Subjective Experience and the Logic of the Other

SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE AND THE LOGIC OF THE OTHER R6MULO LANDER TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY JUDITH FILC N OTHER Other Pr...

Author: Romulo Lander

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SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE AND THE LOGIC OF THE OTHER

R6MULO LANDER TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY

JUDITH FILC

N OTHER

Other Press New York

Copyright © 2006 Rdmulo Lander Translation copyright © 2006 Judith File Chapters 3 and 10 were previously published as a different translation in Reading Seminar XX. Lacan's Major Work on Love, Knowledge, and Feminine Sexuality, edited by Bruce Fink and Suzanne Barnard (Albany- SUNY Press, 2002) Production Editor Mira S. Park This book was set in 11 pt Berkley by Alpha Graphics of Pittsfield, NH 10

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from Other Press LLC, except in the case of brief quotations in reviews for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper For information write to Other Press LLC, 307 Seventh Avenue, Suite 1807, New York, NY 10001 Or visit our Web site www otherpress.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lander, Romulo Subjective experience and the logic of the other / Romulo Lander , editor, Judith File p cm. Includes index. ISBN 1-59051-165-4 (pbk . alk. paper) 1. Lacan, Jacques, 19012. Psychoanalysis. I. File, Judith. II Title BF109.L28L36 2006 150 19'57—dc22 2005000183

Is this the only way to understand and practice psychoanalysis? Those who place Lacan in the locus of the Master will answer, Yes. Those who are committed to the study of his teachings and place him in the locus of the analyst will answer, No.

Table of Contents

Preface

xv

1 The Logic of Desire 1 Being the Desire of the Other. The Concept of Desire in Freud. The Experience of Satisfaction. To Find Again. The Desire of the Other's Desire. Human Desire Is Instated. Some Specifications. Need, Demand, and Desire. Object (a) as the Object-Cause of Desire. The Dialectic of the Lack. 2 The Logic of the Signifler 8 De Saussure, Jahobson, and Lacan. Lacan's Thesis. The Signifying Chain. Meaning, Truth, and Signification. The Series of Signifiers. Metaphor. Metonymy. Then What Is a Signifier? The Origin of the Signifier. The Symbolic Order and the Letter. 3 The Three Orders (RSI) and the Borromean Proposition 17 Topology and the Three Orders. The Imaginary Order. The Symbolic Order. The Order of the Real. The Borromean Knot and Topology. 4 The Logic of Anxiety 23 What Is Anxiety? Anxiety as Loss in Freud. Types of Anxiety. Anxiety and Its Position in the Structure. "Presence in Excess" and "The Lack of the Lack." Anxiety and the "Present Absence." Anxiety and Object (a).

.CONTENTS

The Logic of the Phallus 29 The Meaning of the Phallus. The Phallic Signifier. The Logic of the Phallus. To Be the Phallus of the Other. The Relationship Between the Sexes. The Phallus and the Mask of Appearance. 6 The Logic of the Object 33 The Two-Faced Object. The Object of the Drive. Freud and His Objects. Object Cathexis. Part-Objects. The Splitting of the Object. The Anaclitic Object. The Love Object. Melanie Klein and Her Objects. The Controversy on the Total Object. Winnicott and His Transitional Object. Lacan and His Objects. Object (a). Chart of the Lack of the Object. 7 The Logic of the Subject 42 The Subject of the Unconscious. The Effect of the Word. Statement (Enonce) and Enunciation. Zero and the Subject. The Subject and Desire. The Subject and Anxiety. The Subject in the Cut. The Subject and Knowledge (Saber). The Fading of the Subject. The Subject and the Other. The Subject and the Borromean Function. The Subject and the Hole. 8 The Logic of the Other 51 The Symbolic Other. The Little Other. The Lacking Other. The Absent Other. The Big Other. Schema Lambda. 9 The Logic of Object (a) 56 A Remainder. The Eclats, or Fragments. The Topological Object. A Further Specification. Object (a) and Love. Object (a) and the Sexual Act. Object (a) and Anxiety. Object (a) and the Analyst. 0 The Logic of Jouissance 61 Psychic Suffering. The Logic of Jouissance. Another Issue Regarding Jouissance The State of Jouissance and Moral

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IX

Masochism. Is the State o/Jouissance a Symptom? Relief of the State o/Jouissance. Pleasure and Jouissance. Jouissance and the Psychic Structure. 11 The Logic of the Cause 68 Complemental Series. The Logic of Trauma. The Logic of Psychic Conflict. The Logc of the Psychic Defect. The Cause and the RSI. 12 The Logic of the Symptom 77 What Is a Symptom? The Symptom as Signifier. The Symptom and RSI. Symptoms and the Psychic Structure. The Symptom Is What Doesn't Work in the Real. First Matheme of the Symptom. Second Matheme of the Symptom. Instating the Symptom. Clinical Symptom and Analytic Symptom. Logical Sequences of the Symptom. Time and the Symptom. The Fate of the Symptom. The Logic of the Sinthome. The Symptom as Prosthesis and the Symptom-Clamp Theory. 13 The Logic of the Fantasme 89 What Is the Fantasme? The Construction of the Fantasme. Matheme of the Fantasme. Symptom and Fantasme. Traversing the Fantasme. 14 The Logic of the Symptasme 94 The Fundamental Fantasme. The Construction of the Symptasme. The Symptasme and the Real. First Matheme of the Symptasme. Second Matheme of the Symptasme. The Symptasme and the Unary Trait. 15 The Logic of Hysteria 99 According to the Logic of the Phallus. The Phenomenology of Hysteria. The Matheme of Hysteria. A Modification to Lacan's Original Matheme. The Meaning of the Matheme. Clinical Application of the Matheme of the Hysteric. Two Types of Hysteria: (N/o) and (n/O). Hysterical Madness.

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16 The Logic of Phobias 108 Phobias in Clinical Practice. Phobias of the Narcissistic (Imaginary) Axis (N/o). Phobias of the Oedipal (Symbolic) Axis (n/O). The Construction of a Symbolic Phobic Object. Curable and Incurable Phobias. 17 The Logic of the Obsessive 112 Hysterization Phenomena. The Phenomenology of Obsessive Neurosis. The Structure of Obsessive Neurosis. The Matheme of Obsessive Neurosis. The Meaning of the Matheme. Clinical Application of the Matheme of Obsessive Neurosis. 18 The Logic of Depression 120 Structure or Symptom? Bereavement and Mourning. Clinical Manifestations of Emptiness or the Internal Void. Moral Masochism. Symptomatology o/Jouissance. The Depressive State. Depression and the Suicidal Act. 19 The Logic of the Suicidal Act 131 The Ethics of the Suicidal Act. Two Vertices. The Suicidal Act as Symptom. The Dialectic of Hope. To Be Loved by the Other. The Concept of the Death Drive. Hate Toward the Object. Imaginary Castration. The Triggering Factor. An Entanglement of Scenarios and Fictions. The Push Toward Suicide as Symptom. What to Do with Subjects at Risk of Committing Suicide. In the Face of an Imminent Suicidal Act. The Radical and Heroic Suicidal Act. The Logic of the Radical Suicide's Death. The Pure, Heroic Suicide. Heroic Act and Fundamentalist Act. Mass Suicides. Masada. 20 The Logic of Borderline States 147 The Dimension of Their Specificity. The Problem with the Borderline Paradigm. Inner Emptiness: The Hole. The Demand for Recognition and the Need for Affirmation. Object Relations. The Discourse of Domination. The Second Skin. Adhesive or Parasitic States. Sexual Life. System of Ideals. Reversal of Perspective. Impulse Control. Compulsions and Addictions.

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Xi

21 The Logic of Psychoses 163 Differential Diagnosis. Preamble to the Borderline Dysfunction. The Foreclosure of the Name-of-the-Father. Schema I. The Affirmation, or Bejahung. Elementary Phenomena. Psychotic Production. The Outside of Discourse. Two Types of Supplement (Suppldance) or Prosthesis. The Triggering of the Psychotic Breakdown. The Direction of the Cure. 22 The Logic of Perversion 177 The Psychoanalytic Viewpoint. What Is a Perverse Act? The Vertex of Phenomenological Clinical Description. The Vertex of Psychoanalytic Clinical Practice. The Meaning of the Perverse Act in the Perversions. A Street Exhibitionist. A Celebrated Masochist. A True Masochist. The Meaning of the Perverse Act in Neuroses. The Fantasme. The Inclusion of the Fantasme. The Fantasme in Act. Two Brief Examples. Access to the Fantasme. 23 The Logic of the Perverse Structure 191 Step by Step. The Graph of Perversion. Verleugnung. Ichspaltung. To Be the Phallus. To Be the Instrument of Jouissance. The Will-to-Jouissance (Volont6-deJouissance). The Tyranny of the Script. The Perverse Subject as an Exemplary Citizen. Masculine Men Only. 24 The Logic of the Transference 197 The Transference Effect. The Establishment of the Transference. Transference and Specificity in Psychoanalysis. Transference as Repetition. Transference as Resistance. The Banalization of Transference. Interpretation in the Transference. Transference Interpretation. 25 The Logic of the Transference Structure The Symbolic Vertex of the Transference. Algorithm of the Transference. More About the Symbolic Vertex. The "Wall of Language/9 Talking to the Wall. "Empty

203

Xii

CONTENTS

Speech" and "Full Speech." Wo Es War, Soil Ich Werden. The Imaginary Vertex of the Transference. Second Algorithm of the Transference. The Vertex of the Real in the Transference. Transference Hate. Transference Love. The Logic of Countertransference. The Effect of Transference on the Analyst. The Analyst's Transference. The Analyst as Waste (Des-Echo). Traversing the Fantasme and the End of Analysis. Summary. 26 The Logic of Negative Transference 219 Negative Transference: Resistance or Analytic Impasse? The Following Session. Some Notes on This Analysand's History. Chief Complaint and the Establishment of the Transference. A Qualified Listener. The Tyranny of the Phallic Other. Suspended Attention. The Problem of Bisexuality. The Master's Discourse. Why Is This Tyrannical Bond Established? Transference with a Phallic Semblance. 27 The Transference Graph 234 Introduction to the Graph: Two Sides and Four Levels. Presentation of the Graph. First Level: The Imaginary Order and the Locus of the Analyst. Second Level: The Symbolic Order and the Locus of the Analyst. Third Level: Borromean Logic and Resignification. Fourth Level: End of Analysis and the Question of "Being"— Postanalytic Effect. 28 The Logic of the Analytic Act (I) 241 A Call to the Knowledge in the Other. The Establishment of the Analytic Device. Becoming Waste (Des-Echo). The Locus of the Analyst. The Nonsymbolized Elements of the Transference. The Use and Misuse of Transference Interpretation. The Position of the Analyst. Saying the Unexpected. When the Analyst Knows Too Much. Who Is an Analyst? An Analyst Is the One Who Acts According

CONTENTS

Xiii

to Ethics. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis Refers to Something Else. What Is It Then that Defines Psychoanalysis? 29 The Logic of the Analytic Act (II) 248 The Horror of the Act, The Direction of the Analysis. The Limits of the Act. An Untenable Act. The Pedagogic Act. The Orthopedic Act. The Power of the Transference. The Analyst in the Act. The Analyst and Desire. The Analyst in Symmetry with the Analysand, Ethics and the Analytic Setting, The Analyst and His or Her Word—A Summary, 30 The Logic of Specificity 257 What Defines Psychoanalysis? When Can We Say That a Session Is Actually an Analytic Session? 31 The Logic of Psychoanalytic Supervision 260 Teaching or Discovering? The Problem of the Training Model Analysenkontrolle and Kontrollanalyse. Approaches Within the International Psychoanalytic Association (JPA). A Clinical Vignette, Supervision and Resistance. In Other Words—Summarizing, Index

271

Preface

1 his book will reveal a new paradox. It is meant to be an accessible exposition of psychoanalytic theory and technique inspired by the original structural, logical, mathematical, and philosophical ideas of the French school of psychoanalysis, particularly of Jacques Lacan, Jacques-Alain Miller, and other European and Latin-American post-Lacanian thinkers. I am aware, however, that this approach goes against the nature of Lacan's own teachings. Such is the paradox: to produce an accessible text means to explain ideas in a comprehensible and organized way, that is to say, to give them closure. Yet it is well known that Lacan's ideas produce a strange and uncomfortable subjective split because they are unfinished, and therefore leave the subject with the uncertainty of knowledge. The subject will pose the question to the other, insisting on his search for some certainty, but since Lacan does not respond to that demand, the other remains split. Such is the manner of Lacan's teaching. In this text I do the opposite—I have tried to respond to the request for clarity and certainty stemming from my subjectivity,

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PREFACE

and the Other will therefore be satisfied and achieve closure. However, this is the only way I can present Lacanian and post-Lacanian ideas with some clarity and show the benefits of these new concepts to the current practice of psychoanalysis. The enigmatic nature of Lacan's teaching is already well known. Louis Althusser wrote about him in 1963 that one must hear him speak to understand athe splendid wickedness of his style."1 He described the attendants to the seminars as adopting a religious attitude in the face of a discourse they could not understand. In this book you will find a variety of ideas. Many of the notions I expound here originate in, and are inspired by, my persistent reading of Lacanian and post-Lacanian texts. They represent the ways in which I have understood these texts and make use of them. 1 am aware that mine is not an orthodox treatment of Lacanian and post-Lacanian ideas, since I am free of obligations born from institutional loyalties to a Lacanian school. Motivated by the nature of Lacan's own teaching, moreover, I have taken the liberty to propose ideas that are different from, and complementary to, his own conceptions. Finally, I only ask that you read this book with persistence and tolerance. Persistence will lead you to keep reading even if the text annoys you at times, and tolerance is required concerning the "narcissism of the small differences,"2 for each one of us conceives of psychoanalysis in a slightly different way. Rdmulo Lander

ENDNOTES 1. Louis Althusser (1963), quoted in Elisabeth Roudinesco (1993), Jacques Lacan, translated by Barbara Bray. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. 2. Sigmund Freud (1918), The Taboo of Virginity. Standard Edition 11:199.

1 The Logic of Desire

BEING THE DESIRE OF THE OTHER For Lacan, who always insisted on his being a Freudian, the subject's desire uis the desire of the Other's desire."1 Lacan theorized extensively on the concept of desire. He introduced an important difference among the notions of desire, need, and demand, thus opening the possibility to withdraw desire from the biological field. In that sense, desire is an effect of a lack and a mark of the signifier in "the speaking being."

THE CONCEPT OF DESIRE IN FREUD Since 1895, Freud saw his hysteric patients' ignorance of sexual desire as the cause of the symptom.2 Freud always included the concept of desire (sexual yet not necessarily genital desire) in his

2


theories. While he never developed a specific theory of desire, this notion is present throughout his work. Freud uses the concept of desire since his first topographical theory. From then on, a relation between drives and representations is established. Freud claims that desire emerges early in the formation of the psychic apparatus, after the first experiences of satisfaction have occurred. Desire will always arise in relation to the representations (mnemic mark) of that previous experience of satisfaction.

THE EXPERIENCE OF SATISFACTION For Freud,3 the experience of satisfaction is crucial for the emergence of desire. He states that an essential component in the experience of satisfaction is the appearance of a certain perception whose mnemic image "remains associated . . . with the memory-trace of the excitation produced by the need. As a result of the link that has thus been established, next time this need arises a psychical impulse will at once emerge which will seek to re-cathect the mnemic image of the perception and to re-evoke the perception itself, that is to say, to reestablish the situation of the original satisfaction. An impulse of this kind is what we call a wish; the reappearance of the perception is the fulfillment of the wish."4 In the same text, Freud says that the dream constitutes a whole psychic act, and its driving force is always a desire to be fulfilled.

TO FIND AGAIN We can say along with Freud that desire is the desire to repeat the experience of satisfaction, the experience lived with the satisfying object, which will be called "the object of desire/'5 We should note here that according to Freud, the nature of desire is unconscious. In addition, it is related to representations and, therefore, belongs to the world of the fantasme.6 It is through this reasoning that we may sustain the Freudian theory of the "hallucinatory satisfaction

THE LOGIC OF DESIRE

3

of desire." In this way, we highlight, along with Freud, a relevant difference between desire and need.

THE DESIRE OF THE OTHER'S DESIRE As I mentioned above, Lacan states that the subject's desire is the desire of the Other's desire. The subject wants to be wanted by the other, that is, he or she experiences a desire for love and recognition. Here Lacan follows Hegel, via Kojfcve, who states that "desire is human only if the one desires, not the body, but the Desire of the other . . . that is to say, if he wants to be 'desired' or loved,' or, rather, 'recognised in his human value.'"7

HUMAN DESIRE IS INSTATED Lacan establishes clearly, as did Freud, that human desire must be instated, meaning that it is constituted early in life as an effect of the experience of satisfaction, and it appears when the subject loses his or her object of satisfaction. The lack of the object gives rise to the presence of desire. The subject's experience with the lost object leaves a mnemic mark (representation). The drives will become desire when joining this representation. In this way, Lacan defines at least three of the traits of desire.8

SOME SPECIFICATIONS Desire Is Unconscious and Mute Human beings cannot know desire in its fullness. Desire does not speak. In "The Direction of the Treatment and the Principle of its Power," Lacan states that language and desire are fundamentally incompatible.9 However, in his first open seminar (Seminar 1,1954), he suggests that the goal of the analytic cure is to allow the analysand

4


to recognize the truth of his or her desire. This implies that such recognition is only possible through language. In the same text, Lacan asserts that "it is only once it is formulated, named in the presence of the other, that desire, whatever it is, is recognized in the full sense of the term."10 In Seminar 2 (1954-1955), Lacan states that "what's important is to teach the subject to name, to articulate, to bring this desire into existence."11 Lacan is referring here to the possibility of "bringing desire into existence" through its articulation in language. However, unconscious desire is silent and resists articulation.

Unconscious Desire Is Sexual Desire arises as an effect of the "lack," the lost object [object (a)]. The drive, which is sexual in nature, joins the representation (a signifier of the lost object) and becomes desire. Since the drive is sexual in nature, its participation in the constitution of desire determines the sexual nature of the latter. However, desire is not the drive, for the latter, which is partial, achieves satisfaction; desire, by contrast, is never satisfied, because it is always a desire for something else.

Desire Is Impossible to Satisfy If desire is mute and cannot be articulated in language, it will always be the desire for something else. The unconscious desire that always presses for satisfaction will never find its lost object; it will always find another object. Hence, desire is unsatisfiable. The object that the subject finds is no more than a semblance of his or her lost object.

NEED, DEMAND, AND DESIRE Need refers to the biological field. It appears as a bodily requirement and can be satisfied, albeit temporarily. Our biological needs

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5

are, for instance, hunger, thirst, and sleep. Human beings are born in a helpless state, unable to satisfy their own biological needs and, therefore, they need the embodied other for survival. To get help from this other, the baby emits a scream. When the other grants meaning to this scream, the latter becomes a call—it is transformed into a signifier. In this way, the scream has become a call, and the call is then constituted as a demand. Afterward, the presence of the other acquires great significance. The other as an effect of the signifier has become the other of the unconscious, and not only will he or she satisfy biological needs but will also be expected to satisfy a yearning for love. Such a yearning constitutes an impossibility, since we are talking about the lost object. From now on, need and desire will find their place in this world through the demand, which is expressed by means of signifiers. Lacan states that desire, which is normally silent, becomes known to the subject when it passes through the defiles of the signifiers. Elsewhere he claims that "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."12 The demand is nothing more than the request expressed in the signifying chain. The demand that arises from desire, therefore, is not desire, because when articulated in the signifying chain (the defiles), desire is already the desire for something else. Hence, desire can never be satisfied. Lacan asserts that "desire begins to take shape in the margin in which demand rips away from need."13 This means that desire is an utterly human matter.

OBJECT (a) AS THE OBJECT-CAUSE OF DESIRE Desire arises from the lack that is instated due to the loss of object (a). For this reason, object (a) is the object of desire, always sought but never found. It is present only in fiction, in the experience of the "state of passion" (estado de pasidri) of love or hate; it is an illusion suffered by the subject, who has found object (a) in the field

6


of the other. This thesis bears a self-supporting logic—a logic that does not refer to other arguments. Yet in later years, Lacan insisted on claiming that object (a) is "the object-cause of desire." We should note here that the object of desire and the object-cause of desire are not the same thing.14

THE DIALECTIC OF THE LACK In Seminar 11 Lacan states that when a causal relation is established between two phenomena, the identification of an intermediary link becomes impossible, giving rise to the appearance of a gap. The lost object (a) may thus originate desire. Object (a) does not appear before the subject (summoned by his desire); on the contrary, it is located behind this desire, causing it. The lost object (a) is the one that will find the subject. The subject cannot rush successfully in search of the object (a) that would better suit him—object (a) is actually imposed upon the subject. It is clear that the subject's desire can only be the desire of the other. It is the other who casts, or leaves, a remainder in the subject's constitution. That remainder is the objet petite a. Confusion arises because the subject has no alternative left but to look for his lost object (a), and will always look for it before him or her. The object of desire presumably is placed before the subject as a semblance. In this way, object (a) is the object of desire, which is fictitiously placed before but appears also from behind as the object-cause of desire.

ENDNOTES 1. This statement can be found in several texts, for instance, in Jacques Lacan (1964), The Seminar. Book 11. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, edited by J. A. Miller, translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: W. W. Norton, 1978, p. 38; and in Lacan (1960) The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire in the Freudian Unconscious,

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in Ecrits. A Selection, translated by Bruce Fink. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004, p. 300 (editor's note). 2. Sigmund Freud (1893-1895), Studies on Hysteria. Standard Edition 2:1-309. 3. Sigmund Freud (1900), The Interpretation of Dreams. Standard Edition 4/5:1-626. 4. Sigmund Freud (1900), op. cit., 5:565-566. 5. See, among others, The Interpretation of Dreams, op. cit., and Studies on Hysteria, op. cit. 6. See, for example, The Interpretation of Dreams, op. cit., and Studies on Hysteria, op. cit. 7. Alexandre Kojfeve (1947 [1933-19391), Introduction to the Reading of Hegel, translated by James H. Nichols, Jr. New York and London: Basic Books, 1969, p. 6. 8. The Subversion of the Subject, op. cit. 9. Jacques Lacan (1958), The Direction of the Treatment and the Principle of Its Power, in Ecrits: A Selection, translated by Bruce Fink. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004, p. 264. 10. Jacques Lacan (1953-1954), The Seminar. Book 1. Freud's Papers on Technique, 1953-1954, translated by John Forrester. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987, p. 183. 11. Jacques Lacan (1954-1955), The Seminar. Book II. The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, 1954-1955, translated by Sylvana Tomaselli. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, p. 228. 12. Jacques Lacan (1958), The Signification of the Phallus, in Ecrits. A Selection, translated by Bruce Fink. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004, p. 276. [There are three translations of this essay: two by this tide in Ecrits: A Selection, translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: W. W. Norton, 1977, and in the second edition of Ecrits, translated by Bruce Fink; the third one under the title "The Meaning of the Phallus," in Feminine Sexuality, edited by J. Mitchell and J. Rose. New York: W. W. Norton, 1982.] 13. The Subversion of the Subject, op. cit., p. 299. 14. Jacques Lacan (1964), The Seminar. Book XI. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, op. cit.

2 The Logic of the Signifier

DE SAUSSURE, JAKOBSON, AND LACAN In "The Instance of the Letter in the Unconscious, or Reason Since Freud," Jacques Lacan subverts the fundamental algorithm that the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure created in 1916.1 In that algorithm, de Saussure proposed a fundamental solidarity between signified and signifier whereby the two are perpetually tied.2 According to this author, the signifier constitutes the acoustic psychic representation of the signified or concept. That is why de Saussure places the signified (or meaning) above the bar, and its product, the signifier, below it, and confines them inside a circle that represents the permanent bond between them. The concept tree (signified) will always refer to the acoustic psychic representation tree (signifier). The concept (signified) comes first, and then the signifier as its effect. For de Saussure, signification and meaning are hence preestablished.

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The Two Axes In 1956 Roman Jakobson, the prolific Russian linguist, published a paper in France in which he parted company with de Saussure's firmly established conception and suggested the notion of two axes of language—a horizontal and a vertical axis.3 Jakobson established a fundamental opposition between metaphor (vertical, synchronic) and metonymy (horizontal, diachronic). De Saussure's and Jakobson's ideas allowed Lacan to posit his own new theory of the signifier, which caused a negative reaction and multiple disagreements among linguists. However, the theoretical coherence of Lacan's proposal and its later developments determined its endurance and usefulness in the psychoanalytic field.

LACAN'S THESIS As we have already seen, in his 1957 essay 'The Instance of the Letter" Lacan radically transforms de Saussure's algorithm. Lacan takes this algorithm out of its circle and inverts the terms, privileging the signifier. In this way, the signifier is now above the bar, and the signified (meaning) below the bar. Through the erasure of the circle, the signifier loses its univocal bond with the signified (meaning). The bar that separates them will resist meaning, thus opening the possibility for the articulation of metaphor and metonymy.

THE SIGNIFYING CHAIN This proposition makes it clear that from now on, nothing will permanendy bind the signifier with its signified. The signifier no longer represents a preexisting signified (signifie) as meaning; it is the signifier that will determine the effect of meaning through its presence in the signifying chain. In this way, there is no preestablished meaning—there is no particular truth represented by a signifier.

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MEANING, TRUTH, AND SIGNIFICATION Meaning and truth (which will always be a half-truth) will arise as the product of the articulation of the signifiers (S^ S2, S3, Sn), that is, the signifying chain. In this way, true and false values will emerge within the signifying chain as a product of the unconscious, where the subject speaks more than he says and his truth will always be a half-truth. The other half of this unconscious truth will be concealed through misunderstandings, parapraxes, dreams, and symptoms. This mode of functioning of the signifying chain (which appears without a preestablished meaning) opens up the possibility for the operativeness of metaphor and metonymy. If we look at the RSI graph (see Chapter 3) Lacan developed in 1972, meaning is located in the area between the Imaginary and the Symbolic, truth in the area between the Real and the Symbolic, and signification in the area located between the Real and the Imaginary.4

THE SERIES OF SIGNIFIERS If the subject operates with a series ofsignifers instead of a signifying chain, we find that those signifiers (Sx) are not linked to each other; they produce neither meaning nor effects of truth (Sx, Sx> Si), fouissance, desire, and the drives, in their signifying presence, operate within the series of signifiers and not as a signifying chain. This proposition, set forth by Jacques-Alain Miller in 1998,5 enables our understanding of Lacan's early notion of desire, whose essence he describes as mute and silent.

METAPHOR The metaphor is a rhetorical figure that consists in the modification of the meaning of the word. According to Aristotle, the metaphor transfers to a thing a name that designates a different thing, constituting a relation of analogy.6 A word will replace another


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word thanks to a conceptual analogy. In this way, the word lion can substitute for the word brave. In the matheme signifier/signified, the metaphorical substitution refers to a substitution in the vertical (synchronic) axis. In "The Instance of the Letter" Lacan affirms that "it is in the substitution of signifier for signifier that a signification effect is produced that... brings the signification in question into existence."7 The substituted signifier, as latent signifier, perpetuates the gap that will enable the introduction of a new signifying chain. Two things are clear in this statement: first, the primacy of the signifiers, and second, the substitution in the vertical axis. This thesis is congruent and agrees with Freud's suggestion of the concept of condensation to explain unconscious processes. Lacan extends the notion of metaphor to unconscious processes in their articulation with language.

METONYMY Metonymy is also a rhetorical figure that refers to a name change— a thing is designated with a word that does not correspond to it. However, a certain relation exists between one word and the other. In rhetoric, the metonymical relation corresponds to the relation between the part and the whole ("sails" for "ship"), the container and the contained ("to have a glass" for "drinking alcohol"), or the object and the material it is made of ("to buy a canvas" instead of "to buy a painting").

Freud and Metonymy In psychoanalysis the notion of metonymy is close to the Freudian notion of displacement. Freud describes the mechanism of unconscious displacement as the displacement from one representation to another through a relation of contiguity.8 In this way, the essential components of the representation are replaced by nonessential components. The possibility of the existence of screen

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memories rests in fact on the figure of metonymy.9 Whenever the repressed signifier finds another signifier related to it by contiguity, the former will appear in conscious speech. One signifier is substituted for another through the mechanism of displacement. Dreams operate through metaphor and metonymy. In the metonymical process, a theme may lead to another theme following a relation of contiguity. For this reason, Lacan speaks of the slippage of the signifier through the horizontal axis of the matheme, and describes it as diachronic.

THEN WHAT IS A SIGNIFIER? In Seminar 11 Lacan states that "a signifier is what represents a subject for another signifier."10 Lacan institutes a break with the idea of a signifier bound to a word or to a figure of speech. The signifier becomes, above all, the signifier of the lack in the other, the other being the guarantor of the word. In this way, the metaphorical function appears, whereby a signifier (S2) represents a repressed signifier (Si). The signifier is not simply a marked word; rather, it is closer to the idea of a precise small concept, where a word or a phrase represents an idea that is itself a signifier.

