Books & research
Books & publications
Books, papers, and essays on autistic subjectivity, language, the body, love, and analytic practice.
Monograph · 2020
The Autistic Subject
On the Threshold of Language
A Lacanian account of autism as a singular mode of being.
Pamphlet · 2024
Against Reality
On Freud’s reality principle and the consequences of treating analysis as adaptation.
Entry points into the research
Selected papers
The autistic pseudosignifier: Imaginary dialectization of signs in the clinic of autism
How can iconic signs support more complex uses of language? This article develops the autistic pseudosignifier through a Lacanian reading of signs and clinical examples from art therapy.
Article details & DOI (opens a new tab)To do justice to Foucault: Foucault and Derrida in couples therapy with Freud
Revisiting the Foucault–Derrida dispute over madness, this paper asks how Freud’s account of subjective structures can clarify constitutive exclusion and the place of madness within reason.
Article details & DOI (opens a new tab)The Most Erotic Transference
An examination of erotomania and the difficulties it can introduce into psychotic transference. The paper develops clinical principles involving triangulation, plural forms of transference, and the analyst’s position.
Article details & DOI (opens a new tab)Bibliography
Books
Brenner, L. S. (2020). The autistic subject: On the threshold of language. Palgrave Macmillan.
Peer-reviewed articles
Brenner, L. S. (2026). “Formation of the Analyst and the Logic of the Act”, Lacunae, 29: 10-25, 2026.
Brenner, L. S. (2026). The Most Erotic Transference. Psychoanalytic Inquiry. Advance online publication.
Brenner, L. S. (2024). “Drive Regulation in Autism”, Analytic Agora, 2, 80-90.
Brenner, L. S., & Everitt, K. (2023). Time for Love. Res Publica. Revista de Historia de las Ideas Políticas, 26(3), 369–376.
Brenner, L. S. (2024). To do justice to Foucault: Foucault and Derrida in couples therapy with Freud. Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, 29(1), 15–35.
Brenner, L. S. (2024). The Racist Fantasy: Unconscious Roots of Hatred. Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, 29(1), 140–144.
Brenner, L. S. (2023). Epistemic Harm in Empathy. HARM – Journal of Hostility, Aggression, Repression and Malice, 2, 11–19.
Brenner, L. S. (2023). The autistic pseudosignifier: Imaginary dialectization of signs in the clinic of autism. Theory & Psychology, 33(4), 535–554.
Brenner, L. S. (2022). Autistic disturbances in skin containment: The dermic drive as a psychoanalytic concept in the study of autism. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 39(3), 198–208.
Brenner, L. S. (2022). Autistic Rims and Their Vicissitudes. European Journal of Psychoanalysis, 9(1).
Brenner, L. S. (2021). The autistic mirror in the real: Autism in Lacan’s mirror stage. Theory & Psychology, 31(6), 950–972.
Brenner, L. S. (2020). Autism Is Not Psychosis: A Case for the Singularity of Autistic Foreclosure. Lacunae, 20, 10–42.
Brenner, L. S. (2019). Creative Hyper-Activation in Depression. Creativity Research Journal, 31(4), 359–370.
Book chapters
Brenner, L. S.. Vicissitudes of Identification. In A. Snelgrove-McKerracher & D. McKerracher (Eds.), Underground Theory: Volume 2. Theory Underground Publishing.
Brenner, L. S. (2025). The Form and Matter of Hallucinations in Schreber’s Message Phenomena. In H. Texier & E. Watson (Eds.), Freud’s Principal Case Studies Revisited: Freudian-Lacanian Psychoanalysts Reconsider the Legacy, 153–166. Routledge.
Brenner, L. S. (2025). From Death to Love: The Transformative Event in Paul’s Christian Discourse. In J. Reshe & T. McGowan (Eds.), Death and Love: Psychoanalytic and Philosophical Perspectives, 69–79. Routledge.
Brenner, L. S. (2024). The Skin as the Source of the Dermic Drive: Modes of Dermic Punctuation in the Containment of Meaning. In D. Collins & E. Watson (Eds.), Critical Essays on the Drive: Lacanian Theory and Practice, 153–164. Routledge.
Brenner, L. S. (2023). Negation beyond Neurosis. In D. Rousselle & M. G. Murphy (Eds.), Negativity in Psychoanalysis: Theory and Clinic, 137–146. Routledge.
Brenner, L. S. (2022). Excessive creativity in melancholia. In D. Hook & S. Vanheule (Eds.), Lacan on Depression and Melancholia, 137–156. Routledge.
Brenner, L. S. (2021). “The Autistic Body with no Organs”, in: The Body in Theory Essays After Lacan and Foucault (Ed. B. McLaughlin, E. Daffron), McFarland and Company. .
Essays & interviews
Brenner, L.S. (2024). “Against Reality”, Sublation Magazine, 2024. In press.
Brenner, L. S. (2023). »Morgen werde ich gekommen sein« – Die harte Realität der menschlichen Sexualfunktion. RISS – Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, 99, 54–56.
Brenner, L. S. (2023). A Psychoanalysis of The Whale. Sublation Magazine.
