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| Illustration by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT |
Lacanian Psychoanalysis & Process Theology
Illustration
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The golden background signifies that reality itself is processual, always in motion, becoming, and transformation.
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Each circle represents a human construction. Some overlap more strongly with elements of processual reality while others remain more distinct.
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Not every construction consciously teaches or embodies process, yet all live within it and are ultimately shaped by it.
Who Is Jacques Lacan?
Wikipedia - Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (1901–1981) was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. Described as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud," ...his work made a significant impact on continental philosophy and cultural theory in areas such as post-structuralism, critical theory, feminist theory and film theory, as well as on the practice of psychoanalysis itself.Lacan took up and discussed the whole range of Freudian concepts, emphasizing the philosophical dimension of Freud's thought and applying concepts derived from structuralism in linguistics and anthropology to its development in his own work, which he would further augment by employing formulae from predicate logic and topology. Taking this new direction, and introducing controversial innovations in clinical practice, led to expulsion for Lacan and his followers from the International Psychoanalytic Association. In consequence, Lacan went on to establish new psychoanalytic institutions to promote and develop his work, which he declared to be a "return to Freud", in opposition to prevalent trends in psychology and institutional psychoanalysis collusive of adaptation to social norms.
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Wikipedia - Lacanianism or Lacanian psychoanalysis is a theoretical system initiated by the work of Jacques Lacan from the 1950s to the 1980s. It is a theoretical approach that attempts to explain the mind, behaviour, and culture through a structuralist and post-structuralist extension of classical psychoanalysis. Lacanian perspectives contend that the human mind is structured by the world of language, known as the Symbolic. They stress the importance of desire, which is conceived of as perpetual and impossible to satisfy. Contemporary Lacanianism is characterised by a broad range of thought and extensive debate among Lacanians.
Lacanianism has been particularly influential in post-structuralism, literary theory, and feminist theory, as well as in various branches of critical theory, including queer theory. Equally, it has been criticised by the post-structuralists Deleuze and Guattari and by various feminist theorists. Outside France, it has had limited clinical influence on psychiatry. There is a Lacanian strand in left-wing politics, including Saul Newman's and Duane Rousselle's post-anarchism, Louis Althusser's structural Marxism, and the works of Slavoj Žižek and Alain Badiou. Influential figures in Lacanianism include Slavoj Žižek, Julia Kristeva and Serge Leclaire.
Introduction
Many people feel a tension in their faith: the comfort of tradition on one hand, and the unsettling experiences of doubt, desire, or mystery on the other. Some try to resolve this by clinging to rigid doctrine, while others abandon structure altogether. But perhaps there are deeper ways of understanding this tension - ways that allow us to hold both stability and disruption together without forcing one to win out over the other. Here, two very different traditions - that of Lacanian psychoanalysis and Process Theology - which may offer us helpful metaphors.
Lacanian Psychoanalysis
I
Traditional, confessional forms of Christianity largely operate within the imaginary and symbolic registers:
- the imaginary with its stabilising images of faith, belonging, and spiritual identity;
- the symbolic with its frameworks of doctrine, dogma, and ecclesial authority that promise coherence and security.
These structures are not without value as they provide orientation, they anchor communities and preserve wisdom across generations.
And yet, they also impose limits, smoothing over the fractures of existence and demanding a wholeness of belief that can never fully correspond to lived experience.
In contrast, the mystical and radical currents of Christianity are more closely aligned with the register of the Real. Here, faith is not about symbolic mastery or imaginary wholeness, but about encounters with excess, rupture, and the unspeakable.
The Real is that which breaks through the surface of Christian language and ritual:
- the uncontainable erotic charge of desire,
- the wound of divine absence,
- the abyssal depth of God’s apophatic unknowability.
It is precisely here that Christianity becomes most alive, most destabilising, and paradoxically most transformative.
II
The challenge, then, is how to live as authentic subjects of faith today without lapsing into two extremes: on the one hand,
- conformity to rigid dogma that represses the disruptive power of the Real (dogma, apologetics, defenses of the Christian faith);
- a perpetual deconstruction that dissolves all forms, leaving faith fragmented and unmoored (contemporary, progressive, radical movements).
III
Perhaps what Lacan offers through the notion of the sinthome is a way of navigating between these poles.
The sinthome functions as a singular, flexible knot — a way of binding the subject that resists both absolute rigidity and total disintegration. Unlike the symptom, which demands interpretation, the sinthome stabilises by its very opacity.
- It does not resolve contradiction but provides a way of living with it, weaving together the imaginary, symbolic, and real into a fragile but enduring knot.
- Applied theologically, the sinthome suggests that faith is not about final coherence or endless critique but about sustaining a unique, idiosyncratic mode of inhabiting the mystery of God.
- Such a theology would not attempt to master the Real but to hold it and to give it a place without reducing it.
Comparisons with Process Theology
Process thought (sic, Whitehead, Cobb, Keller, Suchocki) is not a psychoanalytic language but a philosophic metaphysical grammar inspired by philosopher Alfred North Whitehead. It starts from a different place but resonates strongly with Lacan’s concerns (that is, Lacanian thought contains processual aspects within it).
To begin with, Process thought sees all of reality as an ongoing becoming, where each moment gathers up the past and pushes into new possibilities. God is not a distant ruler but a companion who invites the world toward healing, beauty, and deeper connection. Process theology acknowledges that doctrines, rituals, and images are lures for feeling which provide provisional religious/faith forms through which communities might stabilize their identity.
