Toward an Upbuilding Metapsychology: Kierkegaard, Lacan, and the Infinite Movement

Abstract This paper seeks to consider the similarities between Kierkegaard’s life stages and Lacan’s orders to demonstrate that we can understand each description in a structurally similar way to the other. Accordingly, a reading of Kierkegaard is developed that uses his life stages to describe a metapsychology, and a reading of Lacan is developed that shows how his orders can be conceived of progressively. All this leads to a further analysis of the different ways in which each stage relates to repetition and a culmination in which the achievement of faith in Kierkegaard is thought together with the analytic cure in Lacan.