Brenner, L. S. (2018). Political Truth in the Age of Populism: A conversation on what philosophy can tell us about politics today [Interview by Sokol Ferizi]. Stillpoint Magazine, 000: Archive.
Conference papers
Brenner, L. S. (2026, September). Maneuvers in Autistic Transference [Conference presentation]. Lacan Today, Ghent University, Belgium.
Brenner, L. S. (02/26), “Who Pays for Analysis”, Conference: The analysis of the money and the money of the analysis, Artel de la Recherche Psychanalytique, Russia.
Brenner, L. S. (2024, October 4). Skin Punctuations in Autism [Conference presentation]. The vulnerable skin: Psychoanalytic perspectives on autism, University of Jyväskylä, Finland.
Brenner, L. S. (05/24). “Autism and (m)Others“, Autism Seminar, Psychoanalytic Institue for Social Research, Rome, Italy.
Brenner, L. S. (05/24). “The Return of the Mother Tongue: Birth Trauma in Rank and Lacan”, Rank Horror Symposium, Columbia University, U.S.A.
Brenner, L. S. (11/23). “Autie-biorgraphies as a Clinical Case Study”, APPI Congress 2023 – Returning to The Clinical Case Study, Dublin.
Brenner, L. S. (09/23). “The Skin as the Source of the Dermic Drive”, SIPP 2023 Conference, University of Nikosia, Cyprus.
Brenner, L. S. (04/23). “Subject and Other: Modes of Dermic Punctuation”, Lack conference, University of Vermont, U.S.A.
Brenner, L. S. (03/23). “Psychic Skins and Mental Boundaries in Psychoanalysis”, 36. Symposion zur Geschichte der Psychoanalyse, International Psychoanalytic University (IPU), Berlin.
Brenner, L. S. (10/22). Poster presentation: “The Dermic Drive: The Skin and the Signifier”, Lacan: Clinic and Culture, Duquesne University, Pittsburg, U.S.A.
Brenner, L. S. (06/22). “Autobiographobia: The Autie-biography as Body-Event”, The Case, ICI Berlin.
Brenner, L. S. (06/22). “Against the Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis”, Prelude to the Empathy & Society Colloquium, Ruhr Universität Bochum.
Brenner, L. S. (10/21). “The Autistic Pseudo-Signifier”, Assembling Milieus, ICI Berlin.
Brenner, L. S. (2021, July 10). Tackling the Twice [Panel contribution]. 37th ISPSO Annual Meeting, Berlin Online Conference.
Brenner, L. S. (05/21). “The Autistic Body”, NLS International Conference Ghent.
Brenner, L. S. (04/20). “Autism as a Mode of Being”, Keynote Speaker, The Freud Lacan Institute (FLi), Dublin, ’Different Not Less’: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Autism Conference. Conference cancelled due to COVID-19.
Brenner, L. S. (10/19). “The Mirror in the Real: Autistic Identification in the Mirror Stage”, Duquesne University, Pittsburg, U.S.A., Écrits International Conference.
Brenner, L. S. (09/19). “Vicissitudes of Identification in Populism”, Institut für deutsche Literatur, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Libidinal Economies of Crisis Times.
Brenner, L. S. (07/18). “The Autistic ‘Symbolic Spectrum’”, Centre Marc Bloch, Berlin, Literatur & Philosophie – Kritik heute! Colloquium.
Brenner, L. S. (03/18). “Lacan and the Dream of the Burning Child”, UdK Berlin, Art In Context Now.
Brenner, L. S. (10/17). “The Language of Perception: Spatial Pathology in Autism Explained by a Structural Linguistic Model”, Humboldt University School of Mind and Brain, Berlin, Workshop for Enactive Psychiatry & (Psycho)Therapy.
Brenner, L. S. (12/16). “‘Sexuation and Infinity’ : ‘Virtual’ and ‘Actual’ Universality in Contemporary Feminist Ethics“, National University of Ireland, Galway, International SWIP-Ireland Conference.
Brenner, L. S. (06/16). “Practical Social Impact Through the Investigation of Autism in Philosophical Terms”, Bar-Ilan University Conference for the Humanities and Social Science.
Brenner, L. S. (05/16). “‘L’envers du Documentaire’ : Analytical Ethics in Documentary Film”, Haifa University International Conference on Documentary Ethics: Past Present Future – Ethical Creativity, Commitment and Criticism in Documentary Cinema and Filmmaking.
Brenner, L. S. (04/16). “The Essentiality of the Humanities to the Understanding of the Essence of Autism”, Utrecht University International Conference on the Humanities and Practical Self- understanding.
Brenner, L. S. (2016, January). The Transformative Capacity of the Art of Film in Philosophical Thought [Conference presentation]. International Conference on Film and Philosophy.
Forthcoming & work in progress
Brenner, L. S. (forthcoming). Love from one to two to one. In C. Owens (Eds.), Studying Lacan’s Seminar VIII: Transference in Psychoanalysis. Routledge.
Brenner, L. S. (in press). Love and the Forms of Difference. Springer Nature.
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