Abstract
In his later work, Lacan makes occasional reference to the idea of “thinking with the feet.” An equivocal formulation, it first seems to suggest that thought and language can be regarded as physical processes—not occurring in some homunculan disembodied brain or mind, but in the real of the body. Equally, it can call to mind the idea of thinking “on” one’s feet, in the manner of adaptive improvisation. Going further, could we not also say that it points to the possibility of setting something in motion (as in walking, dancing, going somewhere—all the things we do with the feet) as a principle of the analytic operation? In this paper, the notion of thinking with the feet is applied to the clinic of psychosis. After arguing that psychosis summons the analyst to an encounter with the singularity of each unique subject, the paper provides clinical material demonstrating one such encounter in which the analysand’s unique style of work pushed the analyst beyond forms of clinical dogma which had prevented the treatment from moving forward.
Recommended Citation
Wilson, J. (2026). Thinking With the Feet in the Clinic of Psychosis. Middle Voices, 3 (2). Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/middle_voices/vol3/iss2/6