The Sign In 1962, in his Seminar 9 (Identification), Lacan asserts that the sign is what represents something for somebody.11 Yet the signifier is not a sign, and it will not represent the subject's thought other than in an alleged and even misleading way. For this reason, Lacan says that "a signifier represents the subject for another signifier." This becomes more complicated, because the subject commits to his saying (decir) through the product of his statement, which refers to the apparent aspects of language. These aspects are supported on the act of enunciation, which refers to the latent elements of language. We know that there, in the enun-


13

ciation, desire has been inscribed. However, desire unfolds there in the negative, in what is not-said, in what is implicit, that is to say, in the enunciation.

The Supremacy of the Signifier The great significance that Lacan attributes to the supremacy of the signifier over the signified (as meaning) highlights two similar but different questions. One is the subject's commitment to his or her saying (decir) (which conceals desire), and the other is the subject's commitment to his or her listening. In Seminar 9 Lacan states that the subject invents the signifier starting with something that is there to be listened to, and he mentions the discovery of a footprint in the sand. The revealed footprint will provide the subject who listens with an identification with a negative (absent) trace. There is a background of absence—an absent object present in the footprint in the sand. The subject invents his or her signifier. We can think here of the mythical nature of the first identification, the identification with that "unary trait" whereby the subject tries to fill the emptiness left by the absence of the first object. This might be the originary signifier, an absence that will bring us to the problem of the constitution of the subject and the origin of the first signifier.

THE ORIGIN OF THE SIGNIFIER We know that the signifier is what represents a subject for another signifier. In its articulation, the signifier cannot represent what is absent from the beginning, and, therefore, will engender it. In Seminar 9 Lacan tells us that what is absent from the beginning and is, therefore, engendered by the signifier is the subject. In this way, signifier and subject bear a topological solidarity—the one does not exist without the other. The subject of the unconscious is a subject devoid of substance, and is founded by the action of the signifier.

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The inscription of the first signifier occurs on a background of absence—the "footprint in the sand." It is clear that this footprint originates in the other, and it refers to the first experience of the absence of the object. However, this absent something will require a designation, thus precipitating the ability to vocalize the absence (the phoneme). The footprint thus acquires a phonic status. As a syllable, it will have to be articulated with at least another syllable (Si, S2, S3, Sn). This first signifier (S{) will appear only when the marked word erases the trace: the word makes it disappear. This signifier, the letter, the word (parole), and the original absence are connected through a foundational relation that opens a path to the repressed and to a meaning that "escapes." In the act of enunciation, says Lacan, lies what could be viewed as the first nucleus of what will become the signifying chain, that speaking core of the subject, namely, the unconscious.

The First Signifier Any signifier can occupy the position of the Sx because, by definition, any signifier can represent a subject for another signifier. The Sx is then the first signifier, the condition for the initiation of the signifying chain. This signifier one (S^ has many synonyms: imaginary phallus, master signifier, the Name-of-the-Father, unary trait, the signifier of the law, and the signifier of the symbolic phallus. Lacan says about Sx that it is the signifier that has no meaning; it is devoid of signification and arises as a remainder of another signifier that supports meaning. Sx is the meaningless par excellence, the pas de sense or nonsense, that is, the absurd signifier.12

THE SYMBOLIC ORDER AND THE LETTER When the signifying chain is inaugurated with S^ the signifier will be located in the symbolic order. In this context, Lacan refers to Sx as uthe phallus," and "the master signifier." The letter, in turn, is


15

situated in the order of the Real, for according to Lacan, the letter arises from the negative. He refers to the effect of "what is not," a the unknown," which left the "footprint in the sand.M Confronting the Real as what is unthinkable, the subject, in a movement of anticipation that is imaginary in nature, will enter into the symbolic order. The unconscious, located in the locus of the other (of the unconscious), which corresponds to Freud's "other scene," will constitute the instance of its own unconscious letter. Thus, at the edge of the symbolic order, the letter becomes language, and will be the effect of a discourse.13 Once the letter (the word) is associated to the signifier, it will become the material linguistic support for discourse.

ENDNOTES

1. Jacques Lacan (1957), The Instance of the Letter in the Unconscious, or Reason Since Freud, in Ecrits. A Selection, op. cit, pp. 140-150. 2. Ferdinand de Saussure (1916), Course in General Linguistics, edited by Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye in collaboration with Albert Riedlinger, translated by Wade Baskin. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966. 3. Roman Jakobson (1956), Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasic Disturbances, in Fundamentals of Language, edited by Roman Jakobson and Morris Halle. The Hague: Mouton, pp. 52-82. 4. Jacques Lacan (1972-1973), The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. On Feminine Sexuality. The Limits of Love and Knowledge. Book XX. Enco 1972-1973, translated by Bruce Fink. New York: W. W. Norton, 1998, Chapters 10 and 11. 5. Jacques-Alain Miller, Los Signos del Goce [Signs oijouissance]. Buenos Aires: Paid6s, 1998. 6. Aristotle, Aristotle*s Poetics, translated by George Whalley, edited by John Baxter and Patrick Atherton. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1997 (editor's note). 7. Jacques Lacan (1957), The Instance of the Letter in the Unconscious, or Reason Since Freud, in Ecrits: A Selection, op. cit., pp. 155-156. 8. See, for example, Sigmund Freud (1900), The Interpretation of Dreams, op. cit., pp. 180-181 (editor's note). 9. Sigmund Freud (1899), Screen Memories. Standard Edition 3:307 (editor's note).

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10. Jacques Lacan (1964), The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Book XL The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, op.cit., p. 207. 11. Jacques Lacan (1961-1962), LeStminaire. LivrelX. Uldentification [Identification], unpublished. 12. Jacques Lacan (1970-1971), Le Siminaire. Livre XVUL D'un Discours qui ne Serait pas du Semblant, 1970-1971 [The Seminar. Book XVIII. On a Discourse that Would Be No Semblance], unpublished. 13. Jacques Lacan (1972-1973), The Seminar ofJacques Lacan. On Feminine Sexuality. The Limits of Love and Knowledge. Book XX. Encore, op.cit.

The Three Orders (RSI) and the Borromean Proposition

TOPOLOGY AND THE THREE ORDERS The letters RSI refer to the initials of the three orders that operate in the human psyche, namely, the Real, the Symbolic, and the Imaginary. At the beginning (until 1953), Lacan devoted himself to the study and development of his theses on the Imaginary. From 1953 to 1963, he concerned himself with the study of the Symbolic, and from 1963 until approximately 1972, to the study of the Real. From 1972 on, he began his advanced study of topology and the Borromean knots theory. I have called this last period "the study of the absolute." It is in Seminar 20, in 1972, that Lacan introduces the topology of the Borromean knot as a new configuration in his thesis on the three orders.1 The Borromean proposal expands the study of topology. From this moment on, topology will prevail over linguistics in Lacan's concerns.

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THE IMAGINARY ORDER The imaginary order refers to a capacity of the human psyche to operate fundamentally with images within a dual relationship with the Other. Lacan introduced the term after his research on the mirror stage in 1936. The prevalence of images (visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile) corresponds to the beginning of the constitution of the subject. During his study of the mirror stage, and later when he develops his thesis on the constitution of the subject, Lacan suggests that the ego (moi) is fundamentally imaginary. In Seminar 2 (1955) he affirms that to grasp something of the psychoanalytic dialectic, we must define the ego (moi) as an imaginary construction.2

Semblance The passage from the specular to the imaginary allows us to define the latter as a "semblance phenomenon," that is, as a way for the ego (moi) to operate by means of pure illusions, which takes place between the ego (moi) and the I (je). This imaginary order is characteristic of what we might call the early narcissistic period. The status or configuration of the imaginary order will be clarified when the three orders are described in their Borromean quality. The Borromean logic of the imaginary order bears a consistency of images. ;

THE SYMBOLIC ORDER The symbolic order refers to the ability of the human psyche to use words and language. What defines the symbolic order is the presence of the signifier and the signifying chain. As I have mentioned before, a signifier is what represents something for another signifier. Lacan presents his thesis on the importance of the Sym-

THE THREE ORDERS (RSl) AND THE BORROMEAN PROPOSITION

19

bolic in analytic work in his celebrated Rome Discourse, "The Function and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis," a sort of manifesto of Lacanian theory that triggers his rupture with the Paris Psychoanalytic Society.3 The next ten years of his life will be devoted to the study of the symbolic order, which consists of signifiers that will become operative thanks to the signifier of the Name-of-ihe-Faiher. This special signifier constitutes a paternal function that introduces the law (some sort of order) inside the psyche of the subject and breaks the imaginary motherson dual relationship. Such a break is necessary to enforce the fundamental law of incest prohibition. The Borromean logic of the symbolic order bears an insistence of the signifying chain.

THE ORDER OF THE REAL This order refers to what is impossible to symbolize and, therefore, is unknown to the subject. The real thing has an ex-sistence beyond the subject's knowledge. The Real has not been traversed by the signifying chain. For this reason, Lacan affirms that the Real has ex-sistence outside the subject's reality.

The Real and Reality It is necessary to distinguish between reality and the Real Reality alludes to everything that has come into contact with the subject through the senses. By means of perception, things acquire psychic representation, and these representations gain existence for the subject as an effect of cathexis or drive investiture. In this way, the Real ceases to be Real and becomes reality. By means of introjection and identification mechanisms, the object acquires existence. The difference between psychic reality and external reality is only topographical. Making use of topological theory, Lacan suggests that such a difference is relative—external reality constitutes a

20


different psychic reality. It is one and the same reality that comes to occupy relative topological places, a similar phenomenon to the two sides in the topological figure of the Moebius band.

The Real The Real also designates something else, that is, everything that exists unbeknownst to the subject. I am referring here to that which is impossible to symbolize, which has not been processed by the sensory organs, onto which the subject will stumble. As Lacan progressed in the study of the Real, the concept became more complex. Just as Freud before him, Lacan considers that there exists something of an unknown quality beyond the repressed unconscious. Freud called it Das Ding (the thing). Lacan takes up this idea of the existence of a Real beyond the repressed unconscious, maintaining the German word to define it. "The thing," then, refers to unconscious aspects (beyond the repressed) whose symbolization is impossible. The word impossible alludes to the fact that these aspects are not accessible in any way, and" therefore will remain unknown to the subject. Lacan will say later, however, that the subject has a single relative, partial way of access to the Real and will call it "the window to the Real," that is, object (a). The Borromean logic of the order of the Real bears an ex-sistence in some sort of outside.

THE BORROMEAN KNOT AND TOPOLOGY In Seminar 20, Lacan defines this knot as composed of three rings that are connected in such a way that untying any of them will set the others free.4 At that time, Lacan was searching for a way to understand the geometry of a tetrad he had posited in his texts on the logic of desire: "I ask you," "to refuse," "what I offer you," "because that's not it."5 With this tetrad, Lacan is referring to the logic of object (a) and its quality as the object-cause of desire.

THE THREE ORDERS (RSl) AND THE BORROMEAN PROPOSITION

21

The Borromean Function On the night of March 1,1972, Lacan discovers through a friend a mathematical proposition set forth by Georges Guilbaud, a mathematician specialized in topology. I am referring to the Borromean knot and the thesis on the Borromean function. Every knot bears the characteristics of the Borromean function—if we cut any of the rings, the other two are set free. This function is not assignable to any of the three rings in particular; rather, it is a property of the knot as such. Thanks to this property, the Borromean knot allows Lacan to propose and to illustrate the topology of the RSI.

The Borromean Becomes More Complex Yet later, in Lacaris lessons of October 1972, the Borromean theory expands and progressively increases in complexity. Lacan insists that the mental functions of the subject remain operative as long as the three knots are linked, and he tells us that it is not difficult to find an example of what happens when a ring comes unfastened and sets the other ringsfree.The consequences of loosening a ring are found in the psychic collapse characteristic of psychosis. This happens when a symptom that functions as a supplement (suppUance)—a fourth ring or artificial support that holds the rings together—is eliminated. This fourth ring or sinthome? can be any symptom that bears the function of holding the rings together, for example, some people may become bulimic, and others, drug addicts, compulsive gamblers, or workaholics.

The Borromean Function and the Three Orders In Seminar 22, titled "RSI" (March 1975), Lacan states that the topology of the Borromean knot allowed him to affirm that this Borromean function keeps the three orders (RSI) operative.7 He

22


posits there the consistency of the Imaginary, the insistence of the Symbolic, and the ex-sistence of the Real. Borromean Knot (RSI) Graph 1972

Imaginary: Bears the consistency of an image These three orders are holes that support one another in a paradox of a "nonrelationship"

Real:

Symbolic:

Has existence in an "outside of itself"

Bears the insistence of the signifying chain

ENDNOTES 1. Jacques Lacan (1972-1973), The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. On Feminine Sexuality. The Limits of Love and Knowledge. Book XX. Encore, 1972-1973, op. cit. 2. Jacques Lacan (1954-1955), The Seminar. Book II. The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, 1954-1955, op. cit. 3. Jacques Lacan (1953), The Function and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis, in Ecrits. A Selection, op. cit., pp. 31-106. 4. Jacques Lacan (1972-1973) The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. On Feminine Sexuality. The Limits of Love and Knowledge. Book XX. Encore, 1972-1973, op. cit., p. 124. 5. Ibid., p. 126 (editor's note). 6. The author designates the sinthome in Spanish as sintoma-grapa (symptom-clamp), and explains this notion further in Chapters 7 and 12 (editor's note). 7. Jacques Lacan (1974-1975), LeSiminaire. LivreXXII. RSI, 19741975, published in Ornicarl, Nos. 2-5,1975. ["The Seminar XXII ofJanuary 1975—RSI," translated byj. Rose, in J. Mitchell and J. Rose, eds. Feminine Sexuality. New York: W. W. Norton, 1982.)

4 The Logic of Anxiety

WHAT IS ANXIETY? In Seminar 10 (1963) Lacan states that anxiety is "the enactment of castration."1 Later on, when he develops the RSI graph (Seminar 22, in 1975),2 he supplements his original proposal, characterizing anxiety as an invasion of the Real into the Imaginary that will hence affect both the body and the ego (moi). From the point of view of clinical phenomenology, anxiety is an "unpleasant affect" that cannot be easily verbalized. Even when it is of a different nature, this affect bears some similarity to the emotions of fear, terror, and panic. It is common for anxiety to present a somatic manifestation that will vary in intensity and type according to the characteristics of the subject. Anxiety may express itself in myriad ways. It may appear as a painful sensation in the stomach, referred to as a

24


dagger or a tightness in that part of the body; as an unexpected tachycardia and dryness of the mouth; as shortness of breath and lack of air; as an urgent need to move the bowels or to urinate; as a bothersome perspiration and sweatiness; as a painful contraction of the anal sphincter; as a sensation of imminent fainting or even a loss of consciousness; as a loss or a momentary reduction of vision or audition; as paralysis or muscular paresis; as strange auditory or visual perceptions; as a distortion in the perception of time and space; or as a variety of states of transitory mental confusion, distortion, or depersonalization.

ANXIETY AS LOSS IN FREUD Freud revised and changed his concept of anxiety three times. We find, however, that after 1917 (first series of introductory lectures),3 after his very relevant work of 1926 ("Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety"),4 after the 1932 "New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-analysis,"5 and until 1940 ("An Outline of PsychoAnalysis"),6 Freud still defines anxiety as a general response of the ego to unpleasure, that is, an increase in the intensity of excitation. Freud will consider the ego as the natural site of anxiety until his death. He describes anxiety as an affect caused by the loss of, or separation from, the object, and maintains the idea of anxiety as a "sign of danger" that precedes castration and loss.

TYPES OF ANXIETY In his lecture "Anxiety and Instinctual Life,"7 Freud states that there is a different type of anxiety for every stage of development. We can therefore study anxiety at the three levels of logical sequence that correspond to the three forms of loss of, or separation from, the object as presented by Freud: (a) oral annihilation, (b) anal separation, and (c) genital castration.

THE LOGIC OF ANXIETY

25

Annihilation Anxiety Also called "anxiety of death," annihilation anxiety corresponds to the subject's early anxieties. It is similar to the prototype of anxiety at birth (first separation from the mother). This type of anxiety appears when, in fiction, the subject believes that his or her mental coherence is in danger, that is, when he or she feels a threat of mental collapse or disintegration. We may find this form of anxiety in very small children and, later on, in adolescents and adults who present a narcissistic mental structure with a poor ability to discriminate between ego and object. Annihilation anxiety is thus characteristic of a symbiotic and narcissistic object relation in which the subject operates with the prevalence of the imaginary duality. In 1932 Melanie Klein suggested, with very keen judgment, that subjective annihilation happens because, in the very small child, destructive fantasies originally addressed to the object are deflected toward the ego. Klein, Wilfred Bion, Donald Winnicott, Francis Tustin, Esther Bick, and Donald Meltzer put forth original proposals on a variety of mental mechanisms that help the child handle and survive the difficulties arising from intense annihilation anxiety. These ideas, which have become classic concepts in present-day psychoanalysis, include Klein's "manic triad" (omnipotence, disparagement, and control of the object), Bion's integration/disintegration moments, Winnicott's intrusion phenomena, Bick's notion of the development of a second skin, Tustin's neurotic autistic phenomena, and Meltzer's adhesive identification.8

Separation Anxiety Separation anxiety appears when the subjectfictitiouslyexperiences the separation from the object of dependence. It is an anxiety that the subject feels in the face of his or her separation from, and loss of, the object. It arises when the subject has already differentiated

26


himself or herself from the object, that is to say, when ego and object are already differentiated.

Castration Anxiety Castration anxiety corresponds to the anxiety that appears when, in fiction, the subject believes to have failed. The sense of failure is subjective and depends on the subject's ideals—what someone experiences as failure another person may not. The illusion of the loss of the uphallic signifier" triggers the appearance of castration anxiety. Stage anxiety constitutes a typical example of castration anxiety.

ANXIETY AND ITS POSITION IN THE STRUCTURE Lacan's conceptualization of anxiety differs from Freud's. In his Seminar 10,9 devoted to the study of this phenomenon, L^can points out that rather than describing it or defining it, we must locate anxiety's structural position. He states that anxiety is an affect whose minimum function is to be a sign of something, not of danger but of a hyperpresence of object (a)—an omnipresence, a presence "in excess" of object (a) that will fill the lack. When Lacan says that anxiety is "an invasion of the Real into the Imaginary," he is accepting that the "natural sites" for anxiety are the body and the ego (moi).

"PRESENCE IN EXCESS" AND "THE LACK OF THE LACK" According to Freud, anxiety shows the loss of the object. For Lacan, by contrast, anxiety shows not the loss, but the "presence in excess" of the object. Such presence hinders the appearance of the signifier of the lack. Without lack, desire disappears. At a certain point, when referring to this issue, Lacan speaks of "the lack of the

THE LOGIC OF ANXIETY

27

lack." Without the inscription of the lack, the subject is immersed in an infinite experience without boundaries. Without the stgnifier of the lack, the subject stumbles into the Unheimlich, that is, the uncanny experience. The dialectical game between the presence and absence of the object (Fort-Da, hide and seek) will allow the subject to ratify the signifier of the lack, necessary for him or her to sustain desire and to reorder his or her psychic world.

ANXIETY AND THE PRESENT ABSENCE" When Lacan affirms that anxiety is the only subjective way to search for the lost object, he defines a paradox. What is sought is not the object but its absence, because its present absence introduces the signifier of the lack. The phallus (as the signifier of the lack) changes from a metaphoric to a metonymic signifier, for the lack (as phallic signifier) moves, circulates. It is everywhere and nowhere. Everyone may bear it and, at the same time, nobody does.

ANXIETY AND OBJECT (a) This missing object, object (a)—supporter of desire and organizer of the subject—may also be conceptualized as a "phallic object." Object (a) is the object without which there is no anxiety. Any circumstance that fills the subject will lead to the emergence of anxiety. Thus, in the December 5,1962 lesson of Seminar 10, Lacan states that anxiety appears at the height of the presence of the objects that are not absent, and adds that anxiety is what does not deceive, what is foreseen and doubdess. Anxiety is the awful certainty of what looks at us and leaves us depending on the Other, without the presence of words. Anxiety originates when the object is not absent. Lacan uses the example of the Wolf Man, who, in his anxiety, was terrified when seeing the five pairs of eyes looking at him from the threshold of the window.

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ENDNOTES 1. Jacques Lacan (1962-1963), Le Stminaire. Livre X. Uangoisse [Anxiety], edited by J. A. Miller. Paris: Seuil, 2004. 2. Jacques Lacan (1974-1975), Le Seminaire. LivreXXII. RSI 19741975, op. cit. 3. Sigmund Freud (1915-1916), Introductory Lectures on PsychoAnalysis, Standard Edition 15/16. 4. Sigmund Freud (1926), Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety, Standard Edition 20. 5. Sigmund Freud (1933), New Introductory Lectures on PsychoAnalysis, Standard Edition 22. 6. Sigmund Freud (1940), An Outline of Psycho-Analysis, Standard Edition 23. 7. Sigmund Freud, (1933), Anxiety and Instinctual Life, Lecture XXXII, New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis, op. cit. 8. See, for example, M. Klein (1932), Child Psychoanalysis. London: Hogarth Press; W. Bion (1970), Second Thoughts. London: Heinemann; D. W. Winnicott (1958), Collected Papers: Through Paediatrics to PsychoAnalysis. London: Tavistock; E. Bick (1968), The Experience of the Skin in Very Early Object Relations. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 49:484-486; F. Tustin (1980), Autistic Objects. International Review of Psycho-Analysis 7:27-40 and Autistic Barriers in Neurotic Patients. London: Karnac, 1985; and D. Meltzer, John Bremner, Shirley Hoxter, Doreen Weddell, and Isca Wittenberg, Explorations in Autism. Perth: Clunie, 1975. 9. Jacques Lacan, Le Stminaire. LivreX. Uangoisse [Anxiety], op. cit.

5 The Logic of the Phallus

THE MEANING OF THE PHALLUS Lacan's 1958 lecture at the Mark Plank Institute of Berlin, titled "The Signification of the Phallus,"1 made it clear that we must differentiate between two fundamental theses, namely, the thesis on the meaning of the phallus, and the notion of the phallus as signifies In the first case, from the point of view of meaning according to the logic of the phallus, the penis becomes the referent—it refers to the presence of the visible sexual organ. When from the perspective of meaning we are referred to the organ, we confirm the difference between the sexes according to the presence/absence dialectic. Thanks to this reasoning, a space is opened for the appearance of the castration complex.

THE PHALLIC SIGNIFIER In the second case, if we consider the phallus as signifier, the phallus becomes a metaphor. In one of its aspects, this metaphor refers

30


to the visible sexual organ. In its other aspect, it refers to the first signifier. In other words, uthe phallus is the signifier of the Other's desire."2 The phallic signifier is mysterious, since both sexes simultaneously have it and do not have it, and each sex, in fiction, attributes its presence or absence to the other.

THE LOGIC OF THE PHALLUS Following this logic of the phallus, both sexes fall into the trap of appearance and deceit, suffering from the illusion of having what in fact they do not have. Furthermore, this proposition of the "phallic logic" becomes more complex, for the male is the one who bears the organ of phallic signification. The female, who does not possess it (because of anatomical reasons), will be organized and marked by incompleteness, that is to say, by the logic of not-all. This logic will contribute to the organization of the essence of the feminine—of femininity.

TO BE THE PHALLUS OF THE OTHER To enjoy the body of the other, both male and female subjects must transform each other, in a metaphorical sense, into their phallus. The female is the one who gives the phallus to the male and who takes it away from him. Both sexes will be marked by the anxiety of sexual difference. Men and women know that they do not possess the phallus and they want the other's phallus. What is paradoxical is that it is always the other who gives the phallus, a paradox that refers us to castration anxiety. In "The Signification of the Phallus" Lacan says that the real of sexual jouissance is in the phallus, that is to say, that jouissance is in that something that one does not have and that one will find, in fiction, in the field of the other. Lacan states that "the fact that the phallus is a signifier requires that it be in the place of the Other that the subject have access to it. But since this signifier is there only as veiled and as ratio [raison]

THE LOGIC OF THE PHALLUS

31

of the Other's desire, it is the Other's desire as such that the subject is required to recognize."3

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE SEXES The phallus is the signifier that designates the organ's effects. The phallus, therefore, is neither good nor bad, neither external nor internal—it is a signifier. The presence of the phallus produces a deflection of the subject's needs. Because the subject speaks, he or she has to subject his or her desire to the demand. Sexual desire, presented as a demand, will always return partially unsatisfied. The sexual relationship in the human couple is trapped in this enclosed field of sexual desire. A twofold difficulty arises here: on the one hand, the existence of a perpetually unsatisfied sexual demand, and on the other hand, the systematic doubt of the other's love due to the effect of the lack of being* The other will always be questioned and tested due to the unavoidable demand of the love test. As we all know, this love test will always result in an impossibility. A satisfactory answer to such a test can only originate in the same subject who has given it. Consequendy, the one who has been questioned (in absentia) will always give an unsatisfactory answer. The lack of being constitutive of the human subject will prevent both the subject and the other from ever achieving full satisfaction. Since this relationship cannotfillthe lack and since the phallus is a desired signifier (desired to fill this lack) and, as such, imposed on the subject, it is only in the locus of the other that the subject may have illusory access to the muchdesired phallus. For this reason, Lacan claims that "the phallus is the signifier of the other's desire." The fact that in both stxts the organ of signification acquires a fetish value is thus unavoidable.

THE PHALLUS AND THE MASK OF APPEARANCE As I have already mentioned, both sexes have and do not have the phallus as signifier. Since this signifier appears in the locus of the

32


other, both sexes will necessarily get involved in a game of appearances, a game that, along with the "phallic deceits'* that occur between the sexes, becomes increasingly complex in its social articulation. "Phallic ideals" arbitrarily assign different attributes to each sex. Neither men nor women can escape this dialectical situation until the moment when all signifiers disappear, that is, the moment of sexual copulation. In that brief moment of intercourse all signifiers are suspended, and masks fall. The multiple phallic signifiers receive their validity through the subject's need to belong and to be desired by the other. The mask or "seeming [paraitre] signifier"5 coincides in the male with his possession of the organ of signification. In the case of the female, the mask—the phallic signifier by which she wants to be desired—does not correspond to the possession of the organ of signification—woman is "not-all." She finds the meaning of her own desire in the body of the addressee of her demand for love. Once again, the phallus as organ acquires a fetish value. Lacan maintains that in the game of sex women will reject the essential part of their femininity, that is, being not-whole. This is where they will show their mask and their phallic signifier. Woman is desired for that which she is not.6

ENDNOTES 1. Jacques Lacan (1958), The Signification of the Phallus, op. cit. 2. Jacques Lacan (1958), The Signification of the Phallus, op. cit., p. 279. 3. Jacques Lacan (1958), The Signification of the Phallus, op. cit., p. 278. 4. This is Bruce Finks rendition of Lacan's term manque & ttre. Alan Sheridan translates this phrase as "want-to-be." According to Fink the dashes are misplaced (The Lacanian Subject: Between Language and Jouissance. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995) (editor's note). 5. Jacques Lacan (1958), The Signification of the Phallus, op. cit., p. 279. 6. Jacques Lacan (1960), Guiding Remarks for a Congress on Feminine Sexuality, translated by J. Rose, in J. Mitchell and J. Rose, eds. Feminine Sexuality. New York: W. W. Norton, 1982.

The Logic of the Object

THE TWO-FACED OBJECT The notion of object in psychoanalysis is two-faced: on the one hand, it is the object of the drive; on the other hand, it is the object of desire. Traditionally, if we follow the logic of the drive, psychoanalysis designates as "object" anything that becomes a psychic representation, that is, anything whose image, perceived through the organs of perception, is energetically charged—receives libidinal investiture or cathexis. In this way, what has been perceived becomes a mental representation—it becomes an object that has psychic existence. The drives and their journey around the perceived thing thus give rise to the radical psychoanalytic concept of object.

THE OBJECT OF THE DRIVE Early in life, the organs of vision, smell, and hearing are of great significance in the construction of the psychic object. Children who

34


are born blind will experience tremendous difficulties in their relationship with the maternal figure and in the construction of psychic representations. Only those mothers who possess enough capacity for reverie,1 and verbal and tactile communication as well, will be able to help their blind children construct the maternal object with their other senses, thus saving them from autistic isolation.2 We can see here how the object of the drive rests initially on biological need. Needs and the struggle for survival allow the appearance of the object of the drive, the one that by means of identification will initiate the subjects mental life. The object of desire, in turn, appears as a consequence of the absence (or loss) of the first object. This object "in lack" will become a fundamental notion in psychoanalytic theory. Freud, and later Lacan, expounds with much detail on the special trait this object acquires in psychoanalysis. I am referring here to the quality of absence.

FREUD AND HIS OBJECTS Freud points out the importance of the game of hide and seek known as "Fort-Da" and its relationship with the lost object.3 This Freudian theoretical proposal helps us understand the phenomenon of repetition and highlights the importance of "the act" in the constitution of the subject. In the human act we find the possibility of the statement. It is sometimes necessary for the subject to have a capacity for transgression to produce his or her necessary statement.

OBJECT CATHEXIS Freud states, "The object of an instinct is the thing in regard to which or through which the instinct is able to achieve its aim."4 The object, in this case, is a means to reach drive satisfaction—the subject invests the object libidinally. This object is contingent, that is to say, it is not rigorously predetermined by biology. The object,

THE LOGIC OF THE OBJECT

35

in turn, determines the singularity of the subject's history—it appears as an object-choice that will determine the subject's future sexual life.

