal experience to creative works (La Conspirat, Goodbye Doctor, and the film Adieu Lacan) (05:00–07:30).
• The play’s protagonist, Seriema, reflects Milan’s own journey as a migrant and a woman negotiating her maternal identity.
  • Seriema's name is laden with significance, referencing both Portuguese (“ser”—to be) and Arabic (“ema”—mother), symbolizing the struggle with heritage and motherhood (08:10).

3. Lacan’s Clinical Practice & The Session “Cut”

• Milan highlights the distinctiveness of Lacan’s analytic technique, especially his use of the variable-length session, or “the cut.”
  • Quote:
    Betty Milan: “He discovered that if you interpret the signification of a discourse, resistance will be bigger. And then it would be much better if he cut the session at a point where he thought to be interesting and if he let the analyzer do the interpretation after he had cut the session...” (11:22)
• Lacan worked not by fixed time (chronos) but by seizing the opportune moment (kairos), thus challenging psychoanalytic convention (12:05).

4. Theatricality, Dramatization & the Analytic Encounter

• Milan remarks on Lacan’s dramatic and theatrical style, both clinically and personally.
  • Lacan would often elevate his analysands’ narratives, making them epic, likening coming to Paris to “discovering America” (13:39).
    • Quote:
      Betty Milan: “He used to transform your personal story in an epic story as if you were going to discover America. I was immediately turned up into a heroine...” (13:42)
• The play and movie provide rare experiential access into how Lacan might have worked in the consulting room—capturing the affective and enigmatic dimensions lost in theoretical texts (20:19–21:28).

5. Theater, Psychoanalysis, and Invention

• Milan’s early interest in theater and training in psychodrama with Zerka Moreno (founder of psychodrama) informed her analytic sensibility (17:50).
• The link between psychoanalysis and theater heightened her appreciation for drama within the analytic relationship and inspires her playwriting and clinical work.
  • Quote:
    Betty Milan: “It’s so much easier to write theater than to write novels.” (19:42)

6. Invention, Dogmatism, and Cultural Translation

• Milan reflects on the importance of invention and warns against dogmatism in psychoanalysis, an attitude sometimes misattributed to Lacan himself (31:42).
  • Quote:
    Betty Milan: “He did not like dogmatism, not at all. And unfortunately, many of his students became very dogmatic and imitated him and censored invention, because psychoanalysis cannot exist without invention. Impossible.” (31:56)
• Returning to Brazil from France forced Milan to reinvent Lacanian concepts in Portuguese and to ground psychoanalytic work within Brazilian culture (33:02).
• She stresses that psychoanalysis must adapt to its cultural context—French psychoanalysis cannot simply be transplanted to Brazil or the U.S. (38:24).

7. Psychoanalysis and Brazilian Carnival

• Milan argues that Carnival is a profound act of cultural symbolization: “Through Carnival, Brazil can remember its own story. Each school tells a part of the story of Brazil...” (39:24)
  • Carnival is participatory, democratic, and reconstructed each year, highlighting the temporary and creative nature of culture and identity (41:49).
  • Quote:
    Betty Milan: “The luxury is not the luxury of money, it's the luxury of imagination. It's the only… best counterculture I know.” (41:28)

8. Nachträglichkeit (Aprè-coup / Deferred Action) and the Work of Analysis

• Milan discusses how the distance of time (après-coup) allowed her to understand what was essential in her analysis (26:05).
  • She relates this to both Lacan’s clinical style and writing: the work of time is integral to psychoanalytic insight, and theoretical clarity comes only after the fact (26:05–27:49).

9. Current and Future Projects

• Milan is currently writing a novel about the pandemic and negationism, and continues to write for a newspaper about Paris and Franco-Brazilian relations in the context of climate change (43:14).
  • Quote:
    Matt Pjeknik: “You are like a bird that keeps singing. It sounds like you don’t stop writing. There’s always more writing to be done and more. More song to be sung.”
    Betty Milan: “That's it. That's how we. That's how it's good to live.” (45:00–45:11)

10. Psychoanalysis, Literature, and Psychosis

• They briefly discuss Lacan’s contributions to understanding psychosis, referencing Seminar 3, his doctoral thesis, and the clinical case of the Papin sisters (46:16–48:31).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the experience of analysis and writing:
  “When I had already written a fiction, a novel and a play, I was able to write a memoir without having to speak about myself. I only told my story in order to show how Lacan worked, because I realized that his theory was well known abroad… But his clinical practice was not known.”
  (09:53, Betty Milan)

• On Lacan’s dramatic analytic style:
  “He was very dramatical. He could say things that were very touching… as if you were going to discover America. And in fact, I discovered America because I went to Paris.”
  (13:39, Betty Milan)

• On invention and anti-dogmatism:
  “Psychoanalysis cannot exist without invention. Impossible.”
  (31:56, Betty Milan)

• On Carnival and symbolization:
  “The luxury is not the luxury of money, it's the luxury of imagination. It's the only… best counterculture I know.”
  (41:28, Betty Milan)

Useful Timestamps

• Introduction, Guest Background (01:07–03:07)
• Why Write This Book? (03:13–10:26)
• Lacan’s Method: Practice vs. Theory (11:05–14:53)
• Lacan’s Theatricality and Influence on Milan’s Creative Work (17:13–21:28)
• The Cut, Aprè-coup, and the Effects of Analysis (24:42–29:35)
• On Dogmatism, Cultural Translation, and Brazilian Psychoanalysis (30:26–38:24)
• Carnival, Symbolization, and Cultural Renewal (38:54–42:43)
• Current Projects and Reflections on Writing (43:14–45:11)
• Psychoanalysis, Literature, and Psychosis (46:16–48:57)

Language and Tone

The dialogue is warm, reflective, and richly personal, with Milan’s voice characterized by humility, gratitude, and a deep commitment to creative and theoretical exploration. The host is engaged and enthusiastic, providing context for listeners and drawing out Milan’s most impactful insights.

Final Thoughts

Analyzed by Lacan: A Personal Account offers not just a personal recollection, but a unique vantage on Lacan’s clinical genius, the necessary inventiveness and theatricality of psychoanalysis, and the impossibility of dogmatic repetition. Milan’s life’s work exemplifies psychoanalysis as creative labor—one that traverses continents, languages, and cultures, always seeking new forms of expression and meaning.