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The movement of analysis and it's consequences
DANA Guy
What does associating the idea of movement contribute to psychoanalysis?
Does accentuating the movement of the analysis shed light on the wagers
that psychoanalysis faces today? Is there need to widen the scope of the
concept of motion or then again, why speak of movement rather than of
ends or objectives of the analysis?
For the notion, mouvement de l'analyse, one understands movement not only
in the analysis (for example, what does the second round contribute to
the first?) but outside the cure, it can also be considered in terms of
what psychoanalysis contributes to culture. By extention, this last point
questions the entry of psychoanalysis into the social area or then again,
on the contrary, it revivifies an interpretation which allows the pschoanalysis
of unrest in civilisation.
This interpretation, made possible by the frayage that Freud, first of
all tempted to establish, poses the problem of today's psychoanalysists
being summensed to provide answers to social issues as though they were
experts. Is this insistant and ever increasing appeal in our societies
compatible with what analysis is in practice; it's unpredictable character
and the inventive nature that underlies the analytical method? From the
practicing pschoanalyst to the pschoanalyst called apon as expert, is
there not, necessarily, contradiction? Isn't there also an ambiguity to
know who is meeting who in the cure?
It seems necessary for me to emphasise that between the forthcoming movement
in practical analysis (this mouvement is always forthcoming) and the somewhat
rarefied position from where the pschoanalyst is invited to respond there
emerges a conflict of identity for pschoanalysts, troubled on a philosophical
level; one could say, even, an ethical problem.
Subsidiarily, one asks, as always, about the permanence of psychoanalysis
in the future, the way that psychoanalitic field distinguishes itself
from other disciplines and it's translation into the public.
From here, arise two major wagers that the theme of movement unites
and solidifies:
Firstly, one must affirm that psychoanalysis is movement and can be defined
as a journey within the structure, which reminds us of Freud's idea of
a psyché étendue1 (and who knows nothing) that has to be
conquered.
Journeys and conquests (... ) also condition the therapeutic
of an analysis but generally, the idea of movement also implies a dynamique
subconsious rather than a thesaurus of meaning. This last point seems
completely conclusive to me.
Secondly, putting the psyche into movement constitutes in itself a radical
separation with any form of expertise or psychology and poses the problem
of the psychoanalyst's knowledge and the position occupied by psychoanalysts
in debates concerning current ideas, particularly the demand that installs
them in a position of expert.
More precisely, if movement in analysis tourns around reality and accords
the right to a certain know-how, the movement of the analysis as percieved
outside the practice brings in the symbolic catagory where, it seems to
me, the psychoanalyst becomes, abusively, the garantor.
Confronted with these (relative) difficulties and the difference in
comprehension of the notion of movement in and outside of analysis, we
can now call apon a general definition, established by Jean-Marc Levi-Lelond
in principle to identify the specificity of any discipline:
" if we really wanted to find a general definition for the notion
of science, culling out scientific knowledge from other types of kowledge,
we would undoubtedly find it in the work of permanent and consistant restriction
which allows scientific knowledge to form and reinforce itself. "2
Without entering into the heated debate of whether or not psychoanalysis
is a science, we can content ourselves to applying the method proposed
by Levi-Leblond to the questions raised by movement.
So, we should devote ourselves to a work of restriction.
OF CONQUEST
It is transfer which conducts the movement of the analysis, one can
also say that it is thanks to this conductor that clinical analysis becomes
a possibility and can be elaborated. Clinical analysis' specificity lies
in it's intrinsic link to psychic movements; be they linked to the operation
of transfer (where the analysist, included in the process, also participates
in the movement! ) or to the many arrangements possible depending on the
observation between subject, object, the Other.. ; Lacan's categories
of language allows us to formalise our understanding.
With these categories, language becomes the strategy of a journey which
takes place in the language shared by each analyser.
A journey in structure! This concept of an analysis is not without consequences
because the subject is pushed to invent a way out for himself from within
that which he is crossing. The hypothesis of a new subject is supported
by this journey.
From here on, with wo es war, soll ich werden3 , it is no longer necessary
to approve the conquest of es by Moi but rather to insist on the transformation
of es who operates in the symptom or in fantasy founded in analytical
work. The je who arises (that Lacan calls new subject) is a consequence
of work that takes place in the cure indexed according to the psychoanalysist's
wish. The Moi, having little to do with the descriptive, because it is
question of conquering another subjective position which changes the primary
economy of es. It is also possible to say that sexuality is less anonymous,
a little less somatic with this operation Moreover, there is a civilising
work for every subject; in the mobilisation of es towards the ich an unrefined
discursive operation brings out statements for everyone. This is a work
of civilising of one's self and not a civilising work for the world (in
which the project of an analysis can not be confounded) This is the differentiel
that is extremely important to uphold in the face of demands made on analysists.
MEANING AND KNOWLEDGE
We must now return to the question of meaning, a question that haunts
psychoanalysis since Traumdeutung 4. With the formation of the unconscious,
Freud links the question of meaning to unconscious desire and moreover,
he does not hesitate to give meaning to that which de understands.
It is obvious that if psychoanalysis adheres in masse to the question
of meaning, the risk of being taken as an expert would quickly and unfortunately
find support. The psychoanalysist would once again become he who has the
right interpretation and who communicates the hidden meaning of his patient's
dreams, symptoms etc...or to his patients or to society who encourages
him to sprinkle his advice here and there about contempory community issues.
One must be extremely careful in handling meaning and knowledge and
give lieway, as Freud did, to the articulation of meaning, their signification,
their double-sense or non-sense; but this is going towards Lacan's interpretation
of pschoanalysis.
Marcel Ritter remarked that Freud paid special attention to verbal material
and never missed an occasion to indicate a double meaning to a word.