PART-OBJECTS Freud speaks of partial drives when referring to erogenous body zones. In some passages, the notion of partial drive implies that of part-object.5 Yet it is Melanie Klein who speculates on this matter, and she considers the part-object and the total object as fundamental in the child's early development.

THE SPLITTING OF THE OBJECT The splitting of the object refers to the possibility of dividing (splitting) the object representation and repressing the distressful or unpleasant aspects of it. Such a repression includes the possibility of setting in motion a different mechanism, namely, that of projection. Once the representation of the object is divided (split), part of this representation is repressed and then projected. In this case we have a horizontal split. In the case of disavowal (Verleugnung), which implies the forced presence of the division (splitting) mechanism, we will have a splitting of the object and of the subject in vertical form. First, the ego disavows "the exigencies of reality (Ananke); then the subject is split. In this way, the two opposing realities coexist in the subject side by side, so that things are and are not at the same time. The classic example is the traditional Spanish saying, UI don't believe in witches, but they do exist."6 When disavowal refers specifically to the discovery of the anatomical difference between the sexes in early childhood, a perverse structure emerges (the child simultaneously sees and does not see the mother's penis). In the case of neurosis, other aspects of Ananke that do not refer to the anatomical differences between the sexes are also disavowed.

36


THE ANACLITIC OBJECT In his essay "On Narcissism: An Introduction,"7 Freud describes this object as a prototype of the narcissistic relationship and defines it as a peculiar type of love relationship. The anaclitic object is important for the subject only when it is necessary to satisfy the subject's current need.

THE LOVE OBJECT Freud makes a difference between the love object and the object of the drive. The love (and hate) object refers to what Freud describes as the relationship of the ego with an object of satisfaction or frustration. Freud's work on narcissism makes it difficult to identify his position in relation to the love (and hate) object.

MELANIE KLEIN AND HER OBJECTS Klein introduces an entire theory of the object into psychoanalysis. She speaks of the part-object and the total object, the good and the bad object. The most controversial and debated aspect of her thesis is her view on the supposed completeness of the object, that is, the "total object."8

THE CONTROVERSY ON THE TOTAL OBJECT Melanie Klein and some post-Kleinian authors consider that the drives may evolve from partial to total, producing a so-called mature sexuality tied to genital sexuality and the total object.9 The total object would be present in mature sexuality, which would be harmonious and healthy. This way of thinking is incompatible with the thought of Jacques Lacan (who does, however, accept other ideas of Klein's). Lacan insists that because of its diversity, the drive


37

necessarily passes through the partial drives. He affirms that there are no such things as "the genital," the "total object," or "adult maturity." Lacan attributes great significance to a special object that is neither a part-object nor a total object, but a topological object he designates as "object (a)" and that, among other things, bears the characteristic of being a lost object. Lacan insists that this absent object is the fundamental object for psychoanalysis.

WINNICOTT AND HIS TRANSITIONAL OBJECT The subject construes this transitional object within his or her singular subjectivity to replace the mother in her absence. The object is created in an intermediate (transitional) space, in the other of the unconscious, and as something differentiated from the subject, in what Winnicott calls a "not-me possession."10 At the same time, this object represents (occupies the place oO another absentee. Transitional phenomena, the transitional space, and transitional objects refer to an object that bears "a quality of absence." This notion comes close enough to Lacan's concept of object (a).

LACAN AND HIS OBJECTS Lacan states clearly that the object of psychoanalysis is the absent object. He sometimes refers to this object in terms of "the object of lack." Both Freud and Lacan postulate that the concept of object is a two-faced one. On the one hand, it is the object of the drive, contingent to the satisfaction and support of the subject's identifications; on the other hand, it is the object of desire, the product of the lost object, that is to say, the object of lack.

OBJECT (a) Lacan speculates on a new type of object that he designates as object (a). This object is a special one; it is neither a part-object nor a total

38


object—it is a remainder of the early relationship with the primordial object. Lacan refers to it as the object concerning which one has no idea. The notion of object (a) as remainder refers to a residue of the partial drives that is not conscious. This object is the object of desire (which means that desire does not become independent of the partial drives). Later Lacan will assert that object (a) is the cause of desire, that is to say, the "object-cause."

CHART OF THE LACK OF THE OBJECT In Seminar 4, La Relation d'Objet (Object-Relation),11 Lacan outlines the three presentations of the absence of the object defined as "the lack of the object." There he develops his thesis of the object as an "object of lack." Access route

Object

Agent

Imaginary (frustration) Real (privation) Symbolic (castration)

Real Symbolic Imaginary

Symbolic Imaginary Real

We should note here that this "lack of the object" has nothing to do with Hegel's logic of the lack-in-being, which is referred to often as "the lack." It is necessary, therefore, to distinguish "the lack-inbeing" from the "subject in lack." We may identify three separate operations in this table. First, Lacan outlines three ways of presenting the lack of the object: (a) Privation (b) Frustration (c) Castration Then he defines their relationship with the three orders: (a) Imaginary (b) Symbolic (c) Real


39

Finally, he relates them to the three forms of the absence of the object: (a) Nature of the lack (b) Object of the lack (c) Agent of the lack I have ventured to add another level Lacan defines in the seminar and that I have designated as the environment of the lack: (a) Need (b) Demand (c) Desire In this way, the chart is configured in three levels: Environment Access route

Nature

It has to do The nature of with privation the lack is real It has to do with needs

(It is a matter of specular fusion)

It has to do with frustration It has to do with demand (It is a dual matter where there is a specular rupture)

(Possible clinical example: a subject who has been an orphan since birth)

Object The object of the lack is symbolic

Agent The agent of the lack is imaginary

(The absence of the mother: (The concept absence as an of the mother imaginary within the symbolic order) construction)

The nature of the lack is imaginary

(Possible clinical example: a subject who suffers from shame due to having been dishonored by his daughter's pregnancy out of wedlock)

The object of the lack is real

The agent of the lack is symbolic

(Unexpected pregnancy as real)

(It refers to the ideals within the symbolic order)

40


Environment Access route

Nature

It has to do with desire

The nature of the lack is symbolic

It has to do with castration

Object

The object of the lack is imaginary

(Possible clinical example: a subject (It is a matter who is an investor of the suffers a financial (Concept of symbolic crisis, goes wealth as bankrupt, and third) imaginary) commits suicide)

Agent

The agent of the lack is real (Money as a Real)

ENDNOTES 1. According to R. D. Hinshelwood, the term reverie "was adopted by Bion (1962) to refer to a state of mind that the infant requires of the mother.... The idea is that the infant will, through projective identification, insert into the mother's mind a state of anxiety and terror which he is unable to make sense of and which is felt to be intolerable.... Mother's reverie is a process of making some sense of it for the infant" (A Dictionary ofKleinian Thought London: Free Association, 1998, p. 420) (editor's note). 2. Selma Fraiberg (1968), Parallel and Divergent Patterns in Blind and Sighted Infants. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 23:264-300. New York: International Universities Press. 3. Sigmund Freud (1920), Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Standard Edition 18. 4. Sigmund Freud (1915), Instincts and Their Vicissitudes. Standard Edition 14:122. 5. Sigmund Freud (1905), Three Essays on a Theory of Sexuality, Standard Edition 7. 6. The saying in Spanish is: "Yo no creo en las brujas, pero que las hay, las hayn (editor's note). 7. Sigmund Freud (1914), On Narcissism: An Introduction. Standard Edition 14:90. 8. Melanie Klein (1932), The Psycho-Analysis of Children, op. cit.


41

9. See, among others, Donald Meltzer (1973), Sexual States of Mind. Perth: Clunie. 10. Donald Winnicott (1953), Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 24:2. 11. Jacques Lacan (1956-1957), Le Seminaire. Livre IV. La relation d'objet, 1956-1957, edited by Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1994 [I have not found an English translation; editor's note].

7 The Logic of the Subject

THE SUBJECT OF THE UNCONSCIOUS According to Jacques Lacan, for psychoanalysis the subject is the subject of the unconscious. In this sense, the concept of the subject refers to the effects of the signifier. We may say that the subject is an effect of language. This concept is hence topological, since the subject is both cause and effect of the signifier. The signifier determines, and is determined by, the subject: "A signifier is what represents the subject to another signifier. This latter signifier is therefore the signifier to which all the other signifiers represent the subject—which means that if this signifier is missing, all the other signifiers represent nothing."1

THE EFFECT OF THE WORD In Seminar 1 Lacan states that the subject is both the effect of speech and its support.2 In 1960, in turn, he will assert that "a signifier

THE LOGIC OF THE SUBJECT

43

represents the subject to another signifier,"3 adding later that "the subject is what a signifier represents for another signifier." In this way, the subject is not the Freudian ego or the subject of consciousness, but rather, a subject that inhabits the system of the unconscious. Lacan poetically asserts the unconscious nature of the other, and wonders: Who is this other to whom I am more bound than to myself because, in my deepest being, he is the one who stirs me? In this way, the substance of the subject is not flesh and blood, is not an individual, is not the self, is not the entire psyche; the subject is an effect of words.

STATEMENT (£NONC£) AND ENUNCIATION According to psychoanalytic theory, the subject is structurally split, alienated from himself forever. On the one hand, the subject is a being of consciousness that recognizes himself or herself in the locus of the ego (moi), in the "I am" and in the "I," which correspond to the French words je and mot On the other hand, the subject is the being of the unconscious, to which one does not have access. Lacan refers to the subject as "the subject of the unconscious" and introduces this notion in his grammar with the letter $ of the barred subject. The subject as such appears by way of a statement (inonct), and is located in the locus of enunciation, where the subject does not know. In this way, a profound difference is established between a statement, which comes from the ego, and an enunciation, which comes from the subject of the unconscious.

ZERO AND THE SUBJECT At the end of his life, in Seminar 26, Lacan makes a revealing comparison between the subject's nature in psychoanalytic theory and the mathematical characteristics of the one and the zero.4 Lacan states that zero is a number endowed with two opposite properties: it is an impossible object, yet in the numeric succession it

44


counts as any other number. In the same way, the subject, while utterly rejected by the signifying chain, is nevertheless represented by a signifier. Lacan thus outlines a tight likeness between the subject and the zero. This becomes even clearer when Lacan says that in the "speaking being," the subject is both subject of the unconscious and an effect of the signifier. The presence of signifiers renders the subject a constant, a zero, a subject in absence who will in fact sustain the whole chain, to be later eclipsed (efface) in that chain. When being eclipsed in the signifying chain, the subject vanishes in the Other. Thus, a subject speaks and, in doing so, vanishes. Later in the seminar, Lacan moves on, and, according to David Nasio, insists that the subject's split does not reside between being and not-being but between one and Other—between a signifier that represents the subject and the subject's dissolution in the signifying chain (Sx^), that is, in the locus of the Other.5 At the end of Seminar 26, Nasio, who had been invited by Lacan to speak in that seminar, asked the same question again: u What is the subject?" To that question, Nasio himself responded, "We, the speaking beings, are but wind beings, evanescent messengers between jouissance, which longs for words, and the Nameof-the-Father, which orders them."6

THE SUBJECT AND DESIRE We have seen that the subject is not the ego (moi). We might say that the ego is a psychic agency represented by a group of functions that are spread within the dimension of the imaginary order. The ego sustains the subject of consciousness. It participates in a feeling of a unified body that is a consequence of the specular relationship with the other in the imaginary axis. This relationship with the imaginary other, which sustains the illusion of completeness, will become an obstacle to the subject's recognition of his or her desire. Desire is originated in the lack of being (manque-ct-itre) related to the lost object. Desire is silent and unsatisfiable, as the


45

formations of the unconscious (dreams, jokes, symptoms, parapraxes, and so on) show. Desire will always be slippery and unknown. It may be partially known only through the demand, which will always be a demand for something else. This demand is structured like a language: the demand is construed when desire passes through the defile of the signifiers and begins to have an existence in the signifying chain. In this way, demand shifts the concept of the subject toward the problem of desire. Lacan will finally say that the subject is the subject of desire.

THE SUBJECT AND ANXIETY We have said that the subject is the subject of the unconscious and that he or she has ex-sistence in language. In other words, the subject sustains language but, at the same time, exists outside of language (which constitutes a topological reasoning). The subject is the cause of language and simultaneously vanishes in it. We have also said that the subject is the cause of desire (by means of the lost object) but, at the same time, suffers from desire, which he or she will never be able to know. As I mentioned above, Lacan defined the subject as the subject of desire. The subject is made of wind; it is sustained momentarily in the absence of that lost object. When this object makes its irruption from the Real, it produces an Unhcimlich effect—an uncanny experience that leads to the appearance of anxiety. The subject will not be able, in the outside world, to avoid suffering the experience of anxiety: the subject is a subject of anxiety.

THE SUBJECT IN THE CUT At the end of Seminar 6, titled "Le dtsire et son Interpretation9* (Desire and Its Interpretation), Lacan posits the emergence of the subject in the moment of the cut (meaning a sudden interruption). He asserts that such an emergence has something of the Real

46


symbolized by nothing.7 Where there is nothing, in the Real, in the foreclosure, is where Lacan locates the subject's being—his or her pure being. The statement that the Other is not a subject but a locus constitutes a recourse to topology, since we are speaking of relative places. Desire, Other, demand, and subject, devoid of any reference to flesh-and-blood substance, become logical operative terms. The cut in the Moebius strip illustrates this thesis. Lacan states that the Moebius strip is the cut itself, and may be considered the structural support of the split subject.8 Indeed, the Moebius strip has no surfaces—it is but an edge. The Moebian property is to have that edge, so that when the strip tries to cling to itself, it disappears as a strip and what remains is the interval, the edge (which we designate as the cut). If the cut is the Real, what is impossible to say, then it is legitimate to say that the Moebius strip does not represent the subject, does not offer a metaphor; rather, the subject appears in the cut, which is transformed into act.

THE SUBJECT AND KNOWLEDGE (SABER) In Seminar l l , 9 Lacan postulates that the subject is instituted in the certainty of being—of a "lack of knowing," and he designates the signifying chain, S2, as knowledge (saber). The question of knowledge (saber) returns insistently, for Lacan makes the subject supposed to know10 the pivot of the transference. In relation to knowledge, Lacan affirms that it is that opaque term in which the subject himself gets lost, is eclipsed. This assertion refers us to the notion of the fading of the subject.

THE FADING OF THE SUBJECT In his essay "Observacidn sobre el informe de Daniel Lagache" (Observations on the Report by Daniel Lagache),11 Lacan states that the fading of the subject takes place in the suspension of desire,


47

because the subject is eclipsed in the signifier of the demand and in the fixation of the fantasme—in becoming absent (in the cut), the subject makes the part-object (the object of the drive) shine.

THE SUBJECT AND THE OTHER We had pointed out that the subject's split is not a split between being and not-being but between one and the Other, that is, between a signifier that represents the subject, and its dissolution in the signifying chain (S!-S2)—in the locus of the Other. The subject is sustained by, and vanishes in, the signifying chain, that is to say, in the locus of the Other. The unreachable nature of the Other renders this locus the place of the Urverdrangung (primal repression). The topological structure of the Other suffers from a lack, The Other is not whole, it cannot by identified with one or with a totality.12

THE SUBJECT AND THE BORROMEAN FUNCTION From 1972 (Seminar 20) on, the topology of the Borromean knot will introduce a new statute in Lacanian theorization. Lacan states there that each one of the three rings is an S\. He then wonders about the nature of the Other, and affirms that the Other is "the One-missing."13 We should recall here that when defining the nature of the Borromean knot, we stated that if one cuts any one of the rings, the other ones are set free. This Borromean function cannot be attributed to any of the three rings in particular—it is a property of the knot as such. The property of the Borromean knot allows us to illustrate the topology of the "surplus" (en-plus) of the subject. This new topology affects the way we understand the signifying chain, for it modifies the link between Sx and S2. Lacan affirms that it is only on the surface that this sequence makes two. There is no sequential order between the signifiers; it is simply a relationship between two elements. However, he also claims that

48


there is no relationship between two elements. That is the case because, since there is no complementary relationship between both signifiers in the chain, a third is needed to hold them together. This third signifier is, at the same time, primogenitor (that is to say, there are no hierarchies). In this way, the signifying chain acquires a trait of the Borromean knot, so that none of the three signifiers is tied to the other because they need one another—at least three signifiers are necessary for them to stay together. This Borromean characteristic does not pertain to any one of the rings, and it represents the surplus of the subject.

THE SUBJECT AND THE HOLE All subjects have to be constituted—nobody is self-engendered. We know that the subject is constituted in the locus of the other. This locus is in the unconscious, but at the same time it bears a specular reference to the embodied other: it is the other as a fellow man. The subject is constituted through the effect of the signifier, yet, at the same time, he or she is the cause of the signifier. This constitutes a topological paradox. The relationship with the imaginary other, cause and effect of the subject, will weave a signifying weft. Early life experiences will endow this weft with certain characteristics.

First Hole The unavoidable loss of the object and the lacks experienced during childhood will give rise to the appearance of a certain insufficiency in that weft, which we can designate as a hole in the signifying weft. This hole is located in the imaginary order. If we resort to schema Lambda, we can draw this hole on the left side of the schema. The size of this hole varies in relation to the subject's childhood experiences. Being this the logical moment of narcissism (imaginary axis a—»a' of schema L), the bigger the hole, the


49

bigger the subject's narcissistic problem, and the harder the obstacles for the subject to have access to the dialectic of recognition (desire of the other) in the operability of the symbolic order.

Second Hole The constitution of the signifying weft will find another obstacle in the lack of inscription of the Name-of-the-Father (also known as foreclosure of the Name-of-the-Father), which will give origin to a second hole in this weft. This second hole belongs to the symbolic order, and we can draw it on the right side of schema L. The first hole is responsible for the serious narcissistic difficulties suffered by neurotics. The second hole will lead to the subject's irreversible psychotic structure. Sometimes it is possible to maintain the psyche functioning reasonably well without producing a clinical schizophrenia, because a fourth term (or fourth ring) will sustain the Borromean structure. We might call it a symptom-clamp™ for its function is to tie, to hold together. This symptom may appear in a variety of guises: bulimia, drug addiction, compulsions, and so on. If the symptom-clamp disappears, the three orders come unfastened and the psyche collapses.

ENDNOTES 1. Jacques Lacan (1960), The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire in the Freudian Unconscious, op. cit., p. 304. 2. Jacques Lacan (1953-1954), The Seminar. Book I. Freud's Papers on Technique, 1953-1954, op. cit. 3. Jacques Lacan, The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire in the Freudian Unconscious, op. cit., p. 304. 4. Jacques Lacan (1978-1979), LeS&ninaire. LivreXXVI.LetopologLe et le temps, 1978-1979 [The Seminar. Book XXVI. Topology and Time], unpublished. 5. Jacques Lacan (1978-1979), LeStminaire. LivreXXVI. Le topologjie etletemps, 1978-1979 [Topology and Time], op. cit., lesson of May 15,1979.

50


6. Jaques Lacan (1978-1979), Le Stminaire. LivreXXVI. Le topologie et le temps, 1978-1979 [Topology and Time], op. cit., lesson of May 15, 1979. 7. Jacques Lacan (1958-1959), Le Stminaire. Livre VI. Le desire et son interpretation, 1958-1959, published in part in Ornicar?, 24-27,19811983 [Desire and Its Interpretation, published in part as "Desire and the Interpretation of Desire in Hamlet" translated by James Hulbert, Yale French Studies, 1977, 55/6: 11-52]. 8. Jacques Lacan (1958-1959), Le Stminaire. Livre VI. Le dtsire et son interpretation, 1958-1959 [Desire and Its Interpretation], op. cit. 9. Jacques Lacan (1964), The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Book XI. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, op. cit. 10. Alan Sheridan's translation for sujet suppose savoir. Stuart Schneiderman (Returning to Freud: Clinical Psychoanalysis in the School ofLacan. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1980) prefers "supposed subject of knowledge" (editor's note). 11. Jacques Lacan (1969), Observacidn sobre el Informe de Daniel Lagache [Observations on the report by Daniel Lagache], in Escritos. Volumen 2 [Ecrits. Volume 2]. Mexico City: Siglo 21 Editores, 1984 [I have not found an English translation (editor's note)]. 12. Jacques Lacan (1969-1970), Le Stminaire. Livre XVII. Venvers de lapsychanalyse, 1969-1970, edited by Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991 [There is a synopsis in English from unedited French manuscripts: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan XVII: Psychoanalysis Upside-Down, translated by Cormac Gallagher. London: Karnac Books, 2002]. 13. This is Bruce Fink's rendition of the French Vun-en-moins (Jacques Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. On Feminine Sexuality. The Limits ofLoveandKnowledge. Book XX, Encore, 1972-1973, op. cit., p. 129; editor's note). 14. See footnote 6, Chapter 3 (editor's note).

8 The Logic of the Other

THE SYMBOLIC OTHER In Lacanian structural psychoanalysis the concept of Other (with a capital O) refers to the Other of the symbolic order, to the Other of the unconscious. It is a complex notion, for a relationship exists between the Other of the unconscious and the flesh-and-blood other. This proposal is a consequence of a previous Lacanian structural conception whereby the subject, who refers us to the subject of the unconscious, is both cause and effect of the signifying chain. The subject vanishes in the locus of the Other, but what is this locus? This locus points to the unconscious. Lacan states that the subject is constituted in the locus of the Other, that the Other is the locus of the treasure trove of signifiers, and that the subject receives from the Other the message the subject himself or herself emits. We should linger here for a moment to specify that Lacanian theory establishes a clear difference between the little other and the big Other. The little other, represented with a lowercase a ("a" refers to autre, the French word for "other"), refers to the other of

52


the imaginary order, while the big Other corresponds to the Other of language, that is, the Other inscribed in the symbolic order.1

THE LITTLE OTHER The concept of little other, petit a, refers us to the imaginary order, that is to say, to the world of images. There, in that locus, the subject is constituted in the lack in the other. This relationship is twosided and topological, because the specular relationship with the flesh-and-blood other precipitates the subject into an unavoidable bond with the object in lack and with the absent object. From the moment of his or her constitution, therefore, the subject is marked by the lack in the other (and by his or her own lack as well). On the side of the lack in the other arises the unavoidable existence of jouissance (the signifier of the lack in the other), and on the side of the absent object, the little a is introduced into the scene.

THE LACKING OTHER According to the grammar he developed, Lacan writes this Other in the following way: s(A).This notation represents the signifier of the lacking Other and is also, in fact, the matheme for jouissance. This twofold meaning attests to the fact that the capacity to suffer (jouissance) is constitutive of the subject and universal.

THE ABSENT OTHER The subjects' relationship (in the imaginary axis) with their originating fellow man will generate their little a, which is the source of their constituting imaginary identifications. Such identifications would be the subjects' original supporters (or guarantors). In this way, this flesh-and-blood, caretaking, maternal other becomes the other of the unconscious. These first identifications will leave a lost

THE LOGIC OF THE OTHER

53

remainder, a testimony to that original time that becomes the cause of desire and is designated as object (a).

THE BIG OTHER The concept of the big Other refers to the locus where the signifying chain originates. Subjects will encounter this locus from the very moment of their arrival in this world. This locus (the locus of the Other) will always refer to other subjects, the flesh-and-blood others who inevitably participate in the symbolic order in which we are all immersed. We should note here that, due to the effect of identifications, this big Other is no one in particular. It refers us to the Other of the unconscious. It is the locus where the signifying chain emerges and where the subject is constituted. The big Other is the locus of the treasure trove of signifiers. Lacan writes this concept algebraically as s(A), which means the signifier of the Other without lack. The subject thus vacillates in his or her constitution between the locus of the little other—the imaginary axis—and the locus of the big Other—the symbolic axis. This thesis is not conceived of as a development or evolution, nor is it topographical; it is topological. In his essay uThe Direction of the Treatment and the Principles of Its Power," Lacan affirms that "we must establish the notion of the Other with a capital O as being the locus of speech's [parole] deployment."2

SCHEMA LAMBDA3 In 1955, in his seminar "The Purloined Letter," Lacan presents a new nonanthropomorphic conception of the psychic apparatus.4 Here the new concept of the subject corresponds to the subject of the unconscious. We find it on the left side of the graph, with the letter S, which is pronounced "ess" (the word for the letter S in French), that is, the term for id in German. It is there because the subject is ex-sistent for the ego (moi), that is, is located outside

54


the ego's realm. The subject will be constituted in the locus of the other. We have learned that the notion of "other'' implies that this other is the other of the unconscious, represented with the letter a' on the left side of the graph, below. The signifying chain (in the other) is thus the repressed unconscious. In the graph the dotted arrow goes from S to a) blocks and impedes the subject's reaching the locus of his or her signifying determination—the locus of A, creating an unavoidable imaginary effect, the cause of the language barrier due to structural reasons. This leads, in the first place, to the inevitable situation of "speaking to the wall" (didlogo de sordos), and, in the second place, to the inevitable effect of subjectivity. Lacan affirms that "the subject . . . is [interested in this discourse] insofar as he is drawn to the four corners of the schema: namely, S, his ineffable and stupid

Es(id)S

ego (moi) a'

"

A,^%,

Little a (other)

>w

symbolic axis

^ Big A (Other) Treasure trove of signifiers

THE LOGIC OF THE OTHER

55

existence; a, his objects; a\ his ego, that is, his form as reflected in his objects; and A, the locus from which the question of his existence may arise for him."5

ENDNOTES

1. See The Seminar. Book 11. The Ego in Freud's Theory and in th Technique of Psychoanalysis, 1954-1955, op. cit, Chapter 19 (editor's note). 2. Jacques Lacan (1958), The Direction of the Treatment and the Principles of Its Power, op. cit., p. 252. 3. In £crits. Paris: Seuil, 1966, p. 53. There is a later, simplified version in Merits: A Selection, translated by Bruce Fink, op. cit., p. 183 (editor's note). 4. Jacques Lacan (1955), Seminar on "The Purloined Letter,*' translated by Jeffrey Mehlman. Yale French Studies, 1972; 48:38-72, reprinted in John Muller and William Richardson, eds. The Purloined Poe. Lacan, Derrida and Psychoanalytic Reading, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988, pp. 28-54. 5. Jacques Lacan, On a Question Prior to Any Possible Treatment of Psychosis, in tcrits. A Selection, op. cit., p. 183.

The Logic of Object (a)

A REMAINDER Object (a) is the only original contribution that Lacan claimed to have made to psychoanalysis. It refers to a very special type of object that originates in the earliest experiences of the subject with the other. Of these early experiences that produce drive investitures (cathexes) there will be left an unconscious remainder that will be incorporated into the constitution and structure of the psyche.

THE ZCLATS, OR FRAGMENTS This remainder is lost forever, but the subject will always search for it. The lost objects (as remainders) are partial fragments of the body Uclats). The lost object may be the image of the gaze, the voice, the breast, or the feces, or it may also be the image of another bodily object. It will constitute the object-cause of desire. It is a remainder construed (acquired) by each subject. It is a win-

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dow (maybe the only one) that the subject has to the Real The subject fictitiously believes to have found that lost object in the passion object of love or hate. Object (a) thus becomes an illusion of a perceptible object fictitiously found in the other (because it is no more than a projection). In this way, the subject cannot avoid falling into the imaginary a-d axis (narcissistic organization) of schema Lambda. In other words, the fictitious encounter with object (a) precipitates the subject into a state of passion, inscribed, therefore, in the imaginary axis.

THE TOPOLOGICAL OBJECT This object (a) is a topological one. It is neither a part-object nor a total object, neither an internal nor an external object. It is not the Real, although it opens a window into that register. It is the lost object, never found and always sought. It is the cause of desire. It is a fundamental element in the subject's sexual fantasme. In this locus of the fantasme, object (a) is opaque—it is the veil of castration, soothing castration anxiety and triggering the intensity of sexual pleasure.

A FURTHER SPECIFICATION As we have seen, the concept of object (a) is a complex one. As a topological object it is one thing, and at the same time it is a different thing, but it is not that either. Object (a) dwells in the paradox. Object (a) has to do with the partial drives, yet at the same time it is not the object of the drive. It is the object-cause of desire. Thus, desire does not become independent of the presence of partial drives. Since it is unconscious, object (a) is not known by the subject. Lacan asserts that object (a) is the object concerning which one has no idea. Yet at the same time it is a perceptible object that

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the subject's senses recognize when the other (fictitiously) bears it. The other thus shows what he or she does not have. Object (a) is present for the subject as a semblance, also known as a lure.1 Object (a) as a remainder suggests the idea of a residue. It is linked to the initial life experiences, in which partial drives are present. An unconscious remainder persists of those experiences that introduces the idea of a lost object. According to Lacan, the remainder corresponds to the parts (the iclats) that are left of the image of the maternal body, that is, the lost object. This lost object assumes the notion of the lack, which takes ' us back to the idea of the lost object. This concept thus opens up a relationship among desire, the drives, the lack, and object (a). I am not referring here to the lack of being (maw[ue-d-&re), which is tied to another concept—that of the constitutive, the original lack (introduced by Hegel). This lack, as cause of desire, substitutes for another, earlier, lack. As the object of desire, object (a) sustains desire in the matheme of the (sexual) fantasme, and outside the fantasme, this object constitutes a lure. In both cases, object (a) becomes the object-cause of desire. In 1970, Lacan outlines the idea of object (a) as a surplus jouissance or plus~de-jouir.2 It marks a surplus in jouissance (and, at the same time, it sets a limit to it).

