The Invention of the Unconscious and the Psychosomatic Phenomenon

HEINRICH Haydée

Haydée Heinrich

Buenos Aires – Argentina

Convergencia – Paris 2001

II – The Unconscious structured as a language.

e-mail: haydeeh@starmail.com

In the Conference of Geneva about Symptom, in answer to a question, Lacan makes a suggestion about the cure of the psychosomatic patient, that at first seems surprising: "we can wait that the unconscious, the invention of the unconscious, might be useful. ⁽¹⁾

I will try to explain how we could possibly understand this affirmation, since I believe we can find here a precise Lacanian recommendation about the clinical undertaking of the psychosomatic phenomenon, a difficult matter, since it is not a formation of the unconscious.

As I see it, this statement of Lacan in 1973 can be argued from the logic clarified in the Seminar XI with respect to the appearance of the signifier in the field of the Other, with its consequent effects of alienation and aphanisis. In the context of these reflections Lacan is going to put forth that in the psychosomatic phenomenon "the significant induction at the level of the Subject has elapsed in such a way that it does not put into play the aphanisis of the Subject." A little further on, he reiterates that here "we can no longer take into consideration the aphanisic function of the Subject." ⁽²⁾

I understand that it is convenient to differentiate the aphanisic "effect" – the effect of the significant alienation defined by Lacan as the disappearance of the Subject under the signifiers that represent him – from the aphanisic "function", that would be a subsequent step and means the putting into play of this disappearance.

This aphanisic function – that can no longer been taken into account in the psychosomatic phenomenon – consists in interrogating the signifiers of the demand of the Other with the Subject’s own disappearance (learned in the preceding time, the time of the significant alienation). Can you lose me?

Only by putting the aphanisic function into play, the significant induction coming from the Other can become incomplete; by way of the aphanisic function the Subject attacks the significant chain of the Other at its weakest point, that of the interval ⁽³⁾, letting the desire of the Other appear, beyond its demand.

It is in the lunule that intersects the lack of the Subject and the lack of the Other that Lacan teaches us to situate the Unconscious.

On the contrary, when the aphanisic function cannot be put into play, that is to say, when the signifiers of the Other cannot be interrogated, the interval cannot appear between S₁ and S₂ and "the first couple of signifiers solidifies, holophrases." ⁽⁴⁾

When this happens and furthermore when this unquestioned signifier interferes with a biological function, the latter can be affected; I believe this is the particularity of the psychosomatic phenomenon.

Pavlov’s dog, "as it is not at present a being that speaks, is not destined to question the desire of the experimenter"⁽⁵⁾; this can also happen to the parletre. The jouissance of the Other – far from cutting the drive object - might aim at the Real of the body and if it is not questioned by the Subject it becomes holophrasic, being able to affect the biological function.

However, it is not the holophrasic signifier, which directly produces the injury, something that would be difficult to think of; it only has the unquestionable capacity of disturbing the biological function. Therefore, in order to think of the clinical incidence of psycho-analysis, I believe it is valid to differentiate a first moment in which the holophrasic significant induction can change the rhythm and normal performance of a biological function, from a second moment in which, this dislocated function, might injure the Real of the tissue. Just let us think about the consequences on the organism, of gastric secretion wearing away the walls of the stomach at the sound of a bell, instead of disintegrating a piece of meat.

Now then, if this matter interests us, it is because, as we know, there are many biological functions, from the simple example of the gastric secretion of Pavlov’s dog to the most complex regulations of the auto-immune system and we can suppose that all of them could be affected in this way.

What biological function would be chosen will surely depend on the ways of jouissance of the Other, be it the digestive tract, respiratory system, the incidence of the gaze of the Other on the skin, etc. This presence of the Other over a body that is not allowed to function alone, (probably initiated at a time when the Subject did not have the resources to be able to question his jouissance), makes this biological function difficult to forget so as to be able to adopt an autonomous performance.

However, there also exists another type of injury, not produced by the jouissance of the Other concentrated on a particular function of the organism; instead, the Other exercises a pressure over the Subject that – by not being interrogated – makes it just as effective. What can we think, for instance, about arterial hypertension, cardiac affections or the autoimmune diseases? Maybe in these cases the presence of the Other produces organic perplexity commonly known as "stress", that Lacan refers to in Seminar X, which also has the capacity to disturb the different organs involved. ⁽⁷⁾⁽⁸⁾

Going back to our initial question, we will say that, when a demand from the Other, some traumatic event, some loss suffered by the Subject, some irruption of the Real, cannot be interrogated and the interval between the signifiers does not appear as a consequence, these signifiers have stopped behaving as such, having transformed into pure signs full of sense. If this happens, they are no longer able to produce neither metaphor nor metonymy, and as a result they can no longer be negotiated through the formations of the Unconscious. They will just be holophrasic signs that have left the Unconscious out of the game and therefore the Unconscious must be re-invented in analysis.

If the Subject is not able any longer to respond with the lightness of the signifier, producing formations of the Unconscious, he remains defenseless, and the demand of the Other will be able to impact directly on his body.

To my understanding, in analysis we should not try to interrogate the injury, but to interrogate the holophrasic demand that could not be interrogated by the Subject. What was it that functioned as a sign and provoked the Unconscious to get out of the game?

I believe we should be able to interrogate this sign, re-introduce the dimension of the signifier and the misunderstanding, and lift up the heavy weight of the sign that could not be questioned. We should try to interrogate these demands together with the Subject, so they can be processed by way of the signifier and the formations of the Unconscious.

1. Lacan, J. – Geneva Conference – Intervenciones y Textos II – Ed. Manantial, Buenos Aires.
2. Lacan, J. – Seminario XI – Chapter XVII (Answers) (Ecrits. Ed. Du Seuil)
3. Lacan, J. – (Position of the Unconscious, Ecrits, Ed. Du Seuil) "separare, se parare: to shelter from the signifier under which he succumbs, the subject attacks the chain, that we have reduced to a binarism, at its point of interval. The interval that is repeated, the most radical structure of the significant chain is the place frequented by the metonymy, the vehicle, at least that is what we teach, of the desire.
4. Lacan, J. – Seminario XI – Chapter XVIII – point 2. (Ecrits. Ed. Du Seuil)
5. Idem 4
6. See Irma Peusner "Apopthosys and the Death Drive" in "Cuando la Neurosis no es de Transferencia" by Haydée Heinrich – Homo Sapiens Ediciones.
7. Lacan, J. – Seminario X – unedited. "Summarizing, to get to the point where the demand is made of the function – something that more recently and in other cultural areas is theorized with the term "stress" – can finish, lead into this kind of deficit that overcomes the function itself, that interests the apparatus in such a way that it modifies it, beyond the register of the functional answer, which in the lasting marks that engender confine more or less with the injury deficit."
8. Se the classes of Irma Peusner in the Seminar "Lacan<>Pavlov – Towards a logic of the psychosomatic answer "- Unedited Seminar by H. Heinrich and I. Peusner –Escuela Freudiana de Buenos Aires, 2000. (Publication in preparation)