26.07.2017
Špela Jelenc
On June 24 2017, in the first lecture of the new teaching that marks a year zero (année zéro) of the Freudian field, Jacques-Alain Miller pointed out Lacan’s dissolution of Freudian School of Paris in 1980, which had been established as the first School. Miller connected the causes for dissolution with Lacan’s failure at the time to broaden the presence of the School in Belgium, Switzerland, and elsewhere. Furthermore, it had turned out that the Freudian School of Paris was too “Parisian”, because almost all the members had been connected to Lacan’s cabinet at Rue de Lille.
Thus in 1981, École de la cause freudienne was founded as the School with an international vision and presence. This 37-year long ambition has also been taking place in Slovenia since 2015.
Naming is a “hole in the real”, a “move” from the real to the symbolic. This is why naming has its function for the Name of the Father. “I reduce NF (Name of the Father) to its radical function, which gives name to things”, says Lacan in the Seminar XXII – RSI.
So, what does the name the Slovenian Association for Lacanian Psychoanalysis evoke in this perspective?
● ‘’The Slovenian’’ is a signifier of the subjectivity and singularity of a place, in which the association operates, and its specific “discontent in civilisation”;
● ‘’Association’’ can be understood with respect to the fact that there is one School, while there are many circles, societies and associations;
● ‘’for’’ is a signifier of a direction;
● ‘’Lacanian’’ is a signifier of orientation.
“You can be Lacanian, I am Freudian”, said Lacan at the end of his analytic path and refused tradition of the Name of the Father. This is why the signifier “Lacanian” means the orientation of Lacan’s reading of Freud and his teaching. The main source are his seminars and writings. That teaching was first addressed to psychoanalysts, but the audience has later widened. Lacan was a “heretic”, because he renewed the reading of Freud and established its connection with the social space of the post-modern time. What concerns his own inventiveness, he said that his only invention is the concept of object of desire (objet petit a). He also added that Freud developed categories of Ego, Superego, and Id, whereas his categories are real, symbolic, and imaginary. Precisely in the late Lacan’s teaching, his conceptualisation of RSI was the basis for a new approach to clinical categories. This is how Lacan expressed his modesty, because we know that he was inventive also in his psychoanalytic practice, which is how he separated himself from the classical path of post-Freudians;
● ‘’Psychoanalysis’’ is a signifier which means being psychoanalyst and analysand. At the same time it represents teaching that supports and enables this practice. Fundaments of psychoanalytic formation are one’s own analysis, as well as teaching, work in cartel groups, and supervisory analysis.
In Slovenia, such a Lacanian psychoanalytic practice is at the beginning of its existence. And precisely in this country we are witnessing perhaps a unique alienation between the theory of Lacanian psychoanalysis, and psychoanalytic practice. Not only is this connected to the strong and reputable existence of University discourse dealing with Lacan’s theorisation of psychoanalysis (which has long been “represented” by the Society for Theoretical Psychoanalysis). There is also something else present there – a de facto foreclosure of analytic discourse.
This distinction and foreclosure of analytic discourse in the Slovenia can be grasped from naming of a philosophical society the Society for theoretical psychoanalysis.
Let me present a subjective interpretation. The naming “theoretical psychoanalysis” is an oxymoron. Psychoanalysis cannot be theoretical, because it is grounded in experience. But if psychoanalysis was assumed to be theoretical, that would imply an impossibility of it being experience and practice at the same time. This naming is thus putting a subject into the situation of an unusual “choice”, namely a choice by manner of loss, or castration: EITHER ‘’theoretical psychoanalysis’’ OR psychoanalytic practice (which is where one choice excludes the other). Meanwhile, a naming such as “Society for Psychoanalytic Theory” could be understood differently.
The shift from theory to practice, since psychoanalysis is practice AND theorisation of this practice: this is the step that the Slovenian Association for Lacanian Psychoanalysis made also by its naming.