Freud and the desire of the psychoanalyst by serge. Desire and its interpretation 1958 1959 lacan in ireland. It is in the sense of a desire proper to the analyst that lacan wishes to locate the. There are a number of formulations that lacan has about anxiety and desire p. This something, which pasolini endeavors to situate at the heart of filmmaking, is preceisely that which always escapes from the grasp of that form of vision that is satisfied with itself in imagining itself as consicousness lacan, 1998. Freud and the desire of the psychoanalyst by serge cottet, 9781855755925.
Fake interviews on lacan european journal of psychoanalysis. It emerges during analysis and is crucial in enabling the analysand to begin working with the unconscious of others when they take on the position of analyst. Desire attributed to the analyst in the first sense of the term, the desire of the analyst refers to the desire that the analysand attributes to the analyst in addition to knowledge in psychoanalytic treatment, rather than the desire proper to the analyst in his mind or psyche. Jacques marie emile lacan was a french psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who has been called. His many published works include ecrits and the seminars. I would even say that, up to a certain point, the analysts lack of comprehension can be preferable to an overly great confidence in his understanding.
The analysts desire, a desire to obtain absolute difference, is the original lacanian concept that defines the position of the analyst in analytic discourse, and represents a culmination of his elucidation of the function of desire in psychoanalysis lacan, 1977, p. It is also a change in the economy of desire and jouissance which is hoped for as a byproduct of a. Jacques lacan 19011981 came to psychoanalysis by way of medicine and psychiatry. On the aim and end of analysis in the lacanian school. Desire then is the surplus produced by the articulation of need in demand. The repressed, as what wants to be, would call out to the desire of the analyst so as to come into existence. Lacan invoked it to make unconscious being, that is to say repressed being, pass to the achieved state. Lacan finally identifies the discourse of science with that of hysteria the hysteric pushes the masterincarnated in a partner, teacher, or whomeverto the point where he or she can find the masters knowledge lacking.
In lacans conception, the therapist occupies a similar position to the beloved in that the patient thinks that the therapist has that which they most need. The desire of the analyst ixth congress of the wap. The psychoanalytic session can bring me to the point where i realize that to be human is to be subject to a desire that cannot be fulfilled. Ask an analyst ive been charged with providing with some record of the many years this askananalyst service has been progressing. Sometimes referred to as the french freud, he is an important figure in the history of psychoanalysis. Closely examining jacques lacans unique mode of engagement with philosophy, lacan with the philosophers sheds new light on the interdisciplinary relations between philosophy and psychoanalysis. So desire is not a desire for the thing that might provide satisfaction.
This paper essays to show that despite clear differences, both bion and lacan situate the analyst in the same open. As an example to illustrate this idea, lacan tells the amusing story of a man who enacts a strange ritual after sex. Lacan presents desire as eccentric to satisfaction, as outstripping anything that might attempt satisfy it. The psychoanalyst jacques lacan 19011981 was one of the twentieth centurys most influential thinkers. At that time lacans socalled seminars were being published one after another in french, as the. Book i of the seminar is the edited transcription of the 19531954 weekly lessons at sainteanne, where the. If desire is the lack which constitutes one should also keep in mind that lacan presupposes his audience to be analysts who have clinical experience to validate his claims. Lacans notion of desire in clinical work lacans notion of desire is relevant not only because clients dont seem to want to change.
The authors come after lacan, first in the sense of following in his footsteps, next by creatively reworking lacans concepts. Longtime lacan translator, bruce fink, and polity press, both deserve commendation for this new addition to the series of lacan s seminars available in english. The four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis, 1964. Lacan, for instance, emphasizes that there is an interesting relationship between anxiety and desire. The position of the analyst in lacans account of the discourse of the analyst. Jacques lacan 19011981 was one of the twentiethcenturys most influential thinkers. In psychoanalysis, the goal is to interpretthat is, to readthe message. This book is a collection of essays commenting on jacques lacans yearlong seminar, which he titled seminar xvii, the penultimate book of his major theoretical contributions. Roger scruton included lacan in his book fools, frauds and firebrands. While highlighting the philosophies fundamental to the study of lacans psychanalysis, ruth ronen reveals how lacan resisted the straightforward use of these works. Our purpose, as you remember, is to show the tragedy of desire as it appears in hamlet, human desire, that is, such as we are con. Translated by cormac gallagher from unedited french typescripts.
