RESUMEN
This paper explores the principal reasons for the exclusion of Lacanian ideas from psychoanalytic training institutes in the United States. The history of Lacan's role in the International Psychoanalytical Association, from which essentially he was expelled, occupies a central place in this story. Significant issues arose also from his practice style and technical innovations, whose rationale remains controversial today. Another major obstacle for the reception of his work is the theoretical framework of Lacanian analysis, so different from that of other schools. Inclusion of its unfamiliar vocabulary and concepts poses practical problems for training programs. At a more fundamental level, the strong antihumanist evolution of Lacan's thought runs contrary to the increasingly relational and intersubjective orientation of American psychoanalysis. The incompatibility between the disparate languages of a scientific theory aiming at objectivity and a phenomenology of personal intentionality and meaning greatly limits the possibilities for dialogue. The tension between these perspectives cannot be resolved, but a productive exchange between them is possible if they are accepted as valid and complementary ways of speaking about human behavior.
Asunto(s)
Psicoanálisis , Teoría Psicoanalítica , Humanos , Teoría LacacianaRESUMEN
The translational metaphor in psychoanalysis refers to the traditional method of interpreting or restating the meaning of verbal and behavioral acts of a patient in other, presumably more accurate terms that specify the forces and conflicts underlying symptoms. The analyst translates the clinical phenomenology to explain its true meaning and origin. This model of analytic process has been challenged from different vantage points by authors presenting alternative conceptions of therapeutic action. Although the temptation to find and make interpretations of clinical material is difficult to resist, behaving in this way places the analyst in the position of a teacher or diagnostician, seeking a specific etiology, which has not proven fruitful. Despite its historical appeal, I argue that the translational model is a misleading and anachronistic version of what actually occurs in psychoanalysis. I emphasize instead the capacity of analysis to promote the emergence of new forms of representation, or figuration, from the unconscious, using the work of Lacan, Laplanche, and Modell to exemplify this reformulation, and provide clinical illustrations of how it looks in practice.
Asunto(s)
Metáfora , Psicoanálisis/normas , HumanosRESUMEN
Lacan's seminar The Ethics of Psychoanalysis (1959-1960) pursues, from a Freudian perspective, a fundamental philosophical question classically addressed by Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics: How is human life best lived and fulfilled? Is there is an ethic of this type intrinsic to psychoanalysis? Lacan placed the problem of desire at the center of his Ethics. His notorious self-authorized freedom from convention and probable crossing of limits (see Roudinesco 1993) may have led mainstream analysts to ignore his admonition: "At every moment we need to know what our effective relationship is to the desire to do good, to the desire to cure" (Lacan 1959-1960, p. 219). This means that the analyst's desire, as well as the patient's, is always in play in his attempt to sustain an ethical position. An examination of Lacan's seminar highlights this link, but also points to a number of unresolved issues. The patient's desire is a complex matter, readily entangled in neurotic compromise, defense, and transference, and the analyst's commitment to it is also problematic because of the inevitable co-presence of his own desire. Lacan suggested that more emphasis be placed in training on the desire of the analyst, but beyond that a proposal is advanced for the institutionalization of a "third" as reviewer and interlocutor in routine analytic practice. Analysis may not be a discipline that can be limited to a dyadic treatment relationship.
Asunto(s)
Ética Médica , Motivación , Relaciones Médico-Paciente/ética , Teoría Psicoanalítica , Terapia Psicoanalítica/ética , Selección de Profesión , Contratransferencia , Creatividad , Curriculum , Mecanismos de Defensa , Deluciones/psicología , Deluciones/terapia , Teoría Freudiana , Humanos , Mentores , Principios Morales , Trastornos Neuróticos/psicología , Trastornos Neuróticos/terapia , Apego a Objetos , Poder Psicológico , Terapia Psicoanalítica/educación , Psicoterapia Múltiple/educación , Psicoterapia Múltiple/ética , Transferencia Psicológica , Inconsciente en PsicologíaRESUMEN
The work of Arnold Modell over the past forty years constitutes a major contribution to contemporary psychoanalytic thought. Of particular note are his efforts to sustain a paradoxical conception of the self as both an evolving, contingent product and an enduring core. Moving back and forth between celebration of the private self and articulation of the impossibility of a one-person psychoanalysis, Modell's quest to define the nature of the self has taken him from classical analytic theory, through Winnicott and object relations, to the philosophy of intersubjectivity and, in later years, to the work of infant researchers and neuroscientists. In doing so, he has placed the continuity of the self and the making of personal meaning at the center of psychoanalytic practice. The evolution of his thinking reflects a turn toward a protean and transitional conception of the self, away from the notion of an enduring or superordinate core self.
Asunto(s)
Ego , Teoría Psicoanalítica , Terapia Psicoanalítica , Humanos , Narración , Apego a Objetos , Transferencia Psicológica , Inconsciente en PsicologíaRESUMEN
In this paper, I make use of the term figuration, which relates to the process of giving shape to unconscious contents in the form of meaningful presentations. My interest is in how traumatic experience succeeds or fails to become psychically figured and thereby susceptible to elaboration and absorption through intersubjective process. I argue that the process of figuration always occurs in an actual or implied intersubjective context and involves, thereby, a central feature of an exchange between subject and Other. These concepts are discussed and applied to a case report of an analytic psychotherapy involving a traumatic dream and its sequellae.
Asunto(s)
Sueños/psicología , Acontecimientos que Cambian la Vida , Trastornos Fóbicos/psicología , Trastornos Fóbicos/terapia , Terapia Psicoanalítica , Inconsciente en Psicología , Adulto , Conducta Alimentaria/psicología , Humanos , Masculino , Modelos Psicológicos , Interpretación PsicoanalíticaRESUMEN
The concept of the objet petit a is central to Lacan's theory of desire, which arguably represents his major contribution to psychoanalysis. It is an expression of the lack inherent in human beings, whose incompleteness and early helplessness produce a quest for fulfillment beyond the satisfaction of biological needs. The objet petit a is a fantasy that functions as the cause of desire; as such, it determines whether desire will be expressed within the limits of the pleasure principle or "beyond," in pursuit of an unlimited jouissance, an impossible and even deadly enjoyment. Parallels between the objet petit a and Winnicott's transitional object are explored and its functions illustrated through analysis of Pedro Almodovar's film Talk to Her. A clinical case is presented in which the question of desire seemed crucial.