OBJECT (a) AND LOVE Lacan defines love as ato give what one does not have."3 The subject in love believes he or she has found in the other his or her lost object (a). Love is something difficult to specify, for it is perceived in the look, the voice, or the hands—in sum, in the body of the other. This (fictitious) encounter with object (a) produces a state of passion (characteristic of the imaginary order). The other (of the unconscious), with his image of the body, offers his support to the subject, who believes he or she has found his or her lost object. Love is thus a true state of fiction; it is a state of passion.

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OBJECT (a) AND THE SEXUAL ACT During the sexual act, object (a) will eclipse the inevitable "alter" quality of the other. During the encounter of the bodies in the sexual act, object (a), which is perceived in the other, will allow the subject to live the momentary illusion of becoming one with the body of the other.

OBJECT (a) AND ANXIETY According to Lacan, anxiety arises from a certain structural relationship between the subject and the lost object—object (a). Freud, in turn, considers that anxiety is caused by the lack of the object (separation anxiety and loss). For Lacan, the emergence of anxiety is tied to the appearance of something (anything) in the locus of object (a), the object-cause of desire. For a subject to be a desiring subject, the object-cause of his or her desire must be the object of the lack. Anxiety is not the sign of a lack but the manifestation of a possible lack of the lack. Lacan says that what produces the anxiety of the lost breast is not the lack of the breast—which in any case originates desire—but rather its omnipresence, that is, its presence in excess. Any experience that seeks to fill the lack gives rise to anxiety. In Seminar 9 Lacan states that anxiety is the temptation, not of the loss of the object, but of its presence—of the objects that are never absent.4

OBJECT (a) AND THE ANALYST In Seminar 15, VAct Psychanalytique (The Psychoanalytic Act),5 Lacan points out that in the analytic device, the analyst will occupy for the analysand the locus of the semblance, that is to say, the place of object (a). When occupying this locus, the analyst should be professionally qualified to bear the weight of the projections and of the transference the analysand will develop with the

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semblance. The analyst does not identify with these projections, occupying an asymmetric place, and is, therefore, able to speak from where he or she is not expected to speak. In this way, a relationship is established among the semblance, object (a), and the transference, all of them unconscious elements. The relationship of the analysand and the analyst has many variables and vertices, some of them within the realm of consciousness, and some within that of the unconscious. Transference is located among the latter, that is, among unconscious phenomena.

ENDNOTES

1. According to Alan Sheridan, the French term leurre may be translated as "lure/' "decoy," "bait," and "allurement" or "enticement." (See Alan Sheridan's glossary in the 1977 English edition of Ecrits. A Selection. New York and London: W. W. Norton, editor's note.) 2. Bruce Fink explains the different connotations of the French term: "The expression plus-de-jouir is constructed on the model of plus-value, the traditional French translation of Marx's Mehrwert (surplus value).... The plus should . . . be understood as virtually a synonym for Encore!— More!" (The Lacanian Subject. Between Language andJouissance. Princeto Princeton University Press, 1995, p. 191, n. 28) (editor's note). 3. Jacques Lacan, he Seminaire. Livre VIII. Le Transfer^ 1960-1961 [The Seminar. Book VIII. The Transference], edited by Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991, p. 147. 4. Jacques Lacan (1961-1962), Le Stminaire. Livre IX. L'identification, 1961-1962 [The Seminar. Book IX. Identification], op. cit. 5. Jacques Lacan (1967-1968), Le Seminaire. Livre XV. VActe Psychanalytique, 1967-1968 [The Seminar. Book XV. The Psychoanalytic Act], unpublished.

10 The Logic ofJouissance

PSYCHIC SUFFERING Suffering refers to an excess in the amount of psychic energy that the system has at a given moment. Physical pain and anxiety may cause suffering, but psychic suffering may also exist in their absence. Freud had already introduced his theory of human masochism in 1905, and he expanded it in 1924.1 Freud distinguished three types of masochisms: sexual, feminine, and moral. According to this theory, masochism is a product of an unconscious guilt. Naturally, the subject is not aware of it. The conflict that produces unconscious guilt compels him or her to seek forms of suffering so as to achieve unconscious atonement. The paradox lies in the fact that moral masochism simultaneously represents a suffering and a relief—that this suffering is a form of cure. In a way, it is a cure from guilt. We should point out here that the moral theory of masochism does not include any of the elements of the depressive logic. Failure as a trigger for depression is absent, as is the predominance of hate in the link to the other (of the unconscious). Nor is

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there a diminished self-esteem—on the contrary, the moral masochist often shows great self-esteem, an altruistic stance, and an ability to endure psychic pain. These are doubtlessly two different types of clinical logic, yet both evince the presence of psychic suffering.

THE LOGIC OF JOUISSANCE Jacques Lacan introduces his theory of jouissance in 1960, in his famous Seminar 7, The Ethics of Psychoanalysis.2 This theory represents a very important innovation and is a major contribution to psychoanalysis, for it will allow us to advance in the study of psychic suffering. In current psychoanalytic clinical practice we find that most analysands who finish their analysis cannot escape suffering.3 They suffer to maintain their psychic balance. We might say, "They need to suffer." When studying these cases, we find that they do not correspond to the Freudian classic moral masochism— we do not find indications of unconscious feelings of guilt. Nevertheless, the permanent search for suffering remains. Lacan introduces his theory of jouissance as a structural phenomenon that no human being can escape. Following Freud, Lacan considers that jouissance is implicit in the logic of the drive, and is located in a beyond of Freud's pleasure principle.4 Every human being would have a certain amount of jouissance in his or her daily hit. Jouissance is located beyondpleasure, that is to say, it constitutes a special form of taking delight in suffering. When the amount of jouissance is high, the analysand presents a similar clinical picture to that of the depressive. These patients have created a life situation that inevitably leads them to suffering. They show an inability to solve the situations in which they are immersed because, ultimately, they do not want to solve them. The paradox lies in their desire not to continue to live like that, that is, in pain. These subjects feel trapped, they sometimes cry, and they experience an unavoidable interference with their happiness. In these cases of high levels of jouissance, the patients' childhood his-

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tory reveals the presence of serious difficulties at the beginning of their lives. We find histories of abandonment and serious losses, early histories of abuse, death in the family, and poverty; there is a history of traumatic separation from their parents with the consequent affective deficiency, and histories of parental drug abuse, with or without serious mental pathology. All these early traumas increase the amount of jouissance that will appear later. Such an early childhood panorama introduces a daily quantity or amount of suffering that is inscribed in the structuring of the subject's personality. Other human beings have experienced less traumatic events and smaller amounts of suffering in their lives. The important thing is that this jouissance (suffering) is a necessary component of every individual's life in the attainment of psychic balance. Consequendy, it is not a symptom, and it cannot be cured. Many of our analysands acquire some self-knowledge during the analytic process, a self-knowledge that may open up new opportunities for a better life. They rescue much of the capacity for pleasure in their sexual life, but they are not able to revert their need for suffering {jouissance). Such a need is inscribed in their being—it is necessary for their psychic balance. We should point out here that this type of analysand does not present a dynamic of hate toward the object or toward himself or herself, nor does he or she show a decrease in his or her self-esteem. It is therefore clear that the state of jouissance is neither a masochistic nor a depressive state per se.

ANOTHER ISSUE REGARDING JOUISSANCE We should clarify and amplify here some points regarding the theory of jouissance. Lacan defines at least four types ofjouissance: phallic, feminine, absolute, and mystic. Phallic jouissance, presented as organ pleasure, is related to the sexual organ's capacity for pleasure in both sexes. Let us remember here that the phallus as metaphor is present in both sexes. In both sexes, therefore, jouissance is phallic. This stance of Lacan's

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soon became obsolete, and jouissance came to be "something" located beyond pleasure. Feminine jouissance refers to the natural ability for suffering characteristic of the feminine psychic structure. This is a Freudian thesis, and it is based on a relentless logic that appears in his text on the economic theory of masochism.5 Absolute jouissance constitutes an imperative for suffering. It is singular, personal, individual—a script written in early childhood as a consequence of multiple infantile traumas. Every subject would have a variable quantum of absolute jouissance, determined by the vicissitudes of his or her early history. Mystic jouissance refers to a particular form of jouissance that characterizes the figure of the hero or the heroine. Lacan initially identified it in the religious catholic figures of Teresa de Avila and San Juan de la Cruz. He chose these figures because they produced a written record of their lives. This type of mystic jouissance also appears in heroic figures of both sexes who, for the same reasons of imaginary restitution, are propelled to a heroic act that will necessarily involve their death—they die for their ideals. They are heroes and they die in a state of jouissance. We should clarify here that in Lacan's proposal of a mystic jouissance no particular form of psychopathology is implicit. That is to say, jouissance may be present in any psychoanalytic clinical entity.

THE STATE OF JOUISSANCE AND MORAL MASOCHISM Are the state of jouissance and Freud's moral masochism the same thing? As I have stated previously, jouissance refers to the way the subject has survived childhood traumas, that is, how the subject has incorporated suffering into the progressive and simultaneous constitution of his or her psyche. The notion of a progressive and simultaneous constitution seems to be a contradiction, yet it is not so, because it is synchronic and topological.6 If in the initial period of life psychic suffering occupied an important space, this suffering will be incorporated into the subject's homeostatic bal-


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ance. In the subject's later life, the delight in suffering or, we might say, the state of jouissance will be necessary to maintain his or her psychic homeostatic balance. Hence, jouissance is not a symptom. Moral masochism refers to a different notion. It refers to sadism turned onto the ego (moi) as a consequence of the subject's not being up to his or her own ideals (in Lacanian theory, the ideal ego, i(a)y in the imaginary axis, and the ego-ideal, 1(A), in the symbolic axis). Depending on which axis prevails, we will find in masochists a greater or lesser degree of sadistic cruelty toward themselves. Consequently, moral masochism and its own suffering are different from the delight in suffering characteristic of the state of jouissance.

IS THE STATE OF JOUISSANCE A SYMPTOM? If we understood suffering as originating in moral masochism, we would see it as a symptom and, therefore, amendable or eradicable, because the guarantors of those ideal egos can be resignified. The psychic suffering implicit in the state of jouissance is not a symptom. It is "something" that belongs in the psychic structure, represented by the signifier of the lacking Other, s(A) and hence not eradicable.

RELIEF OF THE STATE OF JOUISSANCE Do analysands demand relief of their state of jouissance! Certainly, analysands demand to be cured of their life of suffering. In a first stage it is not clear what kind of suffering this is. At the beginning of the analysis we may find that suffering is mainly masochistic, produced by unconscious sexual guilt feelings (strict sexual morality, tributary of the ideal ego). This strict morality can be modified and progressively updated when the subjectivity of the idealized guarantors is resignified. When their severe sexual repressions (built in their childhood) are lifted, the nature of the analysands'

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own sexual desires can be known, opening the way for the traversing of the fantasme.7 Later on, the same analysand may begin to discriminate a different type of suffering that originates in the state of jouissance. The subject recognizes this suffering as such, but his or her recognition does not lead to relief or cure. The subject will have to learn how to live with his or her quantity (amount) of jouissance.

PLEASURE AND JOUISSANCE J. D. Nasio points out that pleasure equals a decrease in the amount of tension (energy), while jouissance equals an increase in the amount of tension (energy) whereby the body is subject to a test.8 Pleasure is definitely transitory, while jouissance is radically permanent, and in its expression it becomes atemporal. Pleasure happens and vanishes, while jouissance is a tension fixed to life itself—it bears a nature of permanence and is akin to repetition.

JOUISSANCE AND THE PSYCHIC STRUCTURE The capacity for jouissance is constitutive of the subject, which means that jouissance occupies a place in the structuring of the subject's psyche. Lacan establishes the place of jouissance in his graph of desire, which appears in Seminars 5 and 6.9 There, in the third level of the graph, we may see the arrow that goes from the algorithm of jouissance, s(A), to the algorithm of the drives, ^ o D . The algorithm ofjouissance refers to the signifier of the lacking Other. The algorithm of the drives, in turn, refers to the subject joined to his or her demand. We know that the subject is constituted in the locus of the other and, therefore, in lack. Since he or she is constituted in lack (in a hole), the subject will be marked from the beginning of his or her psychic life by a tension, by a constitutive suffering, that is to say, by a capacity for jouissance.


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ENDNOTES 1. Sigmund Freud (1905), Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. Standard Edition 7, and (1924), The Economic Problem of Masochism. Standard Edition 19. 2. Jacques Lacan (1959-1960), The Seminar. Book VII. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959-1960, translated by Dennis Porter, with notes by Dennis Porter. London: Routledge, 1992. 3. Jacques Lacan (1959-1960), The Seminar Book VII. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959-1960, op. cit.; and R6mulo Lander (1996), Estado de goce [State of jouissance], in Tr(o)picos, vol. 5. 4. Sigmund Freud (1920), Beyond the Pleasure Principle, op. cit. 5. Sigmund Freud (1924), The Economic Problem of Masochism, op. cit., p. 239. 6. This constitutes an important debate regarding the constitution of the psyche. Lacan rejects the classic, developmental approach of ego psychology theories and suggests a nondevelopmental constitution. According to Lacan, the various stages (oral, anal, and genital) are all inscribed from the beginning and will activate according to the bonds the subject forges. These stages are simultaneous but also singular. Jouissance is incorporated precisely at this constitutive stage, in the first months and years of life, when each subject acquires a particular amount ofjouissance, the necessary quantity for the optimum mental functioning of that subject's superego. 7. See The Seminar. Book XL The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, op. cit., p. 273 (editor's note). 8. J. D. Nasio (1995), Cinco Lecciones Sobre la Teoria de Lacan. Barcelona: Gedisa Editorial. [Five Lessons on the Psychoanalytic Theory of Jacques Lacan, translated by David Pettigrew and Francois Raffoul, Albany: SUNY Press, 1998.] 9. Jacques Lacan (1957-1958), Le Siminaire. Livre V. Les formations de Vinconscient, 1957-1958 [The Seminar. Book V. The Formations of the Unconscious], edited byj. A. Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1998; and 1958-1959, Le Stminaire. Livre VI. Le dtsir et son interpretation, 1958-1959 [The Seminar. Book VI. Desire and Its Interpretation], unpublished. Partially published according to J. B. Pontalis's report in Bulletin de Psychologie 1959-1960; vol. 13.

11 The Logic of the Cause

COMPLEMENTAL SERIES Freud introduces the concept of complemental series in his early work.1 In this theoretical proposal we find that there is no single cause for the difficulties in the constitution, construction, and proper functioning of the psyche, but a sum of different noxas. In this set of noxas that constitute the etiological factors of psychic illness we may find genetic elements with their corresponding hereditary deficiencies, acquired organic deficiencies—congenital factors, that is, damages that occur during the uterine life of the fetus—and damages that take place at childbirth and immediately after. Moreover, we know that such damages may occur during breast-feeding as well. Other problems may stem from the motherchild duality or from the absence of a proper introduction of the father figure. In addition, sibling conflicts related to the fraternal may occur. These multiple causal factors will add pathological experiences that may be reorganized into three fundamental areas: psychic

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trauma, psychic conflict, and psychic deficiency (as structural deficit and lacks). These three types of cause supplement one another, that is to say, they are not mutually exclusive and are, therefore, complementary factors. They are also universal, since some of them are part of the constitution of every psyche.

THE LOGIC OF TRAUMA What Is Psychic Trauma? This notion refers to the inability of the ego (moi), as an imaginary agency, to process or assimilate into its system the amount of stimuli originated by the signifying chain at any given moment. This concept assumes the subject's capacity to register his or her experiences through the perceptual pole of the psychic apparatus. Yet not everything that happens to the subject generates an experience; the subject may not register experiences, as occurs with autistic neurotics. In that case, what has taken place is not an experience; it is just an event that does not leave a trace in the subject (of the unconscious). Furthermore, not every experience the subject undergoes is traumatic. In the case of a nontraumatic experience, the amount of stimuli is assimilated and the experience produces an object drive. If the experience is not assimilated or processed, it leaves a trace that we might define as traumatic even if it does not produce a symptom. This theory of experience introduces the relation existing between the order of the Real and trauma. Symptom production could happen later, with the aprts-coup effect (nachtrdglich). The trauma will be located in the intersection of the order of the Real and the order of the Imaginary in the rings of the RSI graph.2 Here several questions arise. What qualifies the original experience as traumatic? Is it the amount of nonprocessed stimuli determined by desire and the ideals, or by the aprts-coup effect? Why is the experience not assimilated? Might it be that it is unacceptable to the ideal? Why does the aprts-coup effect correspond

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to that earlier experience and not to a different one? Might it be that that experience is marked as a trace? What psychic mechanism will allow the aprts-coup effect to resignify a certain previous experience? I think that the answer may be found in the dialectic between desire and prohibition (censorship), which is automatic and unconscious and is connected with the system of ideals of the subject (of the unconscious). We know that the repressed signifying chairi shifts to the unconscious through the effect of censorship. From there, this content insists—we are speaking here about the return of the repressed.3 The system of ideals, especially the ego-ideal— 1(A)—can be corrected or modified with the acquisition of new selfknowledge as an effect of the analytic process. As a consequence of this process we may find deep modifications in the type of symptom that the subject will produce later on. In psychoanalytic theory, symptom and trauma are related through the theory of conflict, anxiety, and defenses. Let us recall here that the symptom has two sides: one of drive satisfaction and another of jouissance. I think that it would be of use to retrieve here the conceptual link between trauma and the Real because it will allow us to relate trauma to anxiety and defense. According to Lacan, anxiety is an invasion of the Real into the Imaginary. The ego (moi)y as a response, will produce, according to its resources, a variety of defense mechanisms—repression, splitting, projection, and denial.

Trauma and Sexual Fantasy (Fantasme) I continue to use the notion of fantasme that Lacan presents until 1975,4 when he affirms that the fantasme is sexual and is always of a perverse nature. I distance myself from the later concept of the fundamental fantasy (fantasme), developed by Jacques-Alain Miller,5 which, unlike the earlier notion, is not of a sexual nature. I prefer to give a different name to this fundamental fantasy (fantasme)—that of symptasme (sintasma), a combination of symp-


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torn and fantasme. For Lacan, the fantasme refers to a sexual fantasy, with its mini-script and its purpose, which is to veil castration and to allow for the full pleasure of the sexual organ. The fantasme is not a symptom; it is the treasure trove of sexuality. We should remember, however, that the veiling of castration is the essence of the perverse structure. That is why the fantasme is said to always have a perverse nature. This fantasme is construed by each subject (of the unconscious), and is unique to that subject. Each subject has his or her own private fantasme, although often repressed. Is there a relation between the fantasme and trauma? The fantasme is organized according to early infantile experiences. Would these be traumatic experiences? Let me ask: Is all repressed material of a traumatic nature? Might there be some repressed elements that are not traumatic? Might there be some experiences that are not traumatic but are unacceptable to the system of ideals and, therefore, repressed? The answer will depend on the notion of trauma that we apply. It is worth recalling here that the repressed infantile experience, which contributes to organize the personal fantasme, is of an incestuous nature.

Trauma and the Real We should remember here something about the nature of the Real. The Real is what is not symbolized, and is not traversed by the signifying chain. It has existence in this world, but it does not have a known existence for the subject (of the unconscious). Furthermore, the Real is in a beyond of the repressed. Following Freud, Lacan refers to Das Ding, the Thing, which is an aspect of the Real and hence neither symbolized nor traversed by the signifying chain. Let me pose a different question: If the Real is not bound or traversed by the signifying chain, how can it be traumatic? Mirta Goldstein claims that the Real leaves a trace that seeks a binding with the imaginary order.6 Let me ask again: How can this trace be of the

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nature of the Real if we know that once the Real is traversed by the signifying chain it ceases to be the Real and becomes psychic reality? I think that Goldstein's "unbound trace" (which becomes traumatic) will acquire psychic existence only when it is bound to the signifying chain in the imaginary order as a symbolized image. Goldstein maintains that trauma is connected mainly with infantile sexuality. I tend to agree with her, but I believe that this, relation is not exclusive. For example, let us look at the trauma of the anatomical difference between the sexes, which is a relevant trauma but not the only one. Accepting the difference between the sexes will allow the subject to assume castration and, in doing so, he or she enters the world of neuroses. Will this trauma—to accept or not to accept castration—be a prototypical one? Lacan considers this issue and asserts that anxiety is the enactment of castration. Let me raise one more question: Is anxiety the necessary correlative to any traumatic experience? I would say yes. Anxiety is the reason for, and the obstacle to, the subject's assimilation of experience. It is what allows us to define such an experience as traumatic.

THE LOGIC OF PSYCHIC CONFLICT What Is Psychic Conflict? This notion refers to a dynamic conception of two forces that are opposed, and is connected to the dialectic of the drives, of desire, and of the system of ideals, processed through the superego and the unconscious automatic censorship that instates prohibition. In all the work he produced between 1895 and "An Outline of Psychoanalysis,"7 Freud insists on the unyielding dualism of the mythical nature of the psychic conflict, a dualism between sexuality (the drives and their representation through the signifying chain) and the prohibition of parricide and incest on which the Oedipus complex hinges. In this way, the conflict in the speaking being bears a universal incestuous and parricidal origin.


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Conflict, Anxiety, and the Real Freud pointed out that the human being's very nature is based on conflict. The civilization process is founded on the repression of the incestuous and parricidal desire, and from then on the subject cannot escape his or her conflicting nature. A tight relationship exists among conflict, anxiety, the symptom, and the Real. The symptom is located in the space that exists between the Real and the Symbolic in the RSI graph, while anxiety is located in the space between the Real and the Imaginary. Conflict creates a tension that propels the subject toward anxiety and the symptom. These are two manifestations that, in traversing the psychic conflict and the Real, become signs of existence.

THE LOGIC OF THE PSYCHIC DEFECT What Is a Structural Defect? This notion refers to a variety of types of deficiencies that appear during the early constitution of the subject. Since we accept that the psyche is constituted early in life, in this early process flaws may occur that will produce defects, deficiencies, and lacks in the unconscious subjective structure.

Structural Invariants In this way, foreclosure (Verwerfung) may happen. This foreclosure refers to what has not been inscribed. One foreclosure among others may refer to the important inscription of the paternal function, which, when foreclosed (not inscribed), will cause what Lacan calls "the foreclosure of the Name-of-the-Father."8 We must remember here that the inscription of the Name-of-the-Father will inaugurate the acquisition of the symbolic order. With the foreclosure of the Nameof-the-Father, the child will be in serious trouble. These structural

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defects cannot be restored ad integrum at a later stage. If the Nameof-the-Father has been foreclosed, the effects of this function could be partially restored through an imaginary or symbolic substitute called suppUance or "supplement." Such a supplement will function as a symptomatic prosthesis—it will allow the subject to continue with his or her life, but it is not a fully restored function. The foreclosure of the Name-of-the-Father cannot be resolved later in life by effec;t of the word—we are in the presence of a structural invariant. The subject, relieved by the establishment of an imaginary supplement or prosthesis, will be able to develop some social ties and, therefore, survive in the community.

Constitutive Variants During this process of the constitution of the subject, variations may exist, for instance, in the magnitude of the desire for the other's desire. This desire is processed through the maternal function. There may also exist differences in the other's capacity for reverie,9 processed equally by the maternal function. The particular differences that exist in each newborn's tolerance to the satisfaction/frustration dialectic are unavoidable. Variations may also exist in the degree of timely presence and generosity of the maternal function, which will give rise to particular variations in the lacks or early deficiencies related to this function. These early deficiencies will cause a variety of phenomena, such as the feeling of an inner hole that cannot be restored later in life. Moreover, they are not accessible to speech, but the anxiety they provoke may be relieved by a supplement or prosthesis that may be of imaginary or symbolic nature. Variations in the quality and characteristics of the newborn's cognitive apparatus will lead to an infinite variety of types of relationships with the drive object, attributing, by means of identification, different qualities to this object. Therefore, we may find children who are blind, deaf, or suffer from an excessive hearing sensibility from birth and children with increased or diminished


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sensibility in the other sensory organs who will experience variations in the assimilation of stimuli and hence variations in the constitution of the drive object. We also find particular variations in the baby's natural tolerance to physical pain, which will in turn produce variations in the assimilation of stimuli and in the constitution of the drive object. The defects or structural deficiencies—lacks—will show in the subject's psychic activity throughout his or her life. They may take the guise of symptoms when they are actually the expression of constitutional invariants.

THE CAUSE AND THE RSI If we follow the theory presented by Lacan in his seminar on the RSI10 and we are familiar with the Borromean thesis with its three rings, we may affirm the following: 1. Psychic trauma is located in the intersection of the Real and the Imaginary. 2. Psychic conflict is located in the intersection of the Imaginary and the Symbolic. 3. Structural defects are located in the intersection of the Real and the Symbolic.

ENDNOTES 1. See, for example, Sigmund Freud (1916-1917), Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis, 1916-1917, op. cit. 2. See Chapter 3 (editor's note). 3. Sigmund Freud (1895), Studies on Hysteria (1893-1895), op. cit. 4. See Jacques Lacan (1958), The Direction of the Treatment and the Principles of Its Power, op. cit.; 1960, The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire in the Freudian Unconscious, op. cit.; 1964, The Seminar. Book XL The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, op. cit. (editor's note).

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5. Jacques-Alain Miller (1992), De la Naturaleza de los Semblantes [On the Nature of Semblants], Buenos Aires: Paid6s, 2002. [I have not been able to find an English translation. There is an article on the topic that has been published in English: Of Semblants in the Relation Between Sexes, Psychoanalytical Notebooks of the London Circle 1999; 3: 9-25.] 6. Mirta Goldstein (2002), Trauma, el conflicto y lo Real [Trauma, Conflict and the Real], in www.spdecaracas.com.ve. 7. Sigmund Freud (1936), An Outline of Psychoanalysis, op. cit. 8. See Jacques Lacan, On a Question Prior to Any Possible Treatment of Psychosis, in Merits: A Selection, op. cit., p. 205 (editor's note). 9. See note 1, Chapter 6 (editor's note). 10. Jacques Lacan (1974-1975), Le Stminaire. LivreXXIL RSI 19741975, op. cit.

12 The Logic of the Symptom

WHAT IS A SYMPTOM? According to medical science, a symptom is the manifestation of a dysfunction in the affected person. Illnesses are detected through their symptoms—verbal complaints—and signs—bodily evidence. Patients express their complaints (symptoms) through words. It is axiomatic that each medical symptom is related and tied to a certain type of illness. The various medical illnesses necessarily produce certain symptoms and signs, and not others, so that by studying symptoms and signs, a physician can correcdy diagnose the affection suffered by the patient. We may say along with Lacan that within the medical field, a symptom is the Real. Psychiatric practice understands symptoms in a similar way to other medical disciplines. Psychiatric symptoms, therefore, are fundamental for the proper identification of so-called psychiatric illnesses. These illnesses are listed in the ICD-10 (International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems), published by the World Health Organization (WHO), and in the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and

78


Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) in 1994.

THE SYMPTOM AS SIGNIFIER In psychoanalysis, a symptom is something different. Undoubtedly, symptoms refer to verbal complaints—to the ailments the subject suffers and presents to the analyst through words and acts. Their signification, however, is very different. The symptoms produced by the psyche are not bound to any type of specific mental pathology. We cannot reach an understanding of what is happening to the subject solely through the study of symptoms. In his famous Rome Discourse of 1953, Lacan defines the symptom as a signifier, organized like language in the unconscious. 1 This symptom offers an opaque message that does not summon interpretation. We should establish here a distinction between clinical and analytic symptoms. The clinical symptom is a demand for help addressed to the Other. The analytic symptom, by contrast, does not constitute an appeal to the Other and, essentially, bears an important component of puissance addressed to nobody. For the psychoanalyst, symptoms are signifiers—the product of the effect of the Real in the Symbolic. We may understand this idea if we apply the topological logic of the Borromean knot of the three orders (RSI graph). The symptom has another component, namely, the partial satisfaction of the drive. It has then a component of jouissance, and a component of partial satisfaction of the drive. The innovation presented by this theory of symptoms lies in the affirmative function of jouissance.

THE SYMPTOM AND RSI When Lacan presents his proposal of the RSI he is suggesting a topological logic that is useful to further the study of the symptom. In Lacanian psychoanalysis, the symptom ceases to be a linguistic

THE LOGIC OF THE SYMPTOM

79

notion (posited initially in 1953) to become a topological one in 1964.2 If we stay at the topographical level, we are caught in the dialectic of surface and depth. According to this topographical vertex, which is insufficient, the subject's complaint—the clothing— that sustains and wraps the symptom would be in the surface, while its repressed, latent unconscious aspects would be buried underneath. Unconscious censorship, which prevents the satisfaction of the drives, would be hidden beneath the surface, where the symptom as incomplete satisfaction would be located. Although essentially accurate, this topographical vertex is very simple and inexact and prevents us from advancing in the study of the symptom. For this reason, we must introduce the topological vertex. In other words, we must work with the concepts of the RSI and of psychic structures.

