Lacan and Phenomenology (2): Against 'the relation of understanding'

We spend a little time noting Lacan's critique of phenomenological psychiatry in Seminar III - more specifically, the notion Karl Jaspers has of 'the relation of understanding' as a means of diagnosis - before turning to Jaques-Alain Miller's remarks on how Lacan's early work - from the 1930's until 'Function and Field' - still drew very significantly on phenomenological ideas. Miller argues, interestingly enough, that at the time of 1953's 'Function and Field', Lacan's work represented a convergence between phenomenology and structuralism.

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my best friend for a few years ago is schizophrenic, and we met after i trained in Zen meditation, and with some free association techniques, and my friend was much more at ease with me, even when he saw things i couldn't see, because i simply reassured him that i believed him but just couldn't see it myself and was genuinely curious in what he perceived as he perceived it. i would also draw parallels to stuff i experience phenomenologically, and tell him about this and simply told him i have beliefs that prevent me from perceiving things his way. I'm diagnosed on the autism spectrum, so i really didn't have much trouble being a mixture of transparent and curious with him bc i care about him and social norms didn't really press me to "disprove" his perceptions. our friendship wasn't really strained by anything out of the ordinary, and I hope I'm correct in assuming that this has something to do with a mixture of evenly hovering attention being something that goes very well with skills that phenomenological description also buttresses.