Gérard Pape studied clinical psychology and music simultaneously at the University of Michigan, and is a practicing Lacanian psychoanalyst as well as a composer (Makan 2003, 23–24).
In 2002 he obtained his BA in philosophy from the University of Ljubljana with a thesis on a Lacanian critique of the philosophy of Cratylus.
The Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, a known Lacanian theorist, has adopted the term in his philosophy; it may also be seen in the works, both joint and individual, of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, and it plays an important role in the writing of Julia Kristeva and Roland Barthes.
Dolar was the co-founder, together with Slavoj Žižek and Rastko Močnik, of the Ljubljana school of psychoanalysis, whose main goal is to achieve a synthesis between Lacanian psychoanalysis and the philosophy of German idealism.
The members follow various orientations, and OPIFER is perhaps the only psychoanalytic association in Europe wherein Freudian, Neo-Freudian, Kleinian, relational, interpersonal, and even Lacanian or Jungian analysts actually coexist and discuss together, all of them aiming at encouraging a pluralistic approach, which welcomes the dialogue among different positions and rejects any dogmatic attitude.