SYMPTOMS AND THE PSYCHIC STRUCTURE Symptoms are products of the psychic structure and not of a specific illness. We may find so-called hysterical symptoms in obsessive structures and vice versa, and we identify so-called hysterical manifestations in a psychotic schizophrenic, and vice versa. Consequently, we understand that the purpose of analysis is not the simple relief of symptoms, since new symptoms will take their place; rather, the purpose of analysis is the search for the subject's inner truth. In so doing, the subject will be able to accept the subject of the unconscious, be what he or she is, according to Bion, and not to yield regarding desire, according to Lacan.3

A SYMPTOM IS WHAT DOESN'T WORK IN THE REAL Lacan affirms along with Freud that symptoms are formations of the unconscious, and that they represent partial solutions, an incomplete satisfaction of the drives, that is to say, they are compromiseformations. When in 1953 Lacan asserts that symptoms are signifiers

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of the subject (of the unconscious), he implies that there is no such thing as a universal meaning for each symptom.4 Each symptom expresses each subject's singularity. Clinical unconscious structures are organized according to the logic of the phallus and the logic of castration. It is clear, therefore, that each psychic structure will have its particular production of symptoms. The symptom does not appear as an effect of the Imaginary, and each symptom bears an inner truth that does not depend on its signification.

The Symptom as Opaque In 1958 (Seminar 6) and in 1960 (Seminar 8), as well as in his study of the symptom in the graph of desire,5 Lacan establishes that the analytic symptom appears to the subject as an enigmatic and opaque message coming from the Real (the analysand does not recognize it as coming from himself or herself). In 1974 Lacan states that a symptom is "what doesn't work in the Real." Shortly after, he affirms that "a symptom can only be defined by the particular way in which each subject jouit of his unconscious."6 He will also claim that the symptom is a truth that does not depend on its meaning.

FIRST MATHEME OF THE SYMPTOM

Z = J(x) z-jcso 2 J

Sigma refers to the symptom, and it represents the subject. This notation refers to the function oijouissance. The radical and affirmative element of the symptom does not lie in its partial satisfaction of the drive, but in the function of jouissance.

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81

(x) This notation represents any unconscious element that may have the force of desire (a drive cathexis) and lead to the formation of a symptom. Sx It is an element of language that represents the subject as a product of early identifications. In the end, this element has a substantial presence for the subject. In this first matheme, the analysand shows us his or her demand for analysis through the signifying chain, which will constitute the clothing of the symptom—(x). Inside this parenthesis we could also include the algorithm S2 as synonymous, but we will keep the (x), as Lacan did. We may see here the symptom in two successive algorithms. In the first one, the letter sigma refers to the symptom, which is but "something that doesn't work in the Real." The function of jouissance and the (x) indicate that this signifying chain—(x)—is a fundamental function of jouissance. If the (x) represents the signifying chain, it is in this chain (the verbal complaint) where the subject will express his or her symptom. In this demand for help the patient's initial saying operates as a Master's discourse, namely, a discourse spoken from the perspective of certainty and with a conviction coming from the symptom as the moment of demand. This moment corresponds to what we have called a clinical symptom. The patient, who is not yet an analysand, demands a cure from the other. In the following algorithm there is a transformation, and the analytic symptom appears. A psychic change takes place here when the function ofjouissance refers to Sx and not to (x). This Sx appears as a consequence of the analyst's interventions (silence and words), which are able to separate some particular sigmfiers from the signifying chain or (x). The patient stops demanding happiness and a cure from the analyst and begins to wonder about the nature of his or her own problems. In this way, the patient becomes an analysand as an effect of the analytic process. The second algorithm bears witness to the appearance of the analytic symptom.

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Symptom and Semblance The suffering (a function of jouissance) expressed in the symptom will grant power to the other whose help the patient expects. That is why we say that the analysand grants knowledge to the other in his or her imaginary, and in so doing he or she confers on the analyst a particular power—the power to cure him or her. Lacan states that the locus the analysand assigns to the analyst is the locus of the subject supposed to know (SsS).7 The analysand will also grant the analyst another privileged locus, that is, the locus of the semblance.

SECOND MATHEME OF THE SYMPTOM8 S =d

5(A) $0a

2

The letter Sigma corresponds to the symptom. It refers to a saying of the id, and represents the subject of the unconscious. d This refers to desire, which is silent and always slippery. Desire is what cannot be said, and propels the subject toward what can be said, as shown in the s(A), supported on a repressed sexual element: the fantasme. s(A) This refers to the algorithm of the signifier of the complete Other, the Other without a lack. It also alludes to what can be said. Aprts s(A)

I

0)a

= 2 JW

The subject enters the world as the object of the other's desire, which grants him or her an initial mark, a special feature that Lacan designates as unary trait. This mark is neither a symptom nor a fantasme. Out of the subject's originary experiences, some features will be included in his or her symptasme. Seen from the perspective of the end of analysis, the symptasme is what remains from the subjective destitution of Sx—reduced to a drive feature represented in letter (a)—once the fantasme has been traversed. The drive element is related to this new construction, close to the unary trait, which is neither a symptom nor a fantasme and is sustained by object (a). It is the symptasme, that is, the "I am what I am."

ENDNOTES 1. Jacques Lacan (1957-1958), Le S&ninaire. Livre V. Les Formations de Vlnconscient [The Seminar. Book V. The Formations of the Unconscious], op. cit. 2. Jacques Lacan (1966-1967), Le Siminaire. Livre XIV. La logique du fantasme, 1966-1967 [The Seminar. Book XIV. The Logic of the Fantasme], op. cit. 3. Sigmund Freud (1919), A Child Is Being Beaten: A Contribution to the Study of the Origin of Sexual Perversions. Standard Edition 17. 4. Jacques-Alain Miller (1989), Los Signos del Goce [The Signs of Jouissance], op. cit. 5. See Chapter 11 (editor's note). 6. See Chapters 9 and 13 (editor's note).

15 The Logic of Hysteria

ACCORDING TO THE LOGIC OF THE PHALLUS Any unconscious clinical structure will be organized according to the position the subject has in relation to the castration complex and to the logic of the phallus. Regarding hysteria, Lacan states that it is a slave that looks for a Master upon whom to reign.

THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF HYSTERIA Subjects with a hysterical structure have a tendency and a need to charm and seduce both sexes—to charm and seduce anyone who has a significant position as a phallic metaphor. Hysterics will see in this desirable object a figure with some power, with a phallic lure,1 the one they want to conquer in order to achieve what is most important to them, that is, that figure's attention and, more deeply, its desire. For this reason, hysterics show great interest in their own physical attractiveness, seductive appearance, and bodily adornment, and evince a constant demand for attention,

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recognition, and approval. This behavior is accompanied by a certain naivete, for hysterical subjects do not fully realize the intense eroticism they radiate. Hysterics show an unavoidable tendency to attract, to be the center of attention, and to catch everyone's eye, particularly that of those personages who sustain some form of imaginary phallic semblance, that is, who possess fame, money, beauty, power, and knowledge. Such a tendency causes a propensity to emotional exaggeration, thence the hysterical structure's natural command of the stage and special capacity for the "as if." The true interest of hysteria lies neither in itself nor in its careful seductive arrangements, but in the field of the other/Other, where the bearer of power is the one who possesses what the hysteric so much wants, that is, the phallic semblance. The successful seduction and possession of this phallic figure would bring about the selfappreciation of the hysterical structure and, ultimately, a feeling of completeness. In this way, the subject with a hysterical structure grants this phallic Other a particular and intense significance and, in so doing, a power over him or her. This phallic object has what the hysteric wants—to be desired and wanted by this phallic Other, bearer of the semblance. The need of the hysteric is to win over as many people as possible, particularly those who possess the imaginary phallus. That is why hysterics are naturally successful in seducing both men and women, evidencing the hysterical structure's natural tendency toward bisexuality. Because this structure grants so much importance to the phallic Other, it will be under this Other's influence well before the Other notices anything. Hysterics are utterly subjected to the desire of the other/Other and, therefore, inevitably under his power of suggestion; to quote Lacan once again, the hysteric is a slave that looks for a Master upon whom to reign. The hysterics' relationship with an idealized other/Other places them before a powerful other/Other who functions as a phallic semblance. Subjects with a hysterical structure experience conflicts with their sexual desires. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the lack of sexual skills and the various sexual inhibitions of hysterical subjects were paramount. The contrast between their seduc-

THE LOGIC OF HYSTERIA

101

tion skills and their lack of sexual availability was dramatic. From this contradiction stem the various cliches of seducing and frustrating, "playing hard to get," or "cock teaser." This aspect of the structure appears only in a certain group of hysterias, namely, those with a wide repression of the sexual drives. They keep on, somewhat naively, with theirflirting,unaware of the erotic effects their behavior has on others. The reasons for their sexual repression are tied to their infantile ideals—to infantile oedipal sexual experiences. Another group of hysterics, more frequent today, are able to seduce and to surrender to the sexual act, although with certain fears and limitations in their capacity to enjoy the experience. Penetration may become painful, arousal may be difficult, or orgasm may be absent, or in the case of the men, sexual interest may decrease or premature ejaculation and impotence may occur. The subject's early identification with a castrated object of the same sex will sustain the feeling of being incomplete both in the feminine and in the masculine hysterical structure, which attributes a humiliating and unacceptable meaning to the absence of the phallus. Sexual identification with the same sex is not ambiguous, but it settles on a devalued object. Consequendy, hysterics try to hide their insufficiencies through the search for a new identification with an ideal model, in the case of the feminine subject, an ideal woman. The sexual object choice, of heterosexual prevalence, therefore, is, ambivalent, with repressed homosexual elements that are stronger in hysterias of imaginary organization. For this reason we often find in our clinical practice that the phallic semblance, which may be present in men or women, may drive these hysterics to a sexual activity that we would call bisexual, which is very common today.

THE MATHEME OF HYSTERIA

1 -» 1 Lacan described the matheme of the hysterical subject in Seminar 8, Le Transfert (Transference).2 Lacan proposed there the following

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hypothesis: the hysterical subject identifies with a castrated object, as seen in the minus phi (- a')], almost saves

206


him or her from this imaginary capture only to throw him or her even deeper into it. The symbolic I (je) of the statement that is revealed in discourse progressively conceals the subject's unconscious desire (the wall of language). As a consequence, an imaginary objectification of the subject occurs, and he or she has no other option but to actualize his or her imaginary identifications, that is to say, the diverse representations that appear in his or her speech. This speech attests to the subject's total ignorance of what he or she is from the point of view of his or her unconscious desire. Imaginary representations will be from now on the only means he or she has to capture himself or herself. The imaginary influence exerted upon the subject corresponds to the imaginary ego (moi) of the schema L. What is paradoxical is that the access to the Symbolic (the order of language) is what organizes the subject's relapse into the imaginary order, which culminates in the perpetuation of the imaginary ego (moi).

TALKING TO THE WALL Every time a true word is addressed as enunciation to a true subject it ends, through reflection, in the axis a' —> a. In Seminar 2 Lacan mentions that he points to the true subjects and has to accept their shadows, adding that the subject is separated from the true other by the wall of language.2 The S of schema L represents the subject in "its ineffable and stupid existence." Lacan adds later that it is the subject caught in the net of language, where he or she does not know what he or she says. In spite of being in locus S, the subject does not stay there—he or she shifts to locus (a), and for this reason, his or her ego is essentially an imaginary ego (moi). When a subject speaks to and addresses another subject as a "true other," their communication, qua shared language, will always be mediated by the imaginary axis (a' —> a). If we follow this logic we must conclude that speaking to a utrue other" will inevitably lead to a dialogue between two deaf people.3 The mediation of language, the "wall of language," eclipses the subject of his or her uncon-

THE LOGIC OF THE TRANSFERENCE STRUCTURE

207

scious desire. As a consequence, when he or she addresses a "true other," the subject can never reach him or her other than through the imaginary axis (a'->a). As Lacan once said, everybody is in the same boat and there is no way out.

"EMPTY SPEECH" AND "FULL SPEECH" Lacan affirms that the psychoanalytic cure should try to transform the empty speech exchanged between two subjects separated by the wall of language into a full speech.4 The analytic experience oscillates between the dialectic of an empty speech that occurs in the imaginary axis (a' -» a) and a "full" or "true speech" that occur in the (A —> S) axis of schema L. That is why the imaginary ego (moi) of the analyst should not be part of the analytic process. The analytic presence is a presence that listens attentively and with an understanding of confidentiality, and whatever happens in this process happens between the imaginary ego (moi) of the analysands and their other unconscious representations, which may appear in a projective form. What defines the end of analysis is the subjects' possibility to establish a relationship with a true other—with that other who, being true, can give an unexpected answer.

WO ES WAR, SOIL ICH WERDEN The progress of analysis consists in grasping this imaginary relation that unfolds in the transference, a production that belongs to the analysands and in which they do not recognize themselves. Analysis lies in the analysands' becoming aware of these bonds with their others, who are the true original guarantors, bonds in which the analysands do not recognize themselves. The subjects will progressively discover which "others" they are really addressing, albeit unwittingly, and they will progressively assume the transference bonds with their others even though they ignore their presence. Freud's statement "Wo Es war, soil Ich warden" (Where id was, there

208


ego shall be)5 in fact refers to this process. There, where S, the subject of the unconscious, was, there ego shall be, and not the other way around. This defines analysis as a cure of the id and not of the ego.

THE IMAGINARY VERTEX OF THE TRANSFERENCE Thanks to the action of the "wall of language," the initially symbolic transference (SsS) will occur in the imaginary axis (a' —> a), leading to the unfolding of the imaginary transference. The analytic device sustains this imaginary transference as long as the analysts occupy their position of attentive listening with an understanding of confidentiality and do not appear with their imaginary ego (mot). Regarding this issue, Lacan would say that analysts "play dummy," as in the game of bridge, while Wilfred Bion states that analysts work "devoid of memory and desire." Freud, in turn, considers that analysts should work with a sort of "suspended attention."6 The phenomenon of the "subject supposed to know" belongs to the symbolic order, but it is a phenomenon located between both orders, symbolic and imaginary, for the subjects cannot avoid the influence of the Imaginary on their own perception of the analyst's figure. SECOND ALGORITHM OF THE TRANSFERENCE A

1(a)*

i(a)

A

s(A) S

In Seminar 8 (1960), Le Transfert (On Transference), Lacan proposes an algorithm to conceptualize these ideas.7 This algorithm has three levels. The upper level is the level of the analysand (A) in rela-


209

tionship with the analyst In this imaginary relationship, the analyst is perceived as a "complete Other," fauldess, not castrated—s(A)— with whom the analysand will try to identify. For this reason we find i(a)2 on the upper right corner. The (i) represents the analysand's imaginary identification, and the (a), object (a). This matheme shows this (a) squared, which means that the analyst knows that he or she is the object of desire. The analyst knows that he or she is a semblance, an object (a), to the analysand, and must maintain the position of attentive listening that guarantees confidentiality. The analysand speaks from locus (A) of schema L (the locus of the treasure trove of signifiers) and engages in a free association addressed to the analyst, whom he or she perceives as the bearer of knowledge and of the whole truth [s(A)]. Here we are at the second level, which corresponds to the analyst. To the right we find the matheme s(A), as the analyst is perceived as a complete, fauldess other. To the left is the matheme i(a). This means that, in the cure, the analysts must separate from their imaginary ego (moi). In this sense, they have to "play dummy," that is, situate themselves in the analytic position of suspended attention, devoid of desire. The third level is where we find the analysand as subject of the unconscious: S. This subject will emerge as a consequence or an effect of the analytic device, provided that the analyst intervenes and interprets from the locus of symbolic transference and not from that of imaginary transference. To interpretfromthe locus of s(A) implies assuming that knowledge is not in the analyst but in the unconscious of the analysand. If analysts believe that knowledge is in themselves, they will produce an interpretation from the locus of the imaginary transference s(A), that is to say, from their imaginary ego (moi). The analysts' emergence with a desiring imaginary ego will complicate the analytic process, seriously hindering the analysands* ability to recognize and resignify the representations of their early identifications.

THE VERTEX OF THE REAL IN THE TRANSFERENCE The order of the Real is present in the structure of the transference, for the emergence of the analyst as object-cause of desire (or

210


"little a") is unavoidable. We know that this little a constitutes a window to the Real, a remainder from early imaginary identifications. At the same time, it is a testimony to the analysand's lack of being and to his or her desire to plug up that hole with the little a that he or she perceives in the analyst. The transference relationship defined in terms of transference love is indistinguishable, in its theoretical structure, from the passion of love, in which the object of love, bearer of the litde a, plugs up, in fiction, the lack of being. If the analyst responds to the analysand as ideal ego with interventions from this locus of ideals where the analyst has been placed and, therefore, identifying with the analysand, the analyst will develop a relationship of passion that we might designate as the analyst's transference and has no legitimate place in the analytic process. In this way, the analysand finds in his or her analyst the object of his or her passion of love, a finding that is confirmed by his or her analyst's obliging answers. We may argue here that the demands of the analysand have been fulfilled. If the analyst rescues him- or herself from this locus and begins to interpret from the locus of the symbolic other—s(A)—in asymmetry with the analysand, maintaining his or her imaginary ego (moi) away from the analytic process and "playing dummy" yet sustaining his or her locus of semblance (of litde a), then the analysand will unfold the fullness of his or her lack. This behavior on the part of the analyst will allow for a negative transference to appear in the imaginary vertex—negative transference will only appear if a space is opened for it. Working on the negative transference will enable the discovery of special early representations in the subject's history. TRANSFERENCE HATE In his essay "Observation Sobre el Informe de Daniel Lagache" (Observations on the Report by Daniel Lagache), Lacan affirms that one must not respond to the calls the subject makes one listen to when in that locus, no matter how insinuating, under pain


211

of seeing transference love take shape in them, which nothing other than its artificial production distinguishes from passionlove, for the conditions of its production will fail from now on due to its effect, and analytic discourse will be reduced to the silence of the evoked presence. And the analyst also knows that his lack of answer will provoke in the subject aggressiveness and even the hatred of negative transference.8 TRANSFERENCE LOVE If the analyst insists on accepting the analysand's identification with him or her as ideal ego—i(a)—what will take place is the materialization of the conditions for the passion of love. Free association ceases and a moment of silence ensues; that is, there is an absence of signifiers because the analysand is situated in this position of love and tries to reduce the analyst's position not to the locus of the symbolic Other—s(A)—but to a presence of the idealized other— i(a)—to a demand for love and not to the plain demand, which in fact commands speech. The demand for love tries to reduce that Other—s(A)—to the presence of the little a. In this way, any word that the analyst utters reinforces the analysand's silence, because the latter tries to increasingly reduce the analyst to a presence of i(a). In Seminar 8 Lacan suggests that the couch helps the analyst to stay outside the subject's gaze, thus favoring the analyst's being situated in the locus of the symbolic Other.9 The analyst's locus remains outside the focal point of identifications, outside the image presented by the subject. This does not mean that in face-to-face sessions the analysts, as experts in locus S(A), do not identify with that locus despite being in the field of the subject's gaze and knowing they are a desired object and knowing, furthermore, that they should sustain the semblance. When we speak of transference as love (imaginary axis), we should separate (a) transference love directed to the SsS (to the subject supposed to know) from (b) transference love maintained as a passion of love. Thefirstis the love directed to the subject of the analysand's own unconscious and allows for the transference

212


to take place. This transference love occurs at the beginning of the analytic process and is different from the passion of love, which takes place as a resistance effect when the analyst accepts the ideal place, i(a). This demand of the analysand's is a demand for fiction, for the recovery of the lost jouissance that he or she wants to find in the analyst's person. It is the analysand's attempt to become one with the analyst, to complete the lack. If analysts accept this locus due to their own resistance to maintain the analytic device, they will fictitiously plug up the lack in the analysand, thus halting the analytic process. Those who have encountered this phenomenon in their lifelong experience know the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of leaving this position. The best thing is to avoid it. Analysts know that they must not respond to demands, but it is not a matter of what we respond to but of the locus from where we do so. Speaking from an artificial position, some say that the best thing is to remain silent, to present a mask as lacking in identificatory features as possible. Yet this is not possible, because if analysts acted this way, the encounter would not occur. Analysis does not work that way. It is better to respond with the interpretation from locus s(A) and to try to produce a subjective division, which will appear as an effect of the analyst's interpretations of the analysand's repressed unconscious. Melanie Klein alerts analysts to the danger involved in their always occupying the locus of the good object in the analytic process.10 As part of her analytic technique, Klein used to work with negative transference, that is, she was placed, in the transference, in the locus of the bad and persecutory object. The danger of only working with positive transference, besides ignoring the unconscious elements of the bond of hate (Bion's H link), lies in leaving the analysands at the end of analysis in a locus in which they will always expect something from the good object (analyst), which identifies with them as an imaginary ideal [i(a)]. In addition, so as not to leave the analysand hoping to receive a manifestation of love from that object, Klein was clear in her insistence on working on the analysand's hate (negative transference) in analysis. Lacan coincides with Klein and Wilhelm Reich in this respect. Neither the


213

passion of hate nor that of love should be promoted; rather, analysts should avoid them both by placing themselves, with their interpretations, in the locus of the symbolic Other or s(A). If analysts identify with the locus of the semblance or little a—accepting the analysand's ideals or i(a)—they will assume the role of the hated or loved object—that is, the analysand's unconscious representations—thus fictitiously plugging up the lack and bringing the analytic process to a halt.

THE LOGIC OF COUNTERTRANSFERENCE In Seminar 8 Lacan states that the term countertransference is an unfortunate and inexact one, and he attempts to distinguish between two concepts. The first one refers to the effect of the analysand's transference on the analyst, and the second one to the analyst's own transference.11

THE EFFECT OF TRANSFERENCE ON THE ANALYST This effect of transference is produced in the analyst as an answer to his or her introjection of the analysand's speech. It is an imaginary effect, a response to the signifiers the analyst introjects when occupying the position of the listener in the analytic device. If the introjected demand is understood, the analyst should not have any difficulty in referring to these signifiers. This is possible when the analyst has a full discrimination capacity and occupies an asymmetric analytic position. It is clear that the analyst, when occupying his or her locus as a semblance and being the object of multiple projections, may take many of these signifiers as identification objects. In this way, he or she produces a symmetry in the analytic dyad of which he or she has to rescue him- or herself through his or her discrimination capacity. He or she will thus achieve the position of asymmetry with his or her analysand. Consequently, when the analyst proceeds to speak, that is to say, to occupy his or

214


her analytic position, he or she will do so from a position other than that of identification.

THE ANALYSTS TRANSFERENCE If the analyst cannot rescue him- or herself from the identifications that take place in the locus of the semblance, he or she will be in full transference, that is, in a symmetrical relationship with his or her analysand. The analysand has become a semblance for the analyst, namely, an object (a). The analyst's transference impedes the materialization of the analytic act (at that particular moment, with that given material). When the analyst emerges with his or her ego (moi) and his or her desire, he or she has produced a symmetry that will obscure his or her possible perception of the unconscious elements coming from the analysand. This phenomenon occurs several times during the long analytic process. Within this process the analytic act slips into different types of acts that, albeit not purely analytic, are useful and, I would say, unavoidable in any analytic process. I am referring here to the orthopedic act and the pedagogic act. There would even be a third type of act, namely, the arbitrary act. The crucial point in this debate is the question of whether such acts originate as a consequence of the analyst's identification with the analysand's demand and, therefore, within the analyst's transference. My answer would be yes. The analysand's demand is often reasonable. Those dangers that place the life and property of the analysand at risk require the analyst's pedagogic or orthopedic intervention, which would stem from the analyst's transference (at least at this stage in the analytic process). The cost of this act, performed within the analyst's transference, is the interruption of the work of the unconscious, and it is often wise and necessary to pay that price. Later on (in following sessions) the analyst will rescue him- or herself from that pedagogic or orthopedic locus and recapture his or her analytic position, in asymmetry with his or her analysand.


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THE ANALYST AS WASTE (DES-ECHO)12 At the theoretical end of analysis analysands have progressively acquired some knowledge of their incompleteness, that is, of their castration, and of that of their analyst, which corresponds to the Lacanian algorithm s(A). The unfolding of the symbolic and imaginary transferences has supposedly allowed the acknowledgment of the formation of others as original guarantors in the analysand's infantile history. When the analyst refuses to accept the analysand's invitation to occupy the ideal locus [i(a)l, interpreting from the castrated locus [s(A)J and assuming the analytic position within the analytic device, the analysis can arrive at its theoretical end. Here the castrated analyst, devoid of the phallic feeling of knowing everything, ceases to be an object of desire and an identification model. The transference progressively dissolves and the analyst loses all his or her charm and supposed knowledge (SsS). He or she becomes another signifier (guarantor) in the subject's biography. The analyst ceases to be an idealized object and becomes waste. This phenomenon has nothing to do with resistance mechanisms or periods of negative transference during which the analysand attacks and devalues the analyst. Resistance and negative transference are tied rather to the vertex of the automaton or of the compulsion to repeat of the transference. This vertex is connected to oedipal and preoedipal figures characteristic of the imaginary axis (a' -» a), to narcissistic elements, and to the presence of the passion of hate. If analysands end analysis maintaining the analyst in an idealized niche—as the figure of a mentor who possesses the whole truth and, therefore, the phallus—it is because they have been unable to solve their Oedipus conflict. This does not mean that they cannot experience gratitude and good feelings toward the analyst, but they should know that the analyst is not SsS. The pain of accepting the loss of castration in the individual's early history may have been intolerable, and so the analysis finishes without having reached its end.

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TRAVERSING THE FANTASME AND THE END OF ANALYSIS Our considerations on the love and hate aspects of the transference lead us to the study of the traversing of the fantasme. The latter refers to the way in which we reach the individual essence of the sexual drives through love and hate in the transference. Passions aim at a person's being. This coincides with a truth, which is that it is the question of being that is raised at the end of analysis. Regardless of their knowledge about the early guarantors of their identifications, analysands face the end of analysis with the question about their being and about their position regarding essential jouissance. By virtue of their knowledge of the nature of their early identifications and partial knowledge of the nature of their desire, analysands gain a rim knowledge. They may thus cross the text of the fantasme, that is, traverse the fantasme and thus open a path to the Real (through the presence of little a). The notion of "rim" refers to the Lacanian theory of the sexual drives. The subject will always remain split, divided, and only the conditions of jouissance—that is to say, the nature of each subject's particular fantasme—are singular to each subject. The fantasme— S 0 a—will allow the articulation of sexual phallic jouissance with the other without plugging up the desire of being the other's desire. To traverse the fantasme is also to know that the means to form a love relationship with another are limited, for there are few openings onto the Real and the fantasme is one of them. In Seminar 1413 Lacan affirms that the fantasme is a window to the Real. Each person construes one's own fantasme with one's little a. This fantasme (S 0 a) creates a rim that may be crossed and delineated, and keeps open in the subject the dimension of the other's desire. One can enjoy the other in a drive route (trayecto pulsional). As Eric Laurent has argued, the fantasme is the only way to "say jouissance well," that is, to come closer, in a precise way, to a jouissance the subject may gain: that of the object of one's desire.14


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SUMMARY During the analytic process (the analytic cure) the transference takes place fundamentally in the imaginary axis (a' -» a). The ego (moi) of the analysand is located in a, and the analyst in the locus a' of little a, that is, the locus of the object of desire as a semblance (the object of projections and introjections). When analysts speak, they should do so from the symbolic locus of the castrated other, or s(A). They will achieve this position if they do not respond to the analysand's demands from the locus of an ideal identification or i(a). In this way, analysts situate themselves in the cure, in the locus a\ and speak from the position of s(A).

ENDNOTES

1. Jacques Lacan (1960-1961), LeStminaire. Livre VIII. Le Transfert [Transference], op. cit. 2. Jacques Lacan (1954-1955), The Seminar. Book II. The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, 1954-1955, op. cit 3. This is an expression in Spanish, didlogo de sordos, that corresponds to the English idiom "to talk to a wair (editor's note). 4. Jacques Lacan (1954-1955), The Seminar. Book II. The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, 1954-1955, op. cit 5. Sigmund Freud (1933), New Introductory Lectures on PsychoAnalysis. Standard Edition 22:80 (editor's note). 6. Sigmund Freud (1912), Recommendations to Physicians Practicing Psycho-Analysis, in Papers on Technique. Standard Edition 12:115116 (editor's note). 7. Jacques Lacan (1960-1961), Le Siminaire. Livre VIII. Le Transfert [Transference], op. cit. 8. Jacques Lacan (1960), Observation Sobre el Informe de Daniel Lagache [Observations on the report by Daniel Lagache]. Mexico: Siglo XXI Editores, vol. 2, p. 627. [Editor's note: I have not found an English translation.] 9. Jacques Lacan (1960-1961), Le Seminaire. Livre VIII. Le Transfert [Transference], op. cit. 10. Melanie Klein (1957), Envy and Gratitude. A Study of Unconscious Sources. New York: Basic Books.

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11. JacquesLacan (1960-1961), LeStminaire. Livre VIII. Le Transfert [Transference], op. cit. 12. The Spanish word desecho corresponds to the English word waste, yet by scanning it the author adds a connotation of something that has been undone, for hecho (which is pronounced just like "echo," the letter h being mute) is the past participle of the verb hacer, to do or to make (editor's note). 13. Jacques Lacan (1966-1967), LeS&ninaire. Livre XIV. La logique dufantasme [The Seminar. Book XIV. The Logic of the Fantasme], op. cit. 14. Eric Laurent (1987), Cardcter-ego-sujeto [Character-ego-subject] in El Significante de la Transferencia [The Signifier of Transference], vol. 2. Buenos Aires: Manantial. [Editor's note: I have not been able to find an English translation.]

