As practices, psychoanalysis and the creative arts (including fine art and performance) are especially well suited to each other. They are both realms in which questions and answers circulate. If contributing to knowledge in one, both or another field - a characteristic of doctoral degrees - is added into the mix , the resulting triad raises important epistemological questions. Examples of these can be found in the number, breadth and concerns of recent and current UK doctoral projects with a focus on art and psychoanalysis.

This paper will outline some key parallels that can be established between creative and psychoanalytic practices and will focus on one of them: the relationship between a subject and an object. This will be further developed with the help of a brief summery of Jacques Lacan’s Discourse of the Analyst and this concept of Object (a), the element at the centre of this discourse and the central concern of psychoanalytic practice. This Object (a), the object cause of desire and the object of anxiety will then be put in relation to the desire to know (savoir), a desire that artists, psychoanalyst's and doctoral students experience. This desire to know is what moved Freud to ask questions in front of the Acropolis.