For lacan desire is neither the appetite for satisfaction nor the demand for love, but the difference that results from the subtraction of the first from the second article cited. Cottets book, first published in 1982 and revised in 1996, is a classic of lacanian psychoanalysis. The patients desire is a complex matter, readily entangled in neurotic compromise, defense, and transference, and the analysts commitment to it is also problematic because of the inevitable copresence of his own desire. The difference between them as regards desire appears to be stark. In 1952, the meetings were transferred to the sainteanne hospital where lacan worked as a consultant psychiatrist. Bion and lacan have surveyed the territory of the desire of the analyst. Strictly speaking, the object a belongs to another body, as lacan taught at the time, and can be therefore incarnated by the analyst who refuses to satisfy some supposition of external reality of another subject. First, because lacan thinks that desire is the essence of human beings as spinoza said, and abandoning desire would mean to abandon humanity. This leaves in suspense the definition of the desire of the analyst.
His teachings and writings explore the significance of freuds discovery of the. Bion and lacan have surveyed the territory of the desire of the analyst most compellingly, though an explicit pairing of the two is rare in the literature. Pierre naveau in the first chapter of seminar xi lacan asks. This is an imaginary object that both sets desire in motion and represents its impossibility as the excess or deficit produced by coming under the symbolic. Desire attributed to the analyst in the first sense of the term, the desire of the analyst refers to the desire that the analysand attributes to the analyst in addition to knowledge in psychoanalytic treatment, rather than the desire. His own desire as such cannot be situated elsewhere than in this space. The ego in freuds theory and in the technique of psychoanalysis ed. Jacquesalain miller is director of the department of psychoanalysis at the university of paris viii and editor of lacans seminars. Lacan claims that guilt occupies the field of desire, there is a permanent bookkeeping or debt to be paid via guilt in the subject not giving up on his desire. Here we meet for the first time the notorious a in its oral, anal, scopic and vociferated guises, alongside lacans exploration of the question of the analysts desire.
Jacques lacan desire and the interpretation of desire in hamlet the object ophelia as a sort of comeon, i announced that i would speak today about that piece of bait named ophelia, and ill be as good as my word. It is in this interval, in this gap that there is situated an experience which is that of desire, which is first of all apprehended as being that of the desire of the other, and within which the subject has to situate his own desire. His many works include ecrits, the four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis and the many other volumes of the seminar. The most common question i receive starts with an expression of interest in lacanian theory, often from having read zizek, and in the desire to become a psychoanalyst, with a request for some direction. Probably the most important nonbritish revisionism within psychoanalysis has been provided by jacques lacan, the french analyst, who separated from the mainstream psychoanalytical movement in 1953, and has produced a dazzling if difficult body of work. Ultimately it is the desire of the analyst that carries an analysis to its end beyond the rock of castration. Books anxiety by jacques lacan peter caws critiques jacques lacans psychoanalytic obscurantism some thirty years ago, at an academic retreat in the south of france, i met a young woman who announced herself as a lacanienne a disciple of the psychoanalyst jacques lacan 19011981. Desire of the analyst encyclopedia of lacanian psychoanalysis. This process, lacan says, is a condition of every psychoanalytic act seminar xv, 10. This book will serve as a primer for some aspects of lacanian theory, and parts of the book will be challenging even to the moderately advanced lacanian clinician. Mourning the loss of the analyst it is to the benefit of the broader lacanian world that this pitchperfect translation a decade or more in the making is now available. We see not because everything is visible, but because something always defies the eye, persisting beyond the remit of mere representation.
