英：psychology; 法：psychologie
在其1950年以前的作品中，拉康把精神分析与心理学看作可以相互间交叉渗透的平行学科。尽管他对联想主义心理学的概念性不充分持极具批判性的态度，然而拉康还是认为通过给心理学提供一些真正科学性的概念，诸如意象 (MAGO)与情结（COMPLEX)等，精神分析能够帮助建立一种摆脱了此类错误的“真正的心理学”(authentic psychology)(Lacan, I936).
然而，从1950年开始，在拉康的著作中渐渐而持续地产生了一种使精神分析脱离于心理学的倾向。拉康首先指出心理学被局限于一种动物心理学（即动物行为学）的理解：“如果我们试图尽可能牢固地把握心理学的话，那么它便是动物行为学的，即生物性个体相对于其自然环境的行为整体。”(S3,7)这不是说心理学并不适用于人类，因为人类也是动物，而是说它无法处理人之为人的独特性 (尽管拉康在某处也确实声称，自我与自恋的理论“扩展了”现代动物行为学的研究：Ec, 472)。因而，心理学便被还原成了适用于所有动物的普遍行为法则，包括人类在内。拉康还拒绝“动物心理与人类心理之间具有某种断续性的学说”，他认为这样的学说“是远离我们的思想的”(Ec, 484)。然而，拉康强有力地拒绝了行为主义的理论，根据这种理论，上述的那些普遍行为法则便足以解释所有的人类精神现象。只有揭示出人类主体性的语言基础的精神分析，才足以解释那些为人类所特有的精神现象。
在1960年代，精神分析与心理学之间的距离在拉康的著作中得到了进一步的强调。拉康认为，心理学在本质上是一种“技术统治性剥削”(technocratic exploitation)的工具（Ec, 85l; 见：Ec, 832), 而且它也受制于那些有关整体与综合、自然 (NATURE)与本能、自主性与自我意识的幻象 (Ec, 832)。另一方面，精神分析则颠覆了心理学所怀抱的这些幻象，而在此种意义上说“弗洛伊德的宣言便是与心理学丝毫无关的”(S17,44)。例如，心理学最珍视的幻象便是“主体的统一性”(E, 294), 而精神分析则通过证明主体是无可挽回地被分裂或“被画杠”的而颠覆了此种观念。
(psychologie) In his pre-1950 writings, Lacan sees psychoanalysis and psychology asparallel disciplines which can cross-fertilise each other. Although he is very critical of theconceptual inadequacies of associationist psychology, Lacan argues that psychoanalysiscan help to build an 'authentic psychology'free from such errors by providing it withtruly scientific concepts such as the IMAGO and the COMPLEX (Lacan, 1936).
However, from 1950 on, there is a gradual but constant tendency to dissociatepsychoanalysis from psychology. Lacan begins by arguing that psychology is confined toan understanding of animal psychology (ethology): 'The psychological is, if we try tograsp it as firmly as possible, the ethological, that is the whole of the biologicalindividual's behaviour in relation to his natural environment' (S3,7). This is not to saythat it cannot say anything about human beings, for humans are also animals, but that itcannot say anything about that which is uniquely human (although at one point Lacandoes state that the theory of the ego and of narcissism 'extend'modern ethologicalresearch; Ec, 472). Thus psychology is reduced to general laws of behaviour which applyto all animals, including human beings; Lacan rejects 'the doctrine of a discontinuitybetween animal psychology and human psychology which is far away from our thought' (Ec, 484). However, Lacan vigorously rejects the behaviourist theory according to whichthe same general laws of behaviour are sufficient to explain all human psychicphenomena. Only psychoanalysis, which uncovers the linguistic basis of humansubjectivity, is adequate to explain those psychic phenomena which are specificallyhuman.
In the 1960s the distance between psychoanalysis and psychology is emphasisedfurther in Lacan's work. Lacan argues that psychology is essentially a tool of'technocratic exploitation' (Ec, 851; see Ec, 832), and that it is dominated by the illusionsof wholeness and synthesis, NATURE and instinct, autonomy and self-consciousness (Ec, 832). Psychoanalysis, on the other hand, subverts these illusions cherished bypsychology, and in this sense 'the Freudian enunciation has nothing to do withpsychology' (S17,144). For example the most cherished illusion of psychology is 'theunity of the subject' (E, 294), and psychoanalysis subverts this notion by demonstratingthat the subject is irremediably split or barred'.