Where Lacan sees rupture and impossibility, Process sees creativity — the inexhaustible, unobjectifiable depth of reality from which novelty arises. Lacan's Real's traumatic rupture corresponds, mutatis mutandis (sic, all necessary changes having been made; without affecting the necessary changes), to Process’ uncaused creativity - that which escapes system and becomes the ground of transformation.
- The Lacanian sinthome knots dissonance registers so that the subject can endure.
- In Process terms, concrescence weaves disparate prehensions into a coherent actual occasion.
- Both are knottings, but Lacan’s is stabilizing a wound, while Whitehead’s is the positive creative advance into novelty.
Processually, the subject of faith, then, is not a fortress (rigid Symbolic) nor chaos (disintegrating Real) but a fragile, porous, processual knotting of life - open to rupture, yet always re-forming through the lure of God’s call toward greater relational wholeness.
Summary
An Everyday View of Lacanism
In everyday faith, people, and their faith traditions, often hold images of stability and belonging - comforting pictures of God as a loving parent, and of safe communities offering strong, fortress-like foundations. Within these languages are doctrines, rituals, and authority structures which bring order and coherence to that which doesn't provide order and coherence. These elements are not without value. They preserve wisdom across generations and help people orient their lives.
But life often doesn’t fit neatly into such boxes. Doubt, longing, or the sense of God’s absence can break through, leaving believers unsettled. The mystery of God’s absence, the ache of desire, the intensity of mystical experience - these break through and refuse to be contained by familiar symbols. For some, these moments feel like rupture or even crisis. For others, they are the very heart of a living faith.
The challenge is not to erase such experiences but to carry them. Faith is less about having all the answers than about finding ways to hold the contradictions together - to live with the wound without being undone by it.
The French thinker Jacques Lacan described human experience through three “registers”:
The Imaginary: the comforting pictures of wholeness, belonging, and identity that we carry.
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The Symbolic: the language, rules, doctrines, and structures which guide us and give order.
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The Real: the unmanageable disruptions, ruptures, and mysteries that cannot be neatly explained away.
When applied to Christianity, the Imaginary includes comforting pictures of God and community, while the Symbolic is found in creeds, doctrines, and church authority. Both have value, but they can only take us so far. For many people, the most profound experiences of faith come when the Real breaks through: the mystery of God’s absence, the intensity of spiritual desire, or the transformative shock of the Spirit. These are encounters that no doctrine or image can contain.
Faith, in this light, isn’t about erasing contradictions. It’s about learning to live with them. Lacan described the sinthome, a kind of knot that holds the Imaginary, Symbolic, and Real together - not by solving contradictions but by letting people carry them without falling apart. For faith, this means we don’t need to resolve every doubt or contradiction; instead, we learn to inhabit them in a way that sustains life. Faith then can work like that knot, giving us a way to keep going even when life doesn’t fully make sense.
An Everyday View of Processualism (Process Theology)
Process Theology begins from another angle. It sees life as constantly unfolding, with each moment shaped by the past but also opening toward the future. Each moment of life gathers up the past - its joys, wounds, and contradictions - and then moves forward into new possibilities. God isn’t a distant ruler but a companion who works with the world, always inviting us toward greater healing, justice, and beauty.
What feels like rupture or loss isn’t wasted - it can become the seeds of transformation. Process thought calls this weaving together of experiences concrescence: the way different strands of life come together into a new whole.
Pragmatically, faith is not about holding still or demanding certainty. It is about moving forward, weaving contradictions into something more, and trusting God’s invitation into life’s ongoing becoming.
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| Illustration by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT |
Together: A Fragile but Living Knot
Seen this way, faith is neither a fortress of certainty nor a sea of endless dissolution. It is a knotting - a fragile, provisional way of holding together images, doctrines, and mysteries so that life can continue to unfold. The knot is never final, but it can be strong enough to sustain us and open enough to let us change.
Though Lacan and Process approach faith from different angles, they complement one another beautifully:
- Lacan reminds us that wounds and contradictions never fully disappear; they must be carried.
- Process reminds us that these very wounds can become part of the world’s creative advance into something new.
Faith, then, is not a fortress of certainty nor a dissolving sea of doubts. It is a knotting - a way of holding together image, doctrine, and mystery so that life can continue to unfold. It is fragile, yes, but enduring; difficult, yes, but profoundly alive.
And from the processual perspective, faith is not about erasing contradictions but about weaving them into something new. What feels like rupture or loss can become the raw material for transformation. Process Theology calls this ongoing weaving concrescence - the way disparate experiences come together into a fresh, living whole. Rather than trying to close off mystery, faith moves forward with it, trusting God’s lure toward new life.
In Process terms, faith is always "in the process" of becoming.more than it once was.
Conclusion
For churches and communities today, this means resisting two temptations: clinging too tightly to rigid systems that silence disruption, or abandoning all structure so that nothing holds together. The challenge is to create spaces where faith can be both stable and open: knots that are firm enough to hold us, yet loose enough to let the Spirit move.
In this light, the most authentic faith is not one that claims perfect answers, but one that continues to be re-knotted again and again—each time with greater honesty, compassion, and openness to the mystery of God.
In short: Lacan teaches us to live with wounds that never fully close; Process teaches us to co-create beauty even out of those wounds. Faith may require both: a sinthomatic knot that steadies us and a concrescent advance that moves us forward.