26 The Logic of Negative Transference

NEGATIVE TRANSFERENCE: RESISTANCE OR ANALYTIC IMPASSE? A white, single, attractive, 39-year-old woman, a university graduate, has been in analysis with me for over a year, four times a week (Monday through Thursday). In the last session of the previous week, as has occurred in other opportunities, she expressed great annoyance toward me because she perceived me as dominating and authoritarian. Throughout this year the transference has oscillated between positive and negative. At times she feels I am a kind, understanding, and warm figure who is interested in her problems, and she conveys feelings of affection toward me. At other moments she is very upset because I do not understand her and want to dominate her. She feels once again that everything she has is "useless to me," and hence I am also useless. The analysand sometimes stes me as a man who has preconceived and unmodifiable ideas and who imposes his own thoughts upon her. She says that I am incapable of changing my mind and that in my interventions I persistently

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insist on the same thing. In the session I am relating here I told her that under these circumstances it was very difficult for me to help her, since she would view anything I said as an imposition coming from an authoritarian analyst. My interest had been to help her to get to know herself as much as possible. I told her that she should know that she was not trapped in her analysis with me, that she had the right to look for another analyst who could understand and help her better than I. The analysand asked me if I felt trapped with her and if I could unilaterally terminate the analysis. I answered that I could in fact decide to terminate the analysis, in which case I would refer her to another analyst.

THE FOLLOWING SESSION On Monday the analysand, who is usually prompt, arrives about ten minutes late. She apologizes and explains that the carpenter who is fixing her dining room arrived unexpectedly and she was forced to assist him before leaving, which is why she is late. I say to her, "It seems that fixing that dining room is important." The analysand tells me that fixing her dining room bears a very special significance to her. The design is strange, special, and something to be proud of. Her previous boyfriend (fianc6), with whom she broke up nine months ago, was the designer. Now that the carpenter is finishing it, every time she sees the furniture she remembers her fianc^. Here the patient cries a little. I say to her, "The absent presence." After a while she says that she never thought that her fiance would not see the finished dining room, and then adds, "Such is life." The analysand then says that she did not think that today she would be speaking of the dining room either. She thought that she would only speak of the "misunderstanding that we both have," that is, the problem of her relationship with me and the strong impact the last session had on her—it has stuck in her mind all these days. She says that it is very easy for me to close this chapter and move on to other things, that I could stay very calm during

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my weekend. This was not the case for her. The topic is stuck in her head and she keeps thinking about it. It is like a fixed idea, and has caused her great uneasiness. The analysand says that she wants to be able to clarify what has happened between us and, mainly, to know the reason for my inability to understand her. I ask what she means when she says that I do not understand her. She says that she knows I already know everything about her and that bothers her very much, that I am searching for what I already know. Now, after a year of analysis, she does not know whether I have the will to explore. She finds that I have preconceived ideas about everything. At this moment in the session my telephone rings and the answering machine picks up. I fold a paper I am using to make notes. When the ringing stops the analysand remains silent. I ask her what is on her mind. She answers that she is thinking about the paper I folded. Then there is a silence and I ask her what she thinks about this paper. She thinks that it is a paper that I am reading. (This means to me that the analysand believes I am not paying attention to her.) I say to her, "What I'm doing is taking some notes of what we talk about, since I find it very important," and I ask her if it bothers her that I take notes. She tells me that it does not bother her in the least. The analysand says: aNow Fm obsessed with the idea of motherhood. Soon I will turn 40." Then she begins to cry quiedy. She is so keen on having a child that she has begun to think about artificial insemination again. She says she has already thought about this many times. If she cannot find a husband, she will resort to artificial insemination. She continues to cry. She says that going through this whole process alone, without a partner, is very difficult. Her biological clock is telling her that her time is almost up. She would like to know whether or not she wants to have a child. She tells me that she thinks I have a preconceived idea about this, that I know that she does not really want to have a child and that I will tell her the following: That she does not want to have a child and also that her attitude is acceptable and good, because if she does not have a child she can spend all that money on herself, but then I will ridicule her. She adds that I will tell her "that one should not throw

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children into the world, should not be a supplier of children." Yet all I will supposedly tell her will be of no use to her. I tell the analysand that what she needs is to know—to know whether or not she wants to have a child—but that she protects herself from knowing and, therefore, she thinks that 1 will force her to believe what she has just said. There is a silence and then she says, "Well, I have to admit that I have a contradiction. What's bad is that you would have been able to reach very quick conclusions. 1 will give you an example. When you say..." [and she clarifies:] "Well, I do understand, and I know that it bothers you that 1 believe that I have to define my sexual orientation, and you will ask who's forcing me to define my sexual orientation? But I remember that you [plural] said very clearly that we must accept our own sexual orientation." 1 ask her, "The "you" [plural] that you used refers to whom?" She answers, "I'm referring to Joyce MacDougall's lecture and to you, because of what she said there and what you've written. You say that we must accept our sexual orientation, and you also said in your paper that when this happens, we increase our creativity and intellectual effectiveness. That's how we arrive at the end. Also, you have written regarding sexual orientation that one has to choose between homosexuality and heterosexuality, that one can only be one thing. Here I don't agree with you. I say I can have both. Here you have told me that it is actually possible to have both. Then I don't know what you ultimately think. If I'm in one place, I feel that I belong in the other one, and vice versa." There is a brief silence. Then she says, "The truth is I have no time left. My fertile life is ending. I want to be what I am. You say that I function entirely by the law of 'all or nothing.' I feel that I'm still solving my basic issues: my life, my sexual orientation, and my desire to be a mother. When I attended Joyce MacDougall's public lectures I felt that she was speaking to me, that she was describing my life, my most intimate things. I have to live my reality; I have to be what I am. You [plural] say that this will benefit me, but I don't agree, because to do this I have to believe in it, and I can't bear failure anymore. I have recently experienced the failure of my last hetero-


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sexual love relationship. It leaves me without a husband and without children. To have a child would be a change in my life. I remember that I had an abortion with a long-ago boyfriend. That was a time when I didn't want to have children, I was not prepared. My desire to have children has come and gone in the course of these years. Look, Fll give you an example. This is what I feel. I have to know what it is that I want in order to act accordingly. It can't be that I want a child simply to fulfill a social demand. I want to know. Yet I'm convinced that you have already reached your conclusion, and that's why I say that you don't understand me." There is a silence. Then she says, "I have a deep feeling of longing [in English] when somebody tells me that they got married and had a child." I ask her what she means by longing. She says it is a feeling of nostalgia, a waiting nostalgia. "I can't say this here freely because you will tell me that this is a defense, or that I want to fulfill a social desire. Here with you I can't engage in afreeexploration." There is a silence. "Look, if I am homosexual at bottom, then why do I have such a strong desire to marry and have a husband? And if I am heterosexual at bottom, why do I desire a woman? Then, since I don't want to hear your interpretation and I don't want to hear you say that it's a defense either, then what I do is, I don't tell you anything. I don't want to be convinced of anything. Well, I have to admit that you don't try to convince me of anything outright, but when I tell you all these things, you have already reached your conclusion. You'll say that what I say is silly, and this is an attempt to convince me." The analysand stays silent for a while and then says that she has been behaving poorly. She says, "I've been trying to test you. I've put you through many tests to see if you failed, and by doing so I'm hurting myself. Because when I put you through these tests and I see that they prove my idea that you had already reached your conclusion, in doing so I'm trapped. I intervene and tell her, "With your tests, you pay and give yourself the change" (meaning that she benefits from them without accounting for her acts). The analysand says, "My tests have confirmed that you have already reached your conclusions." I ask her, "Why the need to test me?" and she answers, "I wanted to know

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what you think of me." I say to her, uBut why don't you ask me straightforwardly?" After a short silence she says, "In my previous analysis [which took place abroad for a period of three years], I realized that it isn't possible to ask an analyst something and get an answer. All my tests aim at knowing what's your actual diagnosis." I ask her, "And what is it?" She responds, "I don't know, but above all I want to know your diagnosis of my sexuality. This is the way I function. But I have to admit that it's horrible, it bothers me to hear myself saying all this. It bothers me to have to put you through these tests. I listen to myself speaking and it sounds to me as if I were my mother. What a horrible thing. I don't want to resemble her."

SOME NOTES ON THIS ANALYSANDS HISTORY The analysand was born of a marriage that produced four children, and she is the youngest and the only daughter. The marriage ended in divorce when she was 3 years old. Her father married again and has three more children. He always maintained contact with the two families and assumed his financial responsibilities. Her mother is of humble origin and of a violent nature, and the children were disciplined with a belt. The mother is afraid of people and, according to my analysand, she has seriously damaged all her children. My analysand says about her mother: uShe is a damn spy." Of her father she says that he was a traveling salesman and, fundamentally, an absent father. She says that her father cannot love; he does not give love to anybody. She is convinced that her father does not love her. She has only one memory of her childhood in which her father shows some love for her. This is a vivid memory, indelibly etched in her mind. One day her father saw she had a runny nose and said to her, "Girl, you have to blow your nose." This conversation fragment was marked in her memory as the only "proof of love" that she got from her father. When she wants to remember that her father loved her, she remembers this sentence. Other than that, she is convinced that her father does not love her. Both par-


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ents are alive and lead separate lives. She maintains a distant relationship with both, and she seldom visits her parents and siblings. Her most sincere interest lies in visiting her nieces and nephews, whom she loves very much. This is a very intelligent woman who has lived alone in several countries. She has a superior university education and an outstanding intellectual performance. She began her sexual life after puberty with a deep homosexual love that led to a complete sexual experience, with orgasmic satisfaction. This happened again throughout the years with four slighdy older women whom she believed to have many good qualities. Initially she allowed them to seduce her, pleased to be desired and wanted and to be important for somebody. During those years, until she turned 36, she says she did not accept the possibility of being a lesbian. It was only a "love game," especially because during those years two intense heterosexual relationships occurred—she fell in love with full sexual and orgasmic capacity. She felt full orgasmic satisfaction with these two men, and she also says she is "attracted to the penis" and likes it. She also conveys the ability to fall in love with both men and women. In one of her love relationships with men, her boyfriend left her after a three-year relationship because he fell in love with another woman. In the other case, the man wanted to marry her, but he was an Iranian Muslim who had to return to his country. Women's conditions in that country were not satisfactory to her, and she decided not to accompany him. Recently she had a passionate, sexual, and loving relationship with the man she mentions in the Monday session narrated above. It was an intense yet fleeting relationship, and he walked out on her. This relationship ended three months before she began analysis with me. After starting analysis, she fell in love passionately in the form of a crush with a woman her own age, with whom for the first time she behaved like a seducer, actively enticing this beautiful woman. This bond has remained active. Her analysis has cautiously been able to help her discover her repetitive tendency to develop a "relationship of domination" with this new partner that places the relationship under the constant threat of a breakup.

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CHIEF COMPLAINT AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE TRANSFERENCE The analysand seeks analysis again because she thinks there is something wrong with her that prevents her from maintaining steady love relationships. She wants to marry or, in any event, have a steady relationship, with the possibility of cohabitation. During her analysis she shows a tendency to establish a type of object relation in which she has very specific concerns regarding what the other should do or think. This is perceived more clearly in the ways in which the other leaves and returns in her everyday life. It seems as if she were controlling the other, yet she is not an obsessive; neither is this an obsessive, rigid control. Hers is a strange reading of the encounter and the missed encounter1 where what matters is the wlove test": "If she loved me, she would not have left me like this." "If she loved me, she would have called me." "If she loved me, I would be first in her thoughts." And so on. It is worth noting here that the analysand's reading of the object relation leads her to a demand—to a confrontation with her love object in which she puts herself in the position of the victim and of the one who is not loved. This problem, which hindered the stability of her previous relationships, was repeated in the transference. At the beginning it was a warm and positive transference. Then the analysand began to strongly resent the fact that I was delayed a few minutes, or that my clock was fast, or that my telephone rang. Then she began to resent the manner of my interventions and interpretations. Finally a change took place, and she began to perceive anything I said as an imposition or an attempt to dominate her.

A QUALIFIED LISTENER When this type of transference achieved maximum intensity I found myself drawn to a corner. Anything I said would be perceived as an imposition. I was seen as an authoritarian and tyrannical analyst. I felt uncomfortable and impotent to solve this problem. I was


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even willing to terminate the analysis. I thought I could not help the analysand and that this analytic situation was unsolvable— that it was an "analytic impasse." In my view, the analytic impasse is a phenomenon in which both subjects participate with their unconscious mechanisms that brings the analysis to a halt. I let the analysand know of her right to terminate her analysis if she wished to do so. I refused to accept that I also wanted to terminate it. To my surprise, she also refused to be the one to do so. It was clear to me, therefore, that in the field of enunciation (the latent content) neither of us was willing to bring the analysis to an end. This insight helped me a lot, and I decided to write down what was happening. I discovered things that I already knew and yet refused to know—a disavowed knowledge. While I interpreted what I understood to be reasonable to interpret, my analysand increasingly resisted my interpretations and accused me of being authoritarian and tyrannical. I decided to stop interpreting and only engage in an attentive listening—working only with "evenly suspended attention"2—or to perform very short interventions just to let her know that I was there, awake, and attentive. The analysand did not stop speaking. She talked about important matters that would very often summon my intervention, yet I remained silent. My annoyance disappeared. I realized that she did not want to listen to me; she wanted me to listen to her ceaselessly, and that was the way we worked for some time. Occasionally she asked my opinion on some topic she was working on analytically. I responded with short and precise interpretations, sometimes about painful issues. She took them well. With some she agreed, and with others she did not, but she did not feel that I was imposing them upon her. The point was that she had requested my intervention, which put her in a receptive position to hear what I was about to say. She was the one who knew when she was in that receptive state. Meanwhile, I kept listening. It was not a catharsis or a state of mental fragmentation that required holding, but rather a need for the presence of a qualified listener who would hear what she was working through without interrupting her.

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THE TYRANNY OF THE PHALLIC OTHER I understand that in this particular cure or analytic process, the difficulty appears when a very special transference is established that I have called the "tyranny of the phallic other." We know that every transference begins with the establishment of a subject supposed to know. The analysand seeks the help of somebody who can relieve her anxiety and suffering. This phenomenon grants the analyst a power over the other in the transference—the power to help the analysand, which constitutes the basis for a warm, positive transference where the analysand forges an unconscious relationship with a beloved object. Negative transference, by contrast, refers to an unconscious bond with the "hated other." In the transference, the object goes from being loved to being hated. This is not the case with this patient—she neither hates me nor feels that I hate her. That is why I believe that it is not a case of a simple negative transference. She only hates me when she feels that I am dominating or tyrannizing her. That is the problem. Now, how does it happen that I find myself dominating her? In my opinion, it means that in the transference I have the power of knowing everything about her, knowing what goes on inside her, knowing what she needs, knowing what she should or should not do. She instates this dominating object in the transference and does so with an unconscious purpose. I believe she does so in order to be able to rebel against this object, that is, to rebel in the transference against the imaginary figure that is behind me as a semblance, as object (a). We know from her childhood history that her maternal figure is powerful, dangerous, and a "spy"—"the one who knows everything." I think that the analysand instates this figure in the transference to oppose her, to rebel against her, to affirm herself (Bejahung) and to obtain (in fiction) a transference victory over her. In no way is it in my analysand's interests to terminate her analysis. On the contrary, she needs to continue with this dominating relationship, to oppose it and to achieve affirmation (Bejahung)


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over and over again. My interpretations of this phenomenon are ineffective because they fall within the locus of the dominating object. Whatever I say comes from the phallic other, that is to say, the dominant object, and therefore is disqualified (tautological).

SUSPENDED ATTENTION I believe that my strategy of sustaining the transference semblance of the dominant object while remaining silent was a fortunate one. For the analysand, I continued to be the tyrannical object in the transference, but one that kept silent. She did not have a particular reason to oppose me because I did not say anything. With time, the annoyance we both felt progressively subsided. For me it had been crucial to understand what was happening (to some extent). This understanding brought about a change in my analytic position and allowed me to situate myself only in the position of evenly suspended attention, without identifying with the semblance (the tyrannical transference object). I was thus able to maintain the asymmetry with my analysand. A posteriori, I have thought that what happened in this analytic process could fall within the concept of what we call "psychoanalytic impasse," which, as we know, does not always lead to the termination of the analysis, since it can be reversed.

THE PROBLEM OF BISEXUALITY In writing this case history I initially left out the topic of sexuality. I was particularly interested in focusing on the study of the transference bond. I know that there are other important topics to explore in this case, for example, the analysand's sexual life. I have referred to her orgasmic sexual capacity and her experience of falling in love with people of both stxes. This aspect of her history posits enigmas, inviting the study of the problem of bisexuality.

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Some theoreticians of psychoanalysis (myself excluded) believe that the sexual structure derived from the subject's sexual object-choice is binary, that is, that the object of desire is chosen between a manobject and a woman-object. I think that a double object choice may exist of both the maternal and the paternal imagoes. Consequently, an unconscious bisexual structure may exist. This may explain some people's capacity for sexual arousal and sexual orgasm with both sexes. Not all bisexual sexual acts, however, respond to a bisexual sexual structure. A heterosexual or homosexual unconscious structure may engage in bisexual acts. These may have at least two possible origins: 1. If the original sexual structure is heterosexual, then the homosexual act may be understood as an acting out or as a passage to the act, and vice versa. This sexual act is motivated by the repressed sexual desire. Let us recall the whole nature of the Oedipus complex, both positive and negative, which includes sexual desires addressed at both father and mother. This could lead us to the question of this analysand's sexual structure. To this question I do not have an answer. 2. If the circumstances of the subject's early life show a serious deficiency in the maternal function, the sexual objectchoice (which will mark the subject's future sexual life) may be ambiguous. This behavior may be supplemented with the psychic mechanism of the vertical split of the object, which will allow the simultaneous existence of two successive objects of desire of opposite sexes. This ambiguous sexual object-choice (characteristic of serious neurotics such as borderlines) leads to a sexual life of a bisexual type. In this case, bisexuality is due to the fact that the subject, in his or her huge "desire to be desired" (due to the imaginary hole), will respond complacently to the demand of love from the other, be it a homosexual or a heterosexual object.


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THE MASTER'S DISCOURSE My interest in mentioning this issue stems from my concern with differentiating the domination bond from the Master's discourse Lacan introduced in 1969 in his seminar UEnvers de la Psychanalyse (Psychoanalysis Upside-Down or the Other Side of Psycho-analysis) . 3

$*a Let us recall here that the four discourses Lacan puts forth are the Master's discourse, the Hysteric's discourse, the University discourse, and the Analyst's discourse. These are four different signifying configurations that may be distinguished according to their distribution in the loci assigned for each discourse, that is, four fixed positions, and four signifiers rotate among these positions. It is in fact this rotation that will produce meaning and will categorize each discourse. These discourses do not represent a hierarchy or an indication of health or illness, nor do they refer to a clinical entity. They inhabit the subject despite himself or herself— they speak for the subject. They are not the kind of discourses that are produced intentionally. The subject does not choose his or her discourse but is chosen by it. In this way, at a given moment the subject may be functioning with one type of discourse, and at another time, with a different type. There is no relation among these discourses, and they may be explained according to their placement in the various loci. None of these discourses are "the true one"— they all produce an effect of half-truth. The Master's discourse is marked by the will to dominate (Sx —» S2). It is a univocal discourse in which there is a supposed unity between signifier one (S{) and the barred subject, or S. It is the legislative discourse, the discourse of the law par excellence. A subject may end up speaking as if he or she were the law, that is, uttering a final word. This discourse instates a word identical to itself. It ignores

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the reasons for its origin and for its impossible unity. The Other appears as "the one who knows" (S2), and the product of his discourse, the small (a)—the cause of desire—will remain hidden, barring the Master's access to it. In this way, the Master appears separated from his or her subjective truth and ignoring his or her desire. The difference between the Master's discourse and the discourse of domination lies in the fact that the Master's discourse arises in the locus of the subject. This subject unwittingly embodies the locus of the Master. It is only a posteriori that the subject will discover which locus he or she had occupied. The "discourse of domination," by contrast, will emerge, in fiction, in the locus of the other. The subject has projected the phallus onto the other with whom he or she has identified. The other is the tyrant and the ruler, for he or she has been assigned a phallic domination. The subject will thus suffer the tyranny of the other.

WHY IS THIS TYRANNICAL BOND ESTABLISHED? I insist on wondering why certain subjects instate this type of "tyranny of the phallic other." There is a possible answer: if these subjects, in their early constitution, find serious inadequacies in the maternal function, a structural defect will appear in the area of the mind that corresponds to the Imaginary. Following Lacan's ideas, we could say that a hole (or void) will form in the area of the Imaginary that corresponds to a hole in the upper left triangle of schema L. This structural defect is permanent and irreparable, yet there may be forms of relief, such as the instatement of an imaginary prosthesis in this structural hole; a symptom may sometimes work as prosthesis. The subject's irresistible tendency to identify with the other also functions sometimes as an imaginary prosthesis, and would correspond to a specular object relation. If the psychic structure is hysterical, the subject will bestow on the other the possession of a wonderful and desired phallus. Object proximity with the phallic other will produce an identification with this desired other and may bring about an illusion of merging, of an "I am you," and, therefore, an illusion


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of control over the other. If this phallic other shows some autonomy, this behavior will generate a strong annoyance and an anxiety crisis in the subject. Such annoyance may take the guise of a primal rage. The other as bearer of the phallus appears as a tyrant. The subject may believe that this tyrannicalfigurecan do with him or her whatever the phallic object pleases. In other words, the phallic tyranny of the other has been established—what I have called here "the discourse of domination."

TRANSFERENCE WITH A PHALLIC SEMBLANCE The analysis I have narrated here has continued satisfactorily. I remain in a phallic transference locus. I am very careful not to interpret excessively (what would seem excessive to the analysand) and prefer to keep silent until I am sure that my intervention will be appropriate. I believe I am working with a hysterical neurotic type of patient with significant deficiencies in her early constitution. Her structural hole in the imaginary is not curable but can be relieved, and she is able to function very well. She has shown other symptoms that she has been able to solve through speech. The most difficult aspect of this analysis has been working on her present love relationship, which appears in the current analytic material. The obstacle we encounter is that the analysand is always certain that she is not loved. Even considering this trait of hers, her life goes on and her progress continues.

ENDNOTES 1. There is no equivalent in English to the Spanish word desencuentro, which refers literally to a dis-encounter (editor's note). 2. Sigmund Freud (1912), Recommendations to Physicians Practicing Psychoanalysis, op. cit. 3. Jacques Lacan (1969-1970), LeSeminaire. LivreXVIL VEnvcrs de la Psychanalyse [The Seminar. Book XVII. Psychoanalysis Upside-Down or the Other Side of Psychoanalysis], op. cit.

27 The Transference Graph

INTRODUCTION TO THE GRAPH: TWO SIDES AND FOUR LEVELS I developed this graph in 1997, to summarize what takes place in the transference throughout the cure.1 It consists of two sides and four levels. The left side corresponds to the analysand and the right side to the analyst. The upper level shows what happens in the transference when there is a prevalence of the imaginary order: the analysand attributes a certain knowledge to the analyst and the latter occupies a locus of semblance without making value judgments. The second level shows what happens when there is a prevalence of the symbolic order: the analyst speaks from a position devoid of certainty and whole truth, that is, s(A). In this level, the analysand is increasingly pushed back into functioning within the imaginary order. The third level shows what happens at a possible articulation of the three registers (RSI). Toward the end of analysis the analyst is deprived of knowledge and appears in the locus of the "waste" (desecho),2 while the analysand becomes what he or she truly is. Finally,

THE TRANSFERENCE GRAPH

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the Real in the analytic process will be found in (a) the money to be paid, (b) the duration of the session, and (c) the analyst's abstinence or lack of it. These are three elements of the analytic process that may undergo unexpected change, surprising the analysand. They become present (when they are modified) in an arbitrary way. In this graph we have introduced a fourth level, namely, the level beyond the transference. This is the realm of postanalytic effects.

PRESENTATION OF THE GRAPH Transference Graph Analysand

Analyst

(Symptom) Imaginary

(a)

Semblance axis

(SSS)

knowledge axis

Locus of theanalyst

Sq

Locus of privileged

S(s,s,s,s')

listening Suspended Attention (Freud) Zero point point ((ion) MMowon », vv zero (won) I ^ * V « /ToMayDumw(Ucon)

Symbolic

•(A)-

(with silence ana words)

sCA)0* as SRI Borromean logic

Beyond transference

Fantasme

, x S(A) Being

< Being what we are > (being according to desire)

Postanalytic e f f e c t Locus of t h e Symptasme

Dismissal o f the Other Analyst as < useless >

Analyst

Theoretical end o f Analysis

The real in the analytic cure 1. Money paid (variable or not) 2 Duration of session (variable or not) 3 Abstinence of the analyst (variable or not)

Proposed by ft Lander (1997)

FIRST LEVEL: THE IMAGINARY ORDER AND THE LOCUS OF THE ANALYST3 S-f(Si) Z: Refers to the symptom J: Refers to the function of Sx S\. Corresponds to the signifying chain

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In this matheme the analysand shows us his or her analytic demand through the signifying chain, which will constitute, in turn, the veil or clothing of the symptom. The letter Sigma represents the symptom, which is no more than "what doesn't work in the Real." The function of Sx indicates that this signifying chain is a function of something. S2 being the representative of the chain, it is in the signifying chain where the subject will express his or her symptom.

A Knowledge Attributed to the Other The suffering expressed in the symptom will confer a power on the other from whom the analysand expects help. For this reason, we say that analysands grant a knowledge to the other in their imaginary axis, and thereby a power—the power to cure them. Lacan states that the locus the analysand assigns to the analyst is that of the supposition of knowledge, or SsS.4 In addition, the analysand will place the analyst in another privileged locus, that is, the locus of the semblance, which appears in the graph as object (a), located on the side of the analyst and represented with a lowercase a. As we know, this is a very special object that the analysand thinks he or she sets in the analyst. This very special something is a remainder present in the analysand's psyche—an unconscious remainder from the analysand's relationship with the other who had constituted him or her in early childhood.

A Privileged Listener—The Locus of the Analyst The analyst offers the analysand a privileged listening, an attentive listening that guarantees confidentiality and is devoid of value judgment concerning anything the analysand may say. This is an asymmetric listening that establishes otherness or alterity thanks to a self/object discrimination capacity. Such an asymmetry implies that the analyst does not identify with the analysand. When


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engaging in this listening, the analyst has no personal desire to impose upon the analysand and guarantees the confidentiality of the analysand's discourse. To occupy this locus analysts must be properly qualified, that is, must have succeeded in becoming what they truly are at the end of their own analysis. In this way, analysands complete their analysis and become capable of sitting in the analyst's chair. We may say that they have become an analyst.

SECOND LEVEL: THE SYMBOLIC ORDER AND THE LOCUS OF THE ANALYST As an effect of the analyst's privileged listening and thanks to the containment he or she provides, the analysand slips his or her discourse of complaints and demands for cure and happiness into a discourse about him- or herself. That is why in the graph we find the algorithm i(a), which alludes to the fact that the analysand is speaking through his or her memories of earlier identifications. The small letter i refers to the analysand's imaginary identifications with object (a). From this position, the analysand grants the analyst even more power—a supposition of knowledge and a semblance of little a. That is why we say that, from the level of symbolic prevalence, the analysand returns in full force to a bond of imaginary transference.

The Signifier of the (Castrated) Other The analyst eventually intervenes with his or her word. This discourse, which is a privileged one due to the power the analyst receives when acting as semblance for the analysand, will be devoid of the whole truth. That is why, in the graph, the algorithm s(A)— the signifier of the castrated other—appears in the analyst's column. If the analyst occupies the locus of the Master, he or she will speak his or her whole truth. In this case, the analyst will interpret

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with conviction and with the certainty of his or her truth, like a pontiff who reveals Freud's truth. His or her interpretations will act as a full stop to the unconscious material that emerges in the session. We may therefore say that those interpretations charged with the whole truth occlude the analytic process—they close the exploration of the unconscious, they put a stop to the search, they plug up the process. Herein lies the risk of indoctrination. It is better to speak from ignorance, pointing out the little things we may find in the analysand's material. We should invite analysands to question themselves, launching their search for their lost desire, never to be found. Instead of speaking from a position of phallic wisdom, we should suggest to the analysands ideas to be explored further and further. We say that the analyst speaks from the position of a castrated signifier.

Transference Cure Thanks to the analyst's interventions (with this I mean his or her silence or his or her speech), the analysand may perceive himself or herself as "cured of something" and, erroneously, as the bearer of a special knowledge. That is why the analysand appears in the graph with the algorithm s(A). The analysand's behavior entails the danger that he or she may abandon analysis prematurely, erroneously believing that he or she has achieved some sort of cure. Some of these analysands maintain their well-being for quite a long time. In some cases, their analyses may even be considered successful when in fact they did not complete the cure. They terminate their analysis and keep their analyst in an idealized locus, or s(A). They identify with this wise (phallic) analyst and are thus able to maintain their well-being. We are dealing here with a symmetry between two wise (phallic) subjects, that is, a specular identification in the imaginary axis. Lacan affirms that this resistance of analysands to continue their analysis and to pursue its epilogue is ultimately the analyst's resistance to continue with his or her analysis.


