Dr Serena Smith PhD

Psychoanalyst Melbourne, Accredited Mental Health Social Worker (AMHSW)

Welcome

I practice as a Lacanian psychoanalyst in Melbourne and this website provides some details about my practice and training, including introductory ideas about psychoanalysis, Lacanian psychoanalysis, its method and who might find it useful.  Many of us experience the burden of mental illness, psychological pain and suffering at some point in our lives, often making us feel knotted up inside, mentally unwell and unable to cope with the stress of life. For some this suffering can become traumatic and transform into more serious pathologies and  symptoms of mental illness which require the intervention of specialist support and psychotherapy. Psychoanalysis is a well established treatment, which alone can work with the unconscious causes of persistent symptoms, and other psychological distress caused by mental illness.

Definitions of Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis is neither a Weltanschauung, nor a philosophy that claims to provide the key to the universe. It is governed by a particular aim, which is historically defined by the elaboration of the notion of the subject, it poses this notion in a new way, ..." (Seminar XI, 77)
‍
To be situated in what is no longer a metaphor of the subject, is to go searching for the foundation of its position, not at all in any effect of meaning, but in what results from the combinatorial itself. (Seminar XIII, 16:1)

Definitions of Psychoanalysis

No praxis is more orientated towards that which, at the heart of experience, is the kernel of the real than psychoanalysis. (Lacan Seminar XI, 53)
‍
What is involved as regards the status of the subject, is to know what the individual loses of its being by being the one who speaks or who thinks, it is also a matter of knowing what comes to take the place of this loss when it is a matter of enjoying (de jouir) (Lacan Seminar XIII, 15:18)

COVID-19 Update

Effect on clinical services
The clinical services offered by Dr Smith operate in line with co-vid safe practices as recommended by the Victorian Department of Health and Human Service.