Jacques lacan and the other side of psychoanalysis book. Book vii the seminar of jacques lacan seminar of jacques lacan. In psychoanalysis, the status of desire has, historically, rested squarely. Both lacans soninlaw, jacquesalain miller, and his patient and lover catherine millot considered lacans way of driving as part of his ethical stance. An analyst is supposed to function with her lack as castration, which is the kind of lack that must simply be acknowledged and accepted. Discourse of the analyst no subject encyclopedia of.
Lacans notion of desire is relevant because many clients seem ruthlessly caught in the grips of selfsubverting behaviors, and they actually seem to enjoy them. The four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis jacques. The desire of the analyst is the function or capacity that enables the analyst to work with the transference of the analysand, and to redirect transference love both towards as well as away from the analyst. He approaches lacan through the motifs and works of contemporary popular culture, from hitchcocks vertigo to stephen kings pet sematary, from mcculloughs an indecent obsession to romeros return of the living dead a strategy of looking awry that recalls the exhilarating and vital experience of lacan. Riding in cars with jacques lacan jamieson webster the. The seminar of jacques lacan, book vi lacan, jacques. The paper particularly focuses on the notion of desire and jouissance, as it is the economy of these that is at stake in the structure of the three forms of psychopathology recognised by lacan viz psychosis, neurosis and perversion. Sex radicals today sources badiou, alain and elisabeth roudinesco. The desire of the analyst yet if it is clear how the position of the analysand continues to function as one form of the desire of the analyst to occupy his position well, it is still not clear why one would occupy the position of the analyst at. The seminar, book xi, the four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis les. Seminar xvii, subtitled the other side of psychoanalysis, came at a time of social and political upheaval in france and in much of the western world. Lacans four discourses the partially examined life.
In lacanian theory the analyst stands in the place of object a, or object cause of desire. That said, lacans seminar on anxiety contains some worthwhile material to work through. Lacan adds that desire begins to take shape in the margin in which demand becomes. Jacquesalain miller is director of the department of psychoanalysis at the university. Lacans three forms of lack speak to the ways in which any subject may function in a real world, and avoid facing lack or being terrified by it. A response to new books on lacanian technique, the author presents the basis of technique as being the desire of the analyst. Five lessons on the psychoanalytic theory of jacques lacan. Arriving at these concepts from a multitude of angles, lacan leads his audience with great care through a range of recurring themes such as anxiety between jouissance and desire, countertransference and. It is important for an analyst to be able to workthrough his own anxiety in a clinical situation. The authors support a logical unfolding of various lacanian concepts. In what was to be the last of his yearlong seminars at saintanne hospital, lacans 196263 lessons form the keystone to this classic phase of his teaching. It is a desire to obtain absolute difference, a desire which intervenes when, confronted with the primary signifier, the subject is, for the first time, in a position to subject himself to it.
Lacan suggested that more emphasis be placed in training on the desire of the analyst, but beyond that a proposal is. If on the other hand i am a human being, i write in my log book at such and. Five lessons on the psychoanalytic theory of jacques lacan is the first english translation of a classic text by one of the foremost commentators on lacans work. The term desire of the analyst is ambiguous, and oscillates between two meanings in lacans work. This other body is the place where lacan found embedded the cause of the desire to know. Bion, a postkleinian analyst, said that the analyst should abandon any memory and desire with analysands.
Read anything about lacans life and you will find it punctuated by stories about cars and driving. Here we meet for the first time the notorious a in its oral, anal, scopic and vociferated guises, alongside lacans exploration of the question of the. Juandavid nasio makes numerous theoretical advances and eloquently demonstrates the clinical and practical import of lacans theory, even in its most difficult or obscure moments. Lacan frequently compares psychoanalysis to a mystery religion in which, at a certain point in the ritual, a secret truth is revealed. It is not only a scholarly study of freud and lacan, but a thought. In it, he broke with his two preceding approaches in saying that the transference comes not from the analysand but from the analystmore precisely, from the desireoftheanalyst, of which it is the effect.
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