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THIRD LEVEL: BORROMEAN LOGIC AND RESIGNIFICATION If the analysand remains in the analytic process and achieves the resignification of his or her earlier identifications, he or she will update his or her system of ideals. A crucial modification will thus take place in the superego due to the resignification of the original signifiers that had been the guarantors of the ideal ego—i(a)—and the ego-ideal—1(A).

Unconscious Resignification The unconscious and automatic censorship that had caused guilt feelings in the analysand will be modified. A space will open for the analysand to update his or her values, sexual desires, and destructive fears. The subject in analysis can gain knowledge about the nature of his or her fantasme. He or she will accept his or her considerable limitations and will know about (everyone's) castration. He or she will discover that he or she is not the Master (of anything). That is why the analysand appears in the graph with the algorithm s(A).

Dismissal of the Phallic Other It is in the analysand's relationship with the analyst that he or she will begin to deprive the analyst of the phallic value the analysand had previously assigned to him or her. The analysand starts to recognize the analyst's limitations and mistakes. That is why the analyst appears in the graph with the algorithm s(A). Having been an idealized analyst, he or she becomes "waste" (des-echo). Such a transformation heralds the end of analysis. The analysand may retain certain semblance elements and some supposition of knowledge (insoluble remnants of the transference), and, at the same time, recognize some insufficiencies and incorporate an element of

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impossibility or lack of harmony into the analytic cure. That is why this third level of the graph refers to the Borromean logic and to an articulation in the SRI.

FOURTH LEVEL: END OF ANALYSIS AND THE QUESTION OF "BEING"—POSTANALYTIC EFFECT The analysand accepts being what he or she really is—his or her true being. He or she says, "I am what I am." This being is not the being of the symptom, even though he or she shows his or her imperfections (which could be taken, erroneously, as new symptoms); it is something different. It is the symptasme,5 and these signifiers had been there from the start, at the basis of the early constitution of the subject. According to each case, the symptasme could adopt the clothing of a symptom without being one—it is the symptasme of "being what I am."

ENDNOTES 1. R6mulo Lander (1997), Grafo de la Transferencia [Transference Graph], presented at the Psychoanalysis Institute (SPC), Caracas. 2. See note 12, Chapter 25 (editor's note). 3. See Chapter 12 for an explanation of the ma theme of the symptom (editor's note). 4. See Chapters 7 and 24 (editor's note). 5. See Chapter 14 for an explanation of this concept (editor's note).

28 The Logic of the Analytic Act (I)

A CALL TO THE KNOWLEDGE IN THE OTHER When a demand for analysis arises due to the presence of psychic suffering or symptoms, the patient, not yet an analysand, makes a call to the other—to the one who is supposed to have knowledge; it is a call to the knowledge in the other. The patient attributes a knowledge to the analyst, and with it he or she grants the analyst a certain power. This locus assigned to the analyst by the patient is a locus without fault, where the analyst is conceived as a whole being and a sage. In psychoanalytic terms, following the Freudian theory of castration, we say that the analyst is a noncastrated subject and the bearer of truth. The patient expects the analyst to occupy the position of knowledge, and the analyst quietly sustains this position by means of his or her attentive listening.

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE ANALYTIC DEVICE When patients instate (present and talk about) the symptom in the analytic process, we say that they have become analysands. This

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means that they have gone from the clinical to the analytic symptom; from descriptive phenomenology to working with the unknown; from speaking to freely associating. They are now capable of exploring their internal world in the search for their lost truth. The analysands will thus engage in an analytic work that consists of trying to discover their unattainable, permanentlyfleeingtruths and their mislaid desire. At the same time, the analysts sustain the analysands1 search by avoiding those interventions or interpretations that plug up the lack in the analysands. The analysts do not give final answers to any of the aspects of the analysands' search. BECOMING WASTE (DES-ECHO)1 The analyst knows that he or she is heading toward his or her final destination. At the end of analysis, when the analysand discovers the imperfections and the castrated condition of the analyst, the latter is transformed into a waste. This is the same analyst to whom the analysand had attributed full knowledge and perfection at the beginning of the cure without realizing that such perfection was the projection of his or her own ideals. Both Freud and the postFreudians have asserted that infantile ideals tumble at the end of analysis. The most radical analysts will affirm that at this stage the analysand discovers the castration of the other and, in this way, his or her own castration. Among other things, the analysand faces the reality of his or her own death. This is perhaps the reason why some analysands terminate their analysis without reaching its end.

THE LOCUS OF THE ANALYST Every psychoanalytic session progresses under the effects of the transference. It cannot be otherwise. As we have already seen, analysts will occupy different loci during the unfolding of the analytic process; they will inhabit the locus assigned by the structure of the

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transference. They do not choose their locus but are placed there according to the analysands* childhood history. Transference will enable the revelation of unconscious elements of this history by providing a space where they may be relived. The locus of the analyst, therefore, is that of a semblance—t(a). There, analysts will function through their privileged listening; it is the locus where the analysts listen without making value judgments and in strict confidentiality.

THE NONSYMBOLIZED ELEMENTS OF THE TRANSFERENCE These are vivid and emotional elements linked to early experiences in life that precede the acquisition of language. Through their emotional receptivity, analysts may perceive some of these elements as projections of the analysand and contain them thanks to their containing capacity and reverie.2 At the same time, analysts have to be alert to the appearance of false memories and screen memories. They may point out, interrogate, or interpret the transference in the crucial moments of the analytic process. I want to note here that, even though every session takes place under the effects of the transference, this does not mean that we must interpret the transference in every session.

THE USE AND MISUSE OF TRANSFERENCE INTERPRETATION The excessive use of transference interpretation may lead to the banalization of the transference. I am, therefore, of the opinion that the transference should be interpreted only when we are in the presence of transference anxiety or resistance. The transference, which the analysand construes with his or her early identification objects, will unfold in the imaginary axis. We should mention here that the task assumed by the analyst of supporting

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the weight of the transference is not an easy one. Enduring the feeling of being loved or hated as a decoy for the objects of the past while keeping one's own desire and personal life out of the analytic process eight to ten hours a day is not an easy task either. Again, the need for analysts to undergo a good and deep analysis is confirmed through, and made evident by, our practice. Without that preparation it is not possible to receive and endure the transference without becoming ill.

THE POSITION OF THE ANALYST When analysts decide to intervene with their words, they will do so from a certain position. This position appears as such when analysts utter their word or remain silent while devoid of certainty and of the whole truth, that is, from the position of the castrated subject [the position of the signifier of the castrated Other or s(A)]. Every time analysts speak, analysands expect them to show all their wisdom. Analysands believe that the analysts' words will finally offer them the revealed truth, which will lead to happiness. In the transference, the analyst becomes the repository of the knowledge and love the analysand expects to receive.

SAYING THE UNEXPECTED Analysts surprise the analysands and frustrate them by not satisfying the analysands* demand, that is, by not uttering the revealed truth. Rather, analysts intervene punctuating, questioning, interpreting, and leading the analysands back to working analytically in the quest for their truth—analysts say the unexpected. The analysands' search is the search for that lost truth that they will always find, at best, as a half-truth. The irony is that this truth has always been in the same place—in the analysands' unconscious. That is why, even when analysts interpret, they are interrogating the unconscious of the analysand. Analysts have to


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intervene from the position of the lack of knowledge because knowledge is in the other.

WHEN THE ANALYST KNOWS TOO MUCH Occupying this analytic position is not an easy task either, since analysts have to deal with an unavoidable problem inherent to their profession—they know too much about human nature. The experience of years of practice teaches analysts too many things, and too much knowledge is an unwelcome burden. It makes it difficult for them to occupy their analytic position of ignorance and to interrogate from there the unconscious of the analysand. The knowledge accumulated through years of clinical practice will thus become an obstacle.

WHO IS AN ANALYST? The psychoanalytic session starts from scratch every time, opening a space for the unfolding of the transference. Analysts become present as analysts during the performance of their act. Here the first question arises: Who is an analyst? A possible answer may be:

AN ANALYST IS THE ONE WHO ACTS ACCORDING TO ETHICS Which ethics, the ethics of psychoanalysis, or the ethics of the analyst? There might be a twofold answer here. First, the ethics of the analyst refers to his or her personal ethics. Following Jacques Lacan's teaching, I may consider that this ethics is the ethics of acting in conformity with the desire in the analyst,3 "the ethics of speaking well,"4 and according to Wilfred Bion's teaching, I may consider that the ethics of the analyst consists of "being what we are." As we can see, both thinkers are saying the same thing.

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THE ETHICS OF PSYCHOANALYSIS REFERS TO SOMETHING ELSE This ethics refers to the analysand's expectation and demand that the analyst occupy the locus allotted to him or her in the analytic process—i(a)—and that he or she speak from the analytic position—s(A). The locus of the analyst is one of attentive listening that guarantees confidentiality. Analysts should be qualified to occupy the locus of the semblance without identifying with it. As we have seen, analysts are not placed voluntarily in any subjective locus; rather, analysands will place them according to the analysands* own psychic structure and the vicissitudes of their early childhood.

WHAT IS IT THEN THAT DEFINES PSYCHOANALYSIS? I will not refer here to the frequency of the sessions or to the implementation of an analytic setting. To define psychoanalysis by the frequency of four or five weekly sessions is inaccurate. We all know there are people who attend four or five weekly sessions and lie on the couch, and yet are unable to enter into the analytic process, while others who attend only two or three weekly sessions may do so. The establishment of the analytic device, therefore, does not depend on the frequency of the sessions. Then, if frequency does not define analysis, what does? Lacan defines analysis using the ethical criterion. In other words, for Lacan there is analysis when the analyst occupies the locus of the analyst and speaks from the analytic position.

ENDNOTES 1. See note 12, Chapter 25 (editor's note). 2. See note 1, Chapter 6 (editor's note).


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3. Jacques Lacan (1959-1960), The Seminar. Book VII. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959-1960, op. cit., p. 314 (editor's note). 4. UEthique du Bien-Dire, in Jacques Lacan, Television: A Challenge to the Psychoanalytic Establishment, edited by Joan Copjec, translated by Denis HoUier, Rosalind Kraus, and Annette Michelson. New York, London: W. W. Norton, 1990:65 (editor's note).

29 The Logic of the Analytic Act (II)

THE HORROR OF THE ACT If the analytic act can bring into consciousness some events of the past that had been repressed, it should not surprise us that this act may acquire a horrific quality. In his note to the Italian group, Lacan states that analysts experience horror regarding their act, to the point that they disavow it.1 The revelations of the unconscious produce anxiety, and that is why these discoveries are so often rejected and returned again to their unconscious state. Analysts should be prepared to tolerate this state of anxiety. Being qualified to endure the horror of their act will then enable them to sustain the revelations suggested in the latent content of the emergent material. Analysts will be able to do the work of the "alpha function" described by Bion,2 or the "work of reverie" this author described and Winnicott developed. They then will be able to endure the veiled presence in the analysands' latent material of their desire to kill their father, mother, siblings, or children, or their incestuous, perverse, envious, evil, homicidal, and scheming desires—in other

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words, those desires that are present in ordinary men and women and that analysts will be able to endure in the analysands because they have examined their own.

THE DIRECTION OF THE ANALYSIS The analysts' task is to help analysands learn the nature and the purpose of their own desires. Analysts must neither veil nor censor such a desire, nor applaud it, but rather enable the analysands to become aware of it. The analysts' work does not involve adjusting the analysands to society but helping them to be what they truly are, that is, helping them to act in conformity with their desires. The demand of analysands is a demand for well-being and happiness. Once analysands have disassembled their various symptoms and their awareness of being has begun to emerge, they realize that it is not possible to live in this world without a certain quantity of suffering, that is to say, of jouissance. Sometimes analysands cannot endure all these individual desires, and they must hide them, disguise them, give them an imaginary appearance, a clothing that will enable them to conceal the horror these desires arouse, thus hindering the progress of analysis.

THE LIMITS OF THE ACT The analytic act has its limits, which are given by the depth of each analyst's personal analysis. Analysts will not be able to work with the analysands on those elements they have not revised in their own analysis. Analysts will not be able to bear the horror of what they have not explored and do not know about themselves because of repression. In the apparent content of his or her speech, the analysand will suggest to the analyst something that the latter will not be able to detect—the analyst will not see the horror of what is present in the latent content. The analyst's desire, which will be what will finally lead him or her to the level of depth of his or her

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own analysis, has thus set unique limits to his or her act. Lacan states that psychoanalysts work using first their own symptoms, and then their fantasmes, as a reference. It is there that we will find the scope of their practice and the limits to their act.

AN UNTENABLE ACT The analytic act itself—the pure analytic act—is that by which analysts occupy their locus as a semblance and a receiver of the transference and speak from the position that corresponds to the analyst, namely, the position of not knowing, of the castrated subject. From this position the analysts, in the unfolding of the analysis, will daily query the unconscious of the analysands through misunderstandings or through open interpretations. To endure the passage of time, this process requires an analysand who is able to bear the solitude and anxiety of analysis and an analyst who can tolerate the horror of his or her act. Each analyst's style will give him or her a sense of the right time to intervene or to interpret, and the good sense to decide what to ignore from the emergent material and what to work on analytically. Melanie Klein used to say that everything that produces anxiety in the analysand may be interpreted immediately, whereas Freud would say that if patients are not prepared to assimilate or to understand our interpretation, they will simply ignore it. If analysts use these criteria to define the right time to act, analysis will become tolerable for both analysts and patients. During the analytic process, however, the analysts' concern (or anxiety) for the patients' wellbeing leads them to carry out other types of acts within the analytic process that differ from the pure analytic act. I am referring here to the pedagogic act and the orthopedic act.3

THE PEDAGOGIC ACT Through the pedagogic act the analyst, by means of words, proceeds to inform and to educate the analysand regarding a pressing


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issue. It is generally an issue that endangers the health, life, or personal property of the analysand or of his or her family. We could say that the analyst gives advice on a specific aspect of the analysand's life, that is, urgent matters such as the dangers of an unwanted pregnancy or the negation of serious health problems (like cancer) that jeopardize the analysand's life. Sometimes the issue at hand is an obvious instance of deceit that may threaten the analysand's property or that of his or her family and that has been negated or ignored by the analysand due to an unconscious need for punishment. The analyst may point out the mechanism of negation and its consequences, trying to hide or slighdy conceal the pedagogic act, or may just abandon the locus of the analyst and express concern regarding the danger the analysand faces. This rarely happens, but it does occur. In these cases, the analyst rightfully leaves his or her analytic locus and occupies that of the whole other, that is, of the other who knows, who is not castrated [s(A)J. Later on, the analyst may rescue himself or herself and return to his or her locus as object (a), the locus of the semblance.

THE ORTHOPEDIC ACT The orthopedic act is that act whereby the analyst, using the enormous power the analysand grants him or her in the transference, proceeds to support, order, or forbid something that is important or even vital for the analysand. The most common example is when the analyst acts as support for the analysand when he or she believes that he or she is crumbling or that his or her psychic functions are collapsing. This support works as a cane or crutch, hence the name orthopedic for this type of act. We find it more frequendy in deficient neurotic structures that attach themselves to the love object and to the analyst. In the face of the analysands' separation experiences (object losses), they may collapse. In the period of separation due to the holidays, the analysands* intense anxieties may be relieved if the analyst assures them that they can tolerate such a separation, thus offering a supportive element for their

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psyche. The analyst's voice (orthopedics through identification) will keep the analysands company and will tell them that they will be able to tolerate the separation until the therapy resumes. To hear the analyst's voice in the latter's answering machine is sometimes enough to produce an orthopedic effect. In the case of subjects with a phobic structure, the analyst's voice telling them that they can get on the plane and travel or that they can take the feared exam and that they will perform well may produce a very beneficial effect. In these cases the analyst, in a passage to act (or enactment), will voluntarily occupy the place of the whole, faultless Other, or s(A). Later on, the analyst should retrieve his or her proper locus—he or she should remain silent and return to the locus of the semblance.

THE POWER OF THE TRANSFERENCE I would like to stress that this is not an analytic act, but that throughout the process of working with serious neurotic disturbances with a deficit in the imaginary, analysts will need to rightfully resort to pedagogic and orthopedic acts. Nevertheless, over time, they should be able to stop performing such acts and recapture the locus and the position of the analyst. These acts are produced generally at specific moments in one session and, very rarely, in several sessions. The power granted to the analyst in the transference sustains the possibility of successfully forbidding or authorizing the analysand to do different things. I refer here to suicidal or homicidal moments during the analytic process. The analysand's unconscious indicators show the risk of suicide or homicide and the analyst cannot ignore them. The analyst should point out these indicators to the analysand and thus open a psychic space for the former to become present in the session. If the analyst succeeds, the analysand's suicidal or homicidal desires may usually be controlled within the analytic dialogue without the need for an orthopedic act. In some cases, when the impulse (the desire) to act is very strong, the analyst may use his or her transference power to


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forbid the analysand's passage to the act. The analyst's voice bears a power that is very useful in this type of serious neurotic disturbance, which operates entirely under the primal all-or-nothing principle. These analysands lack restraint and are not very reflexive, and they may easily pass to the act.

THE ANALYST IN THE ACT There are moments during the analytic process when analysts may perform either a passage to the act (enactment) or an acting out. As I have explained earlier,4 the notion of acting out refers to an act without a subject—an act the subject performs to relieve his or her anxiety without being aware of his or her unconscious conflict. How is it possible for analysts to act out during the session? The truth is that it is perfecdy possible for them not only to act out but also to present an acute somatic symptom. How do we explain this? Would it be due to the analysts' own inadequate or insufficient analysis? Not necessarily.

THE ANALYST AND DESIRE No matter how deep and prolonged the analyst's analysis may have been (and here we should remember the oceanic dimension of the unconscious), there are many aspects of the unconscious (mainly in the imaginary axis) that do not have access to language. This explains why projective identifications of the analyst may appear that trigger problems in the countertransference. With good reason, Lacan prefers to call this phenomenon "the analyst's transference." Such transference has no legitimate place in the analytic process. In the same way, the analyst's acting out has no legitimate place in the session, and neither does the analyst's sudden conversion symptom or somatic symptom. Still, it does happen. These manifestations of the countertransference (or of the analyst's transference) do not result from the analyst's inadequate or insufficient

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analysis but from a synchrony and symmetry between the analyst's repressed conflict and that of the analysand.

THE ANALYST IN SYMMETRY WITH THE ANALYSAND It is impossible to expect the analysts' psyches to become blank slates after their own personal analysis. Consequently, it is possible that, for haphazard reasons, the analyst may fall into symmetry with unconscious elements of the analysand. In this way, the analyst's arbitrary act may appear. For example, an analysand may find an analyst with his or her analytic capacities intact, and the following analysand, one hour later, may find that in this new session the same analyst produces a coughing fit or experiences an urgent need to urinate, a sudden and powerful sickness feeling, or a chest pain when certain unexpected material is presented. This analysand in particular has mobilized in the analyst unresolved aspects of the latter's imaginary axis. The analyst's analytic functions will be restored with the next analysand. In the same way, the analyst may perform an acting out. Examples of the latter: forgetting about an analysand who is waiting for a session in the waiting room while the analyst does something else; asking twice for the same monthly payment; forgetting to bill the analysand; refusing the analysand's acceptable request for a change in the appointment time; being bothered by the emergent material or by a peculiar behavior of the analysand; developing an erotic seductive behavior toward the analysand; or falling asleep during a session. In some cases these acts may be caused by the analyst's inadequate analysis or by a personal crisis in his or her life. In other cases, a symmetry with the repressed material in the analysand has generated that particular effect in the analyst, with the corresponding acting out. This act may lead the analyst to reexamine those elements of his or her psyche and, possibly, to know himself or herself better, in a never-ending process. Analysts thus cannot escape the learning effect and the


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consequent personal evolution that the analysand brings about in them.

ETHICS AND THE ANALYTIC SETTING In psychoanalysis, words and silence constitute an act. Every session starts from scratch and progresses under the effect of the transference and countertransference (and the analyst's transference as well). It is in the performance of his or her analytic act that the analyst will emerge as such. What defines an act as analytic is its ethics and not the analytic setting.

THE ANALYST AND HIS OR HER WORD—A SUMMARY When analysts decide to intervene with their word, they will do so from a certain position. What is this position? It is the one where analysts utter their word or silence from the position of the castrated subject, without the conviction of truth. Every time analysts speak, analysands expect them to do so from their full wisdom. Analysands believe that the analyst's word will finally offer them the revealed truth, which will lead to peace and happiness. The analysts are then the receiver, in the transference, of the knowledge and love the analysands expect in turn to receive. When engaging in their act, analysts will find the limits, the horror, and the untenability of such an act. In their concern (or anxiety) for the well-being of the analysand, analysts may depart from the pure analytic act and slip into the pedagogic or the orthopedic act. We designate as a pedagogic act the one whereby the analyst proceeds to inform and educate the analysand through words in relation to some urgent matter. In general, it is a matter that endangers the health, life, or personal property of the analysand or of his or her family. We could say that the analyst proceeds to give advice on a specific aspect of the analysand's life. We designate as the orthopedic

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act the one whereby the analyst, using the enormous power the analysand grants him or her in the transference, proceeds to order or forbid the analysand to do something in particular that is vital or important for the latter. It is most common for the analyst to act as a support for the analysand when the latter believes that his or her psychic functioning is collapsing.

ENDNOTES 1. Jacques Lacan (1973), "Note to the Italian Group," translated by Russell Grigg, Analysis No. 7, Centre for Psychoanalytic Research, Melbourne, Australia, 1997. 2. Wilfred Bion developed this concept in "A Theory of Thinking," International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 43:306-310 and in Learning from Experience. London: Heinemann, 1962. According to R. D.Hinshelwood "the term 'alpha function' stands for the unknown process involved in taking raw sense data and generating out of it mental contents which have meaning, and can be used for thinking" (A Dictionary ofKleinian Thought. London: Free Associations Books, 1991: 217) (editor's note). 3. See Chapter 25 (editor's note). 4. See Chapter 19 (editor's note).

30 The Logic of Specificity

WHAT DEFINES PSYCHOANALYSIS? We have frequently observed that the first answer given to this difficult question quotes the technical principles of psychoanalysis. Yet defining the specificity of psychoanalysis by its technique has turned out to be inaccurate. The presence of the transference, the frequency and regularity of the sessions, interpretation in and of itself, the acceptance of the unconscious, free association, the analytic setting, and regression and resistance do not grant psychoanalysis its true specificity. These are important aspects of psychoanalytic theory and technique and they shape the way we work, but they do not define psychoanalysis in its uniqueness—they are present in other types of interviews and therapeutic approaches. In these various therapeutic approaches we find that transference (albeit not worked analytically), interventions to give advice (that might sometimes be considered interpretations), resistance (which is sometimes ignored), a regularity in the sessions with either high or low frequency, and regression (which may take other names) are present, as is the acceptance of the existence and significance of the unconscious (named differendy as well).

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WHEN CAN WE SAY THAT A SESSION IS ACTUALLY AN ANALYTIC SESSION? I suggest that the specificity of psychoanalysis lies in the analyst's person and not in analytic technique. I am referring here to the analyst's ability to incorporate two elements that are specific to a very special ability and training: the mode of listening and the singularity of what the analyst says.

Mode of Listening Analysts have a particular way of listening that is difficult to acquire and therefore requires a deep personal analysis. I am referring to the ability to listen without making a value judgment, that is, to listen without being in symmetry with the analysand. The human being's natural attitude is to listen with empathy and with a tendency to identify with the speaker. In this way, the personal values and system of ideals of the listener are activated, inevitably producing a value judgment. Analysts are the only ones who, due to their vocation, training (personal analysis), and learning (and maybe also a natural gift), can listen without identifying, and therefore without operating—through unconscious mechanisms—with value judgments. Analysts thus provide a special and privileged listening specific to psychoanalysis. If we found this special mode of listening in other types of interviews, we would say that they offer a psychoanalytic listening, because this mode of listening is specific to psychoanalysis.

The Singularity of the Analyst's Speech In the same way, the analyst's intervention is a particular one, be it an intervention through the word (interpretation), through the analyst's act, or through silence. The analyst is neither a counselor nor a guide—neither approves nor disapproves. The analyst is

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neither a judge nor a professor. He or she is the only one who, in speaking, seeks to show the route to the unconscious, be it by pointing out the transference or by unveiling the repressed. Preferably, the analyst intervenes from where he or she is not expected and in a somewhat enigmatic manner. The effects the word will have will depend on the listener, since the latter will be the only one to discover the effect of whatever he or she has heard under the tyranny of his or her own subjectivity. Again, we find that this special way of speaking (the analyst's word) is unique and specific to psychoanalysis.

31 The Logic of Psychoanalytic Supervision

TEACHING OR DISCOVERING? Psychoanalytic supervision is a learning opportunity, both through teaching and through discovery. Thus, supervision covers two key dimensions: first, the transmission of psychoanalytic knowledge, often called "teaching"; and second, the discovery candidates will make of their new, previously unknown capacity to carry out the analytic act. Supervision offers a space to perform this difficult task, a space subjected to the unavoidable presence of the transference and countertransference. Candidates will (or will not) be able to discover their capacity to detect the unconscious in the material the analysand presents in the session. The supervisor cannot bestow or teach this special ability. Nonetheless, candidates who possess such an ability may not know how to work with it or may encounter difficulties or interferences, resistances or blind areas to the horror that the discovery of that repressed content within themselves might produce. Supervisors can help candidates recognize and analytically explore these contents. It is in the analytic

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work carried out by the supervisor and the personal analyst that the potential for the candidate's transformation resides. In this way, a synergy may emerge between the work of the supervisor and that of the personal analyst.

THE PROBLEM OF THE TRAINING MODEL The problem of the boundaries of psychoanalytic supervision and of the depth it may reach in relation to the candidate's psyche has given rise to intense debates since the 1930s. In 1953 Noami Blitzten and Joan Fleming, among others, claimed that the supervisor should also engage in a therapeutic work with the supervisee.1 They affirmed that a good supervision helps students recognize their own unresolved psychic conflicts, and they recommended that candidates explore such conflicts analytically with the supervisor when the conflicts interfered with the candidates' analytic work. By contrast, Jacob Arlow insisted on the need to define the boundaries of supervision.2 He affirmed that the supervisors' interventions should be constrained in their depth—that in relation to the candidates' psyche, such interventions should only refer to the most superficial phenomena, maybe pointing out only the most evident unconscious motivations without trying to interpret. Arlow asserted that we must not forget that the psychoanalytic supervision is an experience whose only role is the transmission of (theoretical and technical) knowledge. Le6n Grinberg, in turn, in his well-known text on psychoanalytic supervision, clearly establishes the difference between the latter and personal analysis when he affirms that psychoanalytic interpretation should take place only in the space of personal analysis.3 If the supervisor gave an interpretation to the candidate, with this act he or she would be transforming psychoanalytic supervision into personal analysis. Grinberg considers that far from helping the teaching-learning process, interpreting the supervisee creates unnecessary distortions in it. When necessary, he prefers to recommend that the supervisee bring such elements observed in the supervision to his or her personal analysis.

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ANALYSENKONTROLLE AND KONTROLLANALYSE These discrepancies concerning the establishment of a model for analytic supervision may be traced back to the beginnings of psychoanalysis. Max Eitingon made his famous proposal to reorganize psychoanalytic education in Berlin in 1922. 4 There he suggested the classic tripod of psychoanalytic training, namely, training (or didactic) analysis, clinical supervision, and official seminars. Eitingon even suggested that candidates not begin their analytic practice until they had finished their training analysis. This aspect of his proposal was not welcomed by the European institutes of the time. From then on, the boundaries between clinical supervision and training analysis were never established in a technically clear way. Coincidentally with Eitingon's model, Sandor Ferenczi and Otto Rank developed a different project in Budapest in 1924, suggesting that candidates begin their analytic practice when still in training analysis.5 This training analysis was called Analysenkontrolle, while the analytic supervision was called Kontrollanalyse. Such a designation reveals the inverted facets of the same process. Ferenczi and Rank expected candidates to analytically explore the unconscious relationship they established with their patients and thus achieve a deeper understanding of their own resistances and difficulties in the conduct of their analytic work. In their training analysis or Analysenkontrolle, candidates could explore even more openly and in more depth the origin of their difficulties with, and resistances to, analytic work. What is important about this model is that the Hungarians considered that, in the environment of analytic clinical supervision, candidates could be invited to associate freely and to explore more deeply the nature of the relationship that they maintained with their patients. There were two different aspects to this relationship. One was the emotional response of the analyst to what the patient projected (called countertransference), and the other was the analyst's transference. Ferenczi and Rank mentioned Freud and said that the analysis candidates conducted could not go beyond the unconscious


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conflicts worked and solved by the analysts themselves. The limits of the candidates' own analysis would constitute the limits of the candidates' analytic act. It was clear to them that the candidates' transference reactions to their patients were the most important thing to be explored analytically, and that the transmission of theoretical and technical knowledge was secondary. The personal analyst would conduct the Analy$enkontrolle> and the supervisor, the Kontrollanalyse. The topic is both controversial and crucial. At different times since 1930, different analysts have taken a stance in relation to this dilemma. In the 1950s, for instance, both M. Grotjahn and S. Keiser stated that they considered it very valuable for personal analysts to become their former analysands' analytic supervisor after the training analysis had ended.6 They believed that the postanalytic transference relationship and the knowledge the now-supervisor had of the candidate, derived from the analysis, would increase the depth of the supervising work.