" with l'homme aux rats the word dick in it's double resonance, brought
to light, a symptom; running in the heat of the midday sun to apparently
lose weight " The duplicity of meaning opens up a new comprehension.
In this way, the analysis doesn't only restitute meaning but also organises
itself so the patient can confront himself with this duplicity.
If the Other is deceitful and language is the material with which the
pschoanalyst works, such is the minimal approach to structure, language
for Lacan and where the journey throughout it becomes more precise.
From 1953 onwards, Lacan subverted and altered the concept of interpretation
by detaching it, a bit more than Freud, from the question of meaning.
" Field and function of speech and language in psychoanalysis "6
then " Variation on a type study cure "7 left behind the concept
of a static subconscience, seat of hidden meaning and of a constituted
subject and, on the contrary, promoted the idea of a dynamique subconscious
where the subject is in movement, represented by delegation from one sign
to another. The pschoanalysist's knowledge is therefore decentralised
by the function of the constituated subconscious throughout the cure and
the movement of a never ending future subject appears, ferret if you will.
In this contexte, it's not so much a question of giving meaning but rather
to provoke new meaning, sometimes it's a complete surprise, the sesame
in the structure.
In the same way, Lacan, in 1964, gave another definition to subject from
the point of view of fantasy,8 with a gager being to obtain a new subjective
position by dismounting the fantasy or by crossing through it. The expected
subjective change can also be considered as movement, in the case where
it opens a new psychic position, in itself a prelude to other subjective
positions, yet unknown to the subject. This movement should be percieved
as an apprenticeship to reality, to produce emptyness as work, far from
any particular meaning; its progression showing a concentric movement
where, little by little, the object is insisted apon as psychic reality
and in so doing, introduces a principle of inadequation.
THE PSYCHOANALYST'S CONFLICTUAL IDENTITY
Therefore psychoanalysis can not prematurely project a judgement of it's
effectiveness even though it advances in a methodical way. The psychoanalyst
is imprisoned or rather, he is ethically accountable of a more than complex
position in relation to knowledge. His position stems from a peculiar
association between, on the one hand:
- a formal knowledge which is both theoretical and clinic containing elements
of doctrine that link him to social areas and summon the symbolic category
- and on the other hand there is a radically new form of knowledge to
invent, in reality; a non-savoir without any pre-established words suited
to define the way the subject discovers itself in analysis. One could
think that this non-savoir produced by the analytical journey carries
it's own means of analytical healing and recovers or subverts primary
knowledge. This knowledge produces a movement that turns around reality.
From here on, we can advance the idea of the pschoanalyst's conflictuel
identity which can not, without precaution, answer questions on social
issues. (Can homosexual couples become parents? Should cloning be allowed
for therapeutical reasons? What do psychoanalysts think about the legalisation
of light drugs? etc)
On one side, a psychoanalysist can't answer by sending the question back,
like a boomerang, to its initiater. On the other, nor can he occupy the
seat of the expert; a Mr. know-it all without any insight. The only thing
left to do is to accompany the question asked of him and in so doing,
he associates his discussion partner in his dilemma. Thus he invites his
partner to accompany him on a common cause; to join in a movement where
the conclusion is yet to be written. Of course; the common cause is the
liability and involvement that each human individual has to language and
to the indispensable relay provided by the Other as a symbolic authority.
It seems to me that pschoanalysts should defend an unrarified symbolic
authority so as to be able to link up with the cultural world in a large
sense; ie the Freudien sense of Kulturarbeit. This also means to keep
in touch with the evolution in life-styles and not to systematically cut
oneself off from modernity.
This indispensable exchange, this tripartite relay action, is put in danger
by today's modernity who short-circuits the elaboration that results from
it. Analysists aren't to condemn or uphold the most recent scientific
discoveries. Lead these discoveries without commentary so that the Other
of speech be overtaken by speed as damage calls for reparation.
How are children of this modernity going to express themselves if speech,
words and commentaries are not allied and do not contain (in the sense
of container) a modernity given over to a unique rationale of action.
But then again psychoanalysts are not to offer a conception of the world
to another; The certitude by which they can advance comes from the dimension
of unconsciousness about reality. Now, this unconsciousness is not governable,
not any more than es, in other words, the Moi doesn't govern the ça.
The civilizing work is to be invented by everyone starting from es . One
must be careful about advice on civilization that can be heard from psychoanalysts.
What psychoanalysts know is that speech that comes from the Other sustains
a debt from which one must free oneself ( a condition for freedom in the
structure) and, at the same time,
measure the insurmountable so as to link it to the third dimension of
the symbolic. By linking the peculiar problematic of debt, with each having
his own, to third party common control, the psychoanalyst participates
in the social community, in his own way. He knows only too-well that social
ties are based on a poor understanding of fundamental inadequacy from
one man to another or from man to his objects; and so uneasiness persists.
1. Freud S. Resultats, idees, problèmes P.U.F. tome 2, p.288
2. Levi-Leblond J-M. " des sciences a-sociales et inhumaines? "
dans
La Pierre de touche, la science à l'épreuve Paris, Gallimard-Folio
essai
1996. p.134
3. Freud S. Nouvelles conférences d'introduction à la psychanalyse
Paris, Gallimard 1989. p.110
4. Freud S. Die Traumdeutung L'interprétation des rêves
Paris, P.U.F.1978.
5. Ritter M. " Autour de la question de l'interprétation
" dans
La direction de la cure depuis Lacan Paris, Point Hors Ligne 1994. p.91
6.Lacan J. Ecrits Paris, Seuil 1966.
7. Lacan J. Ecrits op. cit., p.323-362
8. Lacan J. Le Seminaire, Livre XI Les quatre concepts fondamentaux de
la psychanalyse Paris, Seuil 1973.
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