born April 13, 1901, Paris, France
died Sept. 9, 1981, Paris
French psychoanalyst.
A practicing psychiatrist in Paris for much of his career, Lacan emphasized the primacy of language as the mirror of the unconscious mind and introduced the study of language into psychoanalytic theory. His major achievement was his reinterpretation of linguistics . He became a celebrity in France with Écrits (1966; The Language of the Self ) and in the 1970s was a dominant figure in French cultural life as well as a strong influence on American psychoanalytic and literary theory.