APPROACHES WITHIN THE INTERNATIONAL PSYCHOANALYTIC ASSOCIATION (IPA) At present, in almost all the IPA institutes it is standard to respect the approach that limits the analytic clinical supervision in a voluntary way. It is not an official norm of the IPA, but the general practice insists on maintaining a clear division between the fields of training analysis and official supervision, coinciding with the guidelines expressed by Arlow and Grinberg. Nevertheless, in the intimacy of their work, many analytic supervisors who are members of the IPA continue to consider it useful for the candidate's transformation process to have access to the candidate's personal life and internal world, allowing the supervisor to explore in the supervision different aspects related to the transference and countertransference processes. This approach implies a greater freedom to occupy an analytic position in the supervision. It seems that, seen from a historical perspective, what led to the abandonment of the Hungarian model were the difficulties that

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arose from the transference power placed on the figure of the clinical supervisor, which was added to the power already attributed to the training analyst. How much power is it advisable to accumulate in these two figures? How much theoretical rivalry may develop between them? How to reconcile what seems to be the simultaneous presence of two analysts? If the relationship between them is friendly and if there are no serious theoretical or conceptual differences regarding the nature of what they both mean by psychoanalysis, then the Hungarian model could be applied successfully without further conflict. In that case, the candidate would have an extraordinary opportunity for transformation. If the conditions of the relationship between the two analysts are different, then the IPA-Eitingon model would be the most suitable. Still, we must acknowledge that even if we use any of these two models, the candidate will unavoidably maintain a working relationship with two analysts with whom he or she establishes a transference bond, and that a third analyst will appear with the second official supervision. The presence of the third analyst will be useful in helping the candidate discriminate between the two preceding ones.

A CLINICAL VIGNETTE I will illustrate this dilemma of the two models with a clinical vignette of a candidate under supervision. This supervisee is a 35year-old married male candidate. He says that he takes written notes of the analysis of two of his male patients, this not being the case with the rest of his patients. He brings one of these cases to supervision with Esperanza P£rez de Pla.7 This particular analysand is a 27-year-old single man who suffers from homosexual anxieties. In a recent opportunity, while being drunk, he had a sexual encounter in a car with a homosexual transvestite. During his supervision, the candidate has shown a certain difficulty in working analytically with this patient. The candidate says he is more interested in working with his next patient. He smiles and adds that the latter is a beautiful woman. On another occasion


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he says that his male patient does things that bother and irritate him. For example, this patient invites an attractive woman to go out and describes the encounter in some detail. The patient says that they had a good time and that at the end she kissed him. He left because he says he did not feel anything. He compares this episode with feelings he had in the past toward another woman. Finally, the anaiysand tells this woman they can only be friends. He rejected another woman because she would arrive late when they went out together. The candidate says, uTo me, when he . . . repeatedly complains about women, it sounds absurd His complaints are absurd, and I find myself irritated What I find most disturbing is the thought that he suffers from a heterosexual block, because at bottom he is looking for something homosexual, and this, to me, is absurd." And he adds, "Sometimes, irritated, I think, but don't say, 'You are sexually blocked with women because you're thinking about men.'" The most important help analytic supervisors can offer to a candidate under supervision has to do with the transference and countertransference elements that are present in the material. It is, therefore, unavoidable—and also necessary and potentially profitable—to work analytically with the candidate's psychic life. In this particular case, we must show the candidate that he may suffer from some form of homosexual anxiety. We must point out to him that the irritation he feels regarding the patient's so-called heterosexual block may arise from his own frustrated desire that his patient will stop thinking about men. In the analytic supervision it is most important to show the candidate these repressed elements and to invite him to elaborate on them in the context of the transference and countertransference. To ignore these issues and to concentrate on the analysand's psychic life (his complaints about not having a girlfriend or his difficulties in keeping a girlfriend) will favor the candidate's unconscious resistance concerning his own sexual desires and conflicts, which is what is really interfering with his analytic work. This sexual conflict is what prevents the candidate from occupying his locus and his position as analyst. Unveiling these repressed elements will undoubtedly produce anxiety in the candidate.

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These elements may be worked through in the psychoanalytic supervision as much as the time constraints will permit. Later on, the candidate may bring all these anxieties to his daily analytic session. When the candidate brings to analysis fragments of sessions with his own patients through free association, an entirely new world of problems opens up for the training analyst. The latter must determine when this associative material serves resistance and when it serves the analysis. Here the case-by-case law applies. For instance, in the case of this candidate I have just mentioned, he could bring to his personal analysis all these anxieties in relation to his personal repressed sexual desires that were mobilized in the session he had with an analysand, and then discuss them again in his meeting with his analytic supervisor. In the context of his personal analysis, this material would serve his analysis. Not speaking about it would imply a resistance to gaining knowledge about himself. Yet not all cases are like this one. Sometimes candidates flood their personal analysis with clinical material coming from a session with an analysand, running the risk of increasingly transforming their analysis into a supervision. In the latter case, bringing this material would serve resistance.

SUPERVISION AND RESISTANCE I want to introduce here another clinical vignette that may help illustrate this last point even better. It is associative material a candidate brings to her training analysis (not to the supervision). This material refers to a case that the candidate is analyzing, and it could imply an attempt to slip the personal analysis into a clinical supervision. The outcome shows that the material produced served analysis and not resistance.8 The candidate lies down on the couch and associates about an analysand that she has seen the previous day. Even before today's session she had already thought about this analysand several times. She thought of the unfolding of suffering and of the apparent need to suffer that this analysand often shows. The candidate begins to


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reconstruct parts of that session. She narrates that the analysand complains about her ex-boyfriend, with whom she has occasional encounters. She complains about his lack of fitness and cleanliness, and especially about his smoking, even though she had a good time with him. Then she talks about another former boyfriend, who to her surprise has invited her out again. She complains about this man's disposition and about the fact that even though he seeks her, he says he does not like brunettes, that he loves blond women. This patient has brown hair. She feels rejected and not loved, and yet she continues dating him. Here the candidate expresses her own annoyance and she exclaims, "That man is an idiot!" Her analysand keeps complaining, now about her new job. She complains that she has to work downtown and that the people there are very ugly. In the same way, she complains about her coworkers because they are ordinary and ugly. The candidate adds that when talking about these topics, this analysand always conveys a victim's feelings with a certain transferential masochistic pleasure. The candidate tells me that she cannot tolerate the annoyance this analysand arouses in her, and she does not like to feel this way. She complains that in the last eight months, due to the patient's unemployment, she has had to reduce weekly sessions from three to one, which has made her feel somewhat upset. The candidate says that she does not understand how some analysts can work comfortably with one session a week. I intervene and tell her that she is suffering, but that the most important thing is the way she tells me about this suffering. I understand that if she saw her analysand morefrequendyshe would suffer less; it would be more comfortable for her. I think: What about me? Would she want to see me more often? Might she be suffering with me? Finally I suggest to her that the reduction of the number of sessions brings about a feeling of impotence in the practice of her analytic work and that the impotence is what she cannot bear. I add that the candidate's desire is to change the life of her analysand and make her go out with more appropriate men, not with an idiot. Here the candidate faces an impossibility, and hence she suffers (as a product of her transference).

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The candidate listens to this interpretation and says that she is certain that she is suffering, but she does not agree with the reason I have suggested for such suffering. She tells me that now she realizes what is going on. She understands that she suffers because with the setting of one weekly session, the analysand can only reach a cathartic evacuation of her annoyances and complaints, and then there is no time for doing anything else. The candidate cannot find time in the session to open an analytic space—everything is a cathartic evacuation. The next session, a week later, the same thing will occur. Many things will have happened in one week, and therefore the session will always become a cathartic evacuation. The candidate suggests that her suffering stems from not being able to satisfy her desire to carry out her analytic work. She is forced to be no more than a receiver of her patient's cathartic evacuation. I ask her if that is not also part of the analytic function. The candidate answers that she understands that this is the case, but that at this stage in her career she prefers to be able to work by querying the patient's unconscious, and that with this patient she needs more than one session a week to progress from the locus of simple container to that of inquiry. She says that now she has realized that it is imperative to add at least one session per week and to place it preferably very close to the first one. Having two sessions close together would prevent the patient's accumulation of new evacuative material, and the candidate could try to get the patient to begin to question herself about this strange addiction to suffering. Now, from the point of view of the candidate, what has happened from the analytic perspective? Has all this worked in the service of resistance? Has there been some opening to unconscious elements? Has something been revealed? The truth is, not too much. These associations enabled the analytic exploration of a few things in relation to desire. What is it that this candidate wants to do with her patient? This undoubtedly is not a case of juror curandis (the belief that analysts can cure it all). But neither should one perpetuate an uncomfortable analytic situation that, if not worked through by the candidate, might lead to the latter's unconscious rejection of the patient. This ex-


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ploration was achieved. It opened up this candidate's oedipal area— the oedipal girl who refuses at first to be a passive witness, and later the mere container of the mother's suffering. The girl was willing neither to tolerate this suffering nor to remain passive in front of it. From here stems the idea that "I must do something else because I feel uncomfortable." This development shows that due to the transference of her childhood oedipal elements to her relationship with her analysand, remaining passive makes the candidate very uncomfortable. The candidate has discovered that such passivity is not possible for her. It was not possible during her oedipal stage, nor is it possible now. Consequently, this material, which at first impression seems like a clinical supervision, looks now like an associative material that may serve the analysis and not resistance.

IN OTHER WORDS—SUMMARIZING Psychoanalytic supervision becomes a learning opportunity through teaching and discovery. Supervision thus covers two key dimensions, namely, the transmission of psychoanalytic knowledge (often referred to as teaching) and the candidates' discovery of their new ability to perform the analytic act. The supervision will offer candidates a space to carry out this difficult task in the unavoidable presence of the transference with the supervisor. The problem of the limited scope of psychoanalytic supervision in relation to the candidates' psyche has caused intense debates during the last sixty years. There are analysts who claim that analytic supervision should include therapeutic work with the supervisee. They affirm that a good supervision helps candidates recognize their unresolved psychic conflicts, and they recommend exploring such conflicts analytically with the supervisor when they interfere with the candidates' analytic work. Other analysts, by contrast, insist on the need to define the boundaries of supervision. They affirm that the supervisor's interventions should be limited in relation to their depth, mainly

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avoiding interpretations. These analysts argue that psychoanalytic interpretation should take place only in the space of personal analysis. These discrepancies in relation to the model to use in clinical supervision have their origin in earlier years, when Max Eitingon9 set forth his famous proposal of the tripod to reorganize psychoanalytic education in Berlin.

ENDNOTES 1. M. Blitzten and J. Fleming (1953), What Is Supervisory Analysis? Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic 17:117-129. 2. Jacob Arlow (1963), The Supervisory Situation. JAPA 11:576-594. 3. Le6n Grinberg (1965), La Supervisidn Psicoanalitica [Psychoanalytic Supervision]. Buenos Aires: Editorial Paidos. [I have not found an English translation, editor's note.] 4. Max Eitingon (1922), Report to the International Training Commission. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 7:130-134. 5. Sandor Ferenczi and Otto Rank (1924), Entwicklungszwiele der Psychoanalyse. Vienna: New Arbeiten zur arzzlichen Psa. 6. M. Grotjahn (1955), Problems and Techniques in Supervision. Psychiatry 18:9-15; S. Keiser (1956), The Technique of Supervised Analysis. JAPA 4:539-549. 7. I am grateful to Esperanza P6rez de Pla, from Mexico, for allowing me to discuss this case with her during the 39th IPA International Congress, San Francisco (1995). 8. The candidate in question has authorized the use of this material. 9. Eitingon (1922), op. cit.

Index

Absent Other, 52-53. See also Other saying the unexpected, 244-245 Absolute jouissance, 64. See also transference, nonsymbolized Jouissance elements of, 243 Addictions, borderline states, transference interpretation, 243-245 160-161 who is an analyst, 245-246 Adhesive states, borderline states, Analytic act (II), 248-256 154-155 analyst in, 253 Affirmation, psychoses, 166-167 desire, analyst and, 253-254 Althusser, Louis, xvi direction of analysis, 249 Anaclitic object, 36 ethics, 255 Analyst, object (a) and, 59-60 horror of, 248-249 Analytic act (I), 241-247 limits of, 249-250 analyst orthopedic act, 251-252 locus of, 242-243 pedagogic act, 250-251 position of, 244 symmetry of analyst and analytic device, establishment of, 241-242 analysand, 254 becoming waste, 242 transference, power of, 252call to knowledge in other, 241 253 knowing too much, 245 untenable act, 250

272

INDEX

Analytic symptom, clinical symptom and, 84. See also Symptom Annihilation anxiety, defined, 25 Anxiety, 2 3 - 2 8 defined, 2 3 - 2 4 Freudian perspective, 24 object (a) and, 27, 59 presence in excess, 2 6 - 2 7 present absence, 27 subject and, 45 types of, 2 4 - 2 6 Anzieu, Didier, 153 Arlow, Jacob, 261, 263

recognition and affirmation needs, 150 second skin, 153-154 sexuality identity, 155-156 specificity dimensions, 147148 Borromean knot. See also RSI graph RSI graph, 17 subject and, 47-48 symptom as signifier, 78 topology and, RSI graph, 20-22 transference graph, 239-240 Buftuel, Luis, 154

Bereavement, depression, 121-123 Bick, Esther, 2 5 , 1 5 3 Big Other, 53. See also Other Bion, Wilfred, 2 5 , 1 5 3 , 1 5 8 , 1 7 4 175, 200, 208, 212, 245 Bisexuality, negative transference, 229-230 Bleger,Jos£, 154 Blitzten, Naomi, 261 Borderline states, 147-162 adhesive or parasitic states, 154-155 compulsions and addictions, 160-161 domination, discourse of, 151153 hole, 149-150 ideals system, 156-158 impulse control, 159-160 object relations, 151 paradigm problems, 148-149 perspective, reversal of, 158159

Castration anxiety, 23-24 imaginary, suicide, 136-137 Castration anxiety, defined, 26 Cathexis, object, 34-35 Cause, 68-76 complemental series, 68-69 psychic conflict, 72-73 psychic deficit, logic of, 73-75 RSI graph, 75 trauma, logic of, 69-72 Clinical symptom, analytic symptom and, 84. See also Symptom Complemental series, cause, 6869 Compulsions, borderline states, 160-161 Cut, subject in the moment of, 45-46 Death drive, suicide, 135 Delusions, psychoses, 171-172

INDEX Depression, 120-130 bereavement and mourning, 121-123 clinical manifestations, 123124 depressive state, 127-129 jouissance, 125-127 masochism, 124-125 structure or symptom, 120-121 suicide, 129-130 Desire, 1-7 analyst and, analytic act (II), 253-254 Freudian perspective, 1-2 instatement of, 3 lack, dialectic of, 6 need, 4-5 object (a), loss of, 5-6 of the Other, 1 of the Other's desire, 3 satisfaction experience of, 2 repetition of, 2-3 series of signiflers, 10 specifications, 3-4 subject and, 44-45 Despair, depressive state, 128-129 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) borderline states, 147-148 symptom, 77-78 Dissociative crisis, hysterical madness, 106-107 Drive, object of, 33-34 Eitingon, Max, 262, 264 Empty speech, full speech and, transference structure, 207

273

Enunciation, statement and, subject, 43 Ethics analytic act (I), 245-246 analytic act (II), 255 suicide, 131-132 Exhibitionism, perversion, 182-183 Experience, of satisfaction, desire, 2 Fading of subject, 46-47 Fantasme, 89-93 construction of, 90-91 defined, 89-90 matheme of, 91-92 perversion, 185-187,188-189 symptasme and, 94-95 symptom and, 92 transference structure, 216 traversing of, 92-93 Fantasy, trauma, logic of, cause, 70-71 Feminine jouissance, 64. See also Jouissance Fenichel, Otto, 178 Ferenczi, Sandor, 262 First signifier, 14 Flaviusjosephus, 145 Fleming, Joan, 261 Fragments, object (a), 56-57 Freud, Sigmund, 1-3,11-12, 20, 24, 26,34-36,61,62,64,65, 68, 71, 72-73, 79,89,94, 124-125,133,135,148,166, 178-179,185,192, 207-208, 242, 262 Full speech, empty speech and, transference structure, 207

274

INDEX

Goldstein, Mirta, 71, 72 Grinberg, Leon, 261, 263 Grotjahn, M., 263 Guilbaud, Georges, 21 Guilt, masochism, depression, 124-125 Hallucination, psychoses, 171-172 Hate depressive state, 127-128 toward object, suicide, 136 transference structure, 210-211 Hegel, G. W. F., 3 Heroic suicide, 130,143-144. See also Suicide Hole borderline states, 149-150 depression, 123-124 subject and, 48-49 Hope, dialectic of, suicide, 133-134 Hopelessness, depressive state, 128-129 Hysteria, 99-107 madness, 106-107 matheme of, 101-105 phenomenology of, 99-101 types of, 105 Hysterization phenomenon, obsession, 112-113 Ideals system, borderline states, 156-158 Imaginary castration, suicide, 136-137 Imaginary order. See also RSI graph narcissistic (imaginary) axis, phobias, 108-109

RSI graph, 17,18 transference graph, 235-237 Impasse, resistance or, negative transference, 219-220 Impulse control, borderline states, 159-160 Inner emptiness. See Hole International Classification of Diseases (ICD) borderline states, 147-148 symptom, 77-78 International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA), supervision, 263-264 Interpretation, transference, 202, 243-244 Jakobson, Roman, 9 Jouissance, 61-67 depression, 125-127 logic of, 62-63 masochism, 64-65 perverse structure, 193-194 pleasure and, 66 psychic suffering, 61-62 relief of state of, 65-66 series of signifiers, 10 symptasme matheme (1), 96-97 as symptom, 65 symptom ma themes (1), 80-82 types of, 63-64 Joyce,James,87,88 Keiser, S., 263 Klein, Melanie, 25,36-37, 212, 250 Knowledge, subject and, 46 Koj£ve, Alexandre, 3

INDEX Lack, dialectic of, desire, 6 Lacking Other, 52. See also Other Lack of the lack, anxiety, 26-27 Lack of the object, chart of, 38-40 Lagache, Daniel, 46-47, 210-211 Language, wall of, transference structure, 205-207 Laurent, Eric, 216 Letter, symbolic order and, signifier, 14-15 Limentani, Adam, 187 Linguistics, signifier, 8-9 Litde other, other, 52. See also Other Love object (a) and, 58 suicide, 134-135 transference structure, 211-213 Love object, 36 Masada, suicide, 145-146 Mask of appearance, phallus, 3132 Masochism. See also Psychic suffering depression, 124-125 Freudian perspective, 61-62 jouissance, 64-65 perversion, 183-185 Mass suicide, 144-146 Mathemes (1), symptom, 80-82 (2), symptasme, 97 (2), symptom, 82-83 fantasme, 91-92 hysteria, 101-105 obsessive neurosis, 116-119 Meaning, truth and, signifier, 10

275

Meltzer, Donald, 25,154 Metaphor phallic signifier, 29-30 signifier, 10-11 Metonymy, signifier, 11-12 Miller, Jacques-Alain, xv, 10,87,94 Moebius strip, subject in the moment of the cut, 46 Moral masochism. See Masochism Mourning, depression, 121-123 Muteness, desire, 3-4 M'Uzan, Michel de, 184-185 Mystic jouissance, 64 Name-of-the-Father, foreclosure of, psychoses, 164-165 Narcissistic (imaginary) axis, phobias, 108-109 Nasio,J.D.,44,66 Need, desire, 4-5 Negative transference, 219-233. See also Transference; Transference graph; Transference structure bisexuality, 229-230 case history, 224-225 clinical reaction, 220-224 Master's discourse (Lacan), 231-232 phallic other, tyranny of, 228229 phallic semblance, 233 qualified listener, 226-227 resistance or impasse, 219-220 suspended attention, 229 transference, establishment of, 226 tyrannical bond, 232-233

276

INDEX

Object, 3 3 - 4 1 anaclitic object, 3 6 cathexis, 3 4 - 3 5 of the drive, 3 3 - 3 4 Freudian perspective, 3 4 Kleinian perspective, 3 6 lack of the object, chart of, 38-40 love object, 3 6 object (a), 3 7 - 3 8 part-objects, 35 splitting of, 35 total object, 3 6 - 3 7 transitional object, 37 two-faced, 3 3 Object (a), 5 6 - 6 0 analyst and, 5 9 - 6 0 anxiety, 27 anxiety and, 59 complexity of, 5 7 - 5 8 fragments, 5 6 - 5 7 Lacan, 3 7 - 3 8 loss of, desire, 5 - 6 love and, 58 psychoanalysis, 56 sexual relations, 59 topological object, 57 Object relations, borderline states, 151 Obsessive neurosis, 112-119 hysterization phenomenon, 112-113 mathemes, 116-119 phenomenology of, 113-116 structure of, 116 Oedipus complex fantasme, 89-90 Oedipal (symbolic) axis, phobias, 109-110

Opaque, symptom as, 80 Orthopedic act, analytic act (II), 251-252 Other, 51-55 absent Other, 52-53 being the desire of, 1 big Other, 53 desire of the Other's desire, 3 hysterical madness, 106 lacking Other, 52 little other, 52 phallic, negative transference, 228-229 phallus of, 30-31 schema lambda, 53-55 subject and, 47 symbolic, 51-52 Parasitic states, borderline states, 154-155 Part-objects, 35 Pedagogic act, analytic act (II), 250-251 Perez de Pla, Esperanza, 264-266 Perspective, reversal of, borderline states, 158-159 Perverse structure, 191-196 Perversion, 177-190. See also Sexuality clinical descriptions, 178-180 clinical practice, 180-181 definitions, 177-178 examples, 187-188 exhibitionism, 182-183 fantasme, 185-187, 188-189 masochism, 183-185 perverse act, meaning of, 181182,185

INDEX perverse structure, formation of, 191-196 psychoanalysis, 177 Phallic jouissance, 63-64. See also Jouissance Phallic other, negative transference, 228-229, 232233. See also Other Phallus, 29-32 logic of, 30 mask of appearance, 31-32 meaning of, 29 perverse structure, 192-193 phallic signifier, 29-30 phallus of the Other, 30-31 sexual relations, 31 Phobias, 108-111 clinical practice, 108 construction of, 110 curable and incurable forms of, 110-111 narcissistic (imaginary) axis, 108-109 Oedipal (symbolic) axis, 109-110 Pleasure principle, jouissance and, 62-63,66 Presence in excess, anxiety, 26-27 Present absence, anxiety, 27 Prosthesis psychoses, 172-173 symptom as, symptom-clamp theory and, 87-88 Psychic conflict, logic of, cause, 72-73 Psychic deficit, logic of, cause, 73-75 Psychic structure, symptom and, 79

277

Psychic suffering. See also Masochism depression, 125-126 jouissance, 61-62 Psychic trauma. See Trauma Psychoanalytic supervision. See Supervision Psychoses, 163-176 affirmation, 166-167 differential diagnosis, 163 elementary phenomenon, 167171 Name-of-the-Father, foreclosure of, 164-165 preamble to, 164 psychoanalysis, 174^175 psychotic production, 171172 schema 1,165 supplement or prosthesis, 172173 triggering of breakdown, 173174 Radical suicide, 130,141-143. See also Suicide Rank, Otto, 262 Reality, real order, RSI graph, 1920 Real order. See also RSI graph RSI graph, 17,19-20 symptasme and, 95-96 symptom, 79-80 trauma, logic of, cause, 71-72 Reich, Wilhelm, 212 Repetition of satisfaction, desire, 2-3 transference as, 199-200

278

INDEX

Resistance impasse or, negative transference, 2 1 9 - 2 2 0 supervision and, 2 6 6 - 2 6 9 transference as, 2 0 0 - 2 0 1 transference structure, 215 Rosenfeld, Herbert, 1 5 4 , 1 5 5 RSI graph, 1 7 - 2 2 Borromean knot and topology, 20-22 cause, 75 imaginary order, 18 psychic conflict, logic of, cause, 73 real order, 19-20 signifier, 10 sinthome, logic of, symptom, 86-87 symbolic order, 18-19 symptom, 78-79 topology, 17 transference graph, 234-235 transference structure, 203-204 trauma, logic of, cause, 69-70 Sacher-Masoch, Leopold von, 183-184 Sade, Marquis de, 184 Satisfaction experience of, desire, 2 impossibility of, desire, 4 repetition of, desire, 2-3 Saussure, Ferdinand de, 8, 9 Schema lambda object (a), 57 Other, 53-55 Second skin, borderline states, 153-154

Self-esteem, masochism, depression, 125 Self-hate, depressive state, 127128 Semblance imaginary order, RSI graph, 18 symptom mathemes (1), 82 Separation anxiety, defined, 25-26 Series of signifiers, 10 Sexual fantasy, trauma, logic of, cause, 70-71 Sexual identity, borderline states, 155-156 Sexuality. See also Perversion desire, 4 object (a), 59 phallus, 31 psychoses, 167-171 Sign, signifier, 12-13 Signifier, 8-16 defined, 12-13 desire, 5 Lacan, 9 linguistics, 8-9 meaning and truth, 10 metaphor, 10-11 metonymy, 11-12 origin of, 13-14 series of, 10 signifying chain, 9 statement and enunciation, 44 subject of the unconscious, 42 symbolic order and letter, 14-15 symptom as, 78 word, effect of, 42-43 Simenon, Georges, 181 Sinthome, logic of, symptom, 8687

INDEX Specificity, 257-259 Splitting, of object, 35 Statement, enunciation and, subject, 43 Subject, 42-50 anxiety and, 45 Borromean knot and, 47-48 desire and, 44-45 fading of, 46-47 hole and, 48-49 knowledge and, 46 in the moment of the cut, 45-46 Other and, 47 statement and enunciation, 43 of the unconscious, 42 word, effect of, 42-43 zero and, 43-44 Suffering. See Psychic suffering Suicide, 131-146 castration, imaginary, 136-137 clinical management, 139-140 death drive, 135 depression, 129-130 ethics, 131-132 hate, toward object, 136 heroic suicide, 143-144 hope, dialectic of, 133-134 imminent risk, 140-141 love, 134-135 Masada, 145-146 mass suicide, 144-146 radical suicide, 141-143 scenarios and fictions, 138 as symptom, 133,138-139 triggering factor, 137 vertices, 132-133 Supervision, 260-270 clinical vignette, 264-266

279

International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA), 263264 resistance and, 266-269 teaching and discovery, 260261 training model historical perspective, 262263 problem of, 261 Supplement, psychoses, 172-173 Supremacy of the signifier, 13 Symbolic order. See also RSI graph letter and, signifier, 14-15 Oedipal (symbolic) axis, phobias, 109-110 RSI graph, 17,18-19 transference graph, 237-238 Symbolic Other, 51-52 Symmetry, of analyst and analysand, analytic act (II), 254 Symptasme, 94-98 construction of, 95 fantasme and, 94-95 matheme (1), 96-97 matheme (2), 97 Real and, 95-96 unary trait, 98 Symptom, 77-88 clinical and analytic symptoms, 84 defined, 77-78 fantasme and, 92 fate of, 86 instating of, 83-84 logical sequence of, 84-85

280

INDEX

Symptom (continued) mathemes (1), 80-82 mathemes (2), 82-83 as prosthesis and symptomclamp theory, 87-88 psychic structure and, 79 Real, 79-80 RSI graph, 78-79 as signifier, 78 sinthome, logic of, 86-87 time and, 85 Symptom-clamp theory, symptom as prosthesis, 87-88 Three orders. See RSI graph Time, symptom and, 85 Topological object, object (a), 57 Topology. See also RSI graph borromean knot and, RSI graph, 20-22 RSI graph, 17 Total object, 36-37 Transference, 197-202. See also Negative transference banalization of, 201 establishment of, 198, 226 interpretation in, 202 nonsymbolized elements of, analytic act (I), 243 power of, analytic act (II), 252253 as repetition, 199-200 as resistance, 200-201 specificity and, 199 transference effect, 197 Transference graph, 234-240 Borromean knot, 239-240 imaginary order, 235-237

overview, 234-235 postanalytic effect, 240 representation of, 235 symbolic order, 237-238 Transference interpretation, 202, 243-244 Transference structure, 203-218. See also Negative transference algorithm (1), 204 algorithm (2), 208-209 analyst effect on, 213-214 transference of, 214 as waste, 215 empty speech and full speech, 207 fantasme and end of analysis, 216 hate, 210-211 imaginary vertex, 208 language, wall of, 205-207 logic of, 213 love, 211-213 Real vertex, 209-210 symbolic vertex, 203-204, 205 where id was, there ego shall be, 207-208 Transitional object, 37 Trauma, logic of, cause, 69-72 Truth, meaning and, signifier, 10 Tustin, Francis, 25 Two-faced object, 33 Unary trait, symptasme, 98 Unconscious desire, 3-4 masochism, 61-62 object (a), 57-58

INDEX schema lambda, Other, 53-55 subject of, 42 symptoms, mathemes (2), 8283 Untenable act, analytic act (II), 250 Where id was, there ego shall be, transference structure, 207208

281

Will-to-jouissance, perverse structure, 194. See also Jouissance Winnicott, D. W., 25,37,153 Women, perverse structure, 196 Word, effect of, subject, 42-43 Zero, subject and, 43-44

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