– 8 –
Six extracts from the text
Paris
(Read the full text in attach file, Reprint from Culture and Clinic , Minnesota press, Issue N°1, 2013)
Extract 1
There is a cross fertilizing movement at play
between two streams of thought all along thework of Lacan. On one hand, in the
name of psychoanalysis, he discards any kind of segregation of our fellow
humans (for example when he defines madness as the essence of human liberty in
his first Écrits or when he proclaims
in 1976 that “Everyone is mad”); this is the Lacan in favor of continuism. On
the other hand he tries to build up very precise definitions of what the
phenomena to be addressed through psychoanalysis might be: their logics, their
minute description, their clear-cut differences.
Extract 2
When Lacan says, “We are all mad, that is to
say, we are all delusional” one might take it as a strict equivalent of “we are
all psychotics”. If it were so, the option would totally be in favor of the
late Lacan and erase the first part of his teaching. It emerges as extremely
important to stress the very subtle way in which J.-A. Miller comments on this
sentence. His indications in this matter are fundamental since they have
bearings on the very practice of analysis.
In his last lecture of the year 2008, he takes
a very clear standpoint: “The madness at stake here, this generic madness, is
general, or rather universal. It is not psychosis. Psychosis is a category from
the clinic with which we try to capture something which anyway inscribes itself
in this very universal.” And Miller indicates that the signifier “delusional”
in this particular sentence of Lacan’s is to be understood as: “taken within
the network of meaning” (which cannot be avoided since human beings are
captured within the network of language).
Extract 3
Within the Freudian Field the debate on
un-triggered psychosis turned out to be a widely shared concern in 1998 when
the category of Ordinary Psychosis was created by Jacques-Alain Miller during a
research program of the Sections Cliniques du Champ freudien.
The concept of ordinary psychosis was at first
of restrictive extension but became rapidly in vogue. In the beginning it was
presumed to concern only some rare cases in which the foreclosure of the Name
of the Father remained un-decidable. A consensus soon turned up that it was not
rare to have to deal with an indetermination in the diagnosis of a case even
after lengthy preliminary interviews. As a matter of fact there were already
hints of it in Lacan’s first teachings when he mentioned un-triggered
psychosis. And sometimes, even though psychosis is technically onset, it takes
very discreet forms (an isolated elementary phenomenon for example).
However in some Schools of the AMP from 2004 to
2008, the vogue for the category of ordinary psychosis – and it is a fact that
the increasing number of cases to be found is correlated with the ongoing
decline of the Name of the Father in our civilization – and the emphasis put on
rapid therapeutic effects in psychoanalytic treatment as developed in the
French psychoanalytical free clinics created by the École de la Cause
freudienne, produced an inflationist bubble of indecisive diagnosis and maybe
some disarray for many clinicians who did not see the point of using clinical
categories that were obsolete in modern psychiatry when the “new clinic in
fashion” was the clinics of the knots.
Extract 4
Some precision and reflection about the
overextension of “ordinary psychosis” was necessary. Miller presented these details in a lecture he
gave in English under the title “Ordinary Psychosis Revisited”. This text of
reorientation is to be read as a landmark and a turning point in our clinics.
Extract 5
In the same text Miller also indicates that in
the differential diagnosis of ordinary psychosis the clinician has to look for
a negative differential approach: if it is not a neurosis then it is a
psychosis although it is not triggered. He mentions that the most solid
reference to discriminate between ordinary psychosis and neurosis is Hysteria
for which there is a very sturdy structural apparatus in the Freudian and
Lacanian corpus.
Extract 6
The proposition: “We are all mad but we are not
all psychotics” should also be examined in light of the theory of generalized
foreclosure formulated by J.-A. Miller in 1986, since at first sight it seems
to object to it.
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– 6 –
Learning to speak their lalangue: an indication of the course of transference in ordinary psychosis
Dora Pertesi
Greece
Nowadays, in the era of the Other who doesn’t exist, ordinary psychosis gets on well both with the non-existence of the Other, as well as with that of the sexual relation. Why is that? “Because it replaces speech with number and gives the value of the real to the semblant”[1], as M.-H. Brousse points out.
The semblant is our language, the language as a social bond. So, how do some subjects express themselves?
In our era, we see subjects who are almost disconnected from the social bond, who however keep a degree of connection through certain signifiers, or through certain ephemeral norms, such as blogger, performer, hacker, etc. We need to note that the names of these norms do not set a limit to jouissance, because they are linked with a community that is not founded by an ideal, but through a common name (i.e. hackers) which is the opposite of a nomination.
These are subjects who do not possess the Name-of-the-Father as a pivot point of the symbolic order and of the delineating of jouissance. Very often this absence is even likely to endanger their own life. Multiple addictions, (alcohol, drugs, extreme sports, etc.) lead them to a jouissance without limits, and that is because going beyond limits is a way for these subjects to feel their body, “release adrenalin”, as is characteristically said.
Transference in its turn has undergone modifications. We cannot use the traditional transference terms anymore (Subject-Supposed-to-Know). And that is because these subjects feel almost threatened by a bad Other, are suspicious, laconic, cynical, ironic, speak their own language, a language which has very little to do with the semblant. However, a way needs to be found for transference to develop.
Within the context of the democratization of the Other, which according to J.-A. Miller is inherent to ordinary psychosis, one could respond, as G. Caroz maintains, with “a democratization of the relationship between analyst and analysand, which often gives the analytic session the air of a democratic discussion, of an exchange” [2].
Following the above, my opinion is that we often need to adopt the signifiers of the social or the biopolitical Other, as well as the subject’s talking style and language. Just like an analyst who learns the Donald [3] language, in attempting to communicate with a little girl, in the same way we can feel free to learn something from the special language and style of the subject. This is a language which contains elements of the lalangue, to which the unconscious is subjected as knowledge that has been processed, knowledge which consists of equivocities and homophonies, according to Lacan [4]. One can assume, as J.-A. Miller notes, that this language “is not a presumable language, but a language exposed” [5].
A language exposed touches upon something of the order of the real. In that sense, if the lalangue of the subject crashes constantly the semblant of the discourse then, we can tear this down, too. If they use slang, then by tearing down the semblant, we can use slang, too. If the language they use is more of a metonymic nature, we can introduce ourselves to a metonymic discourse. If they use word patterns (e.g. legit instead of legitimate), we can occasionally adopt this pattern. If they speak using a lot of foreign words, why not do the same ourselves?
In any case, a language exposed is very often used by poets and can have not only effects of signification, but mainly of a hole. We are not poets, but we need to learn by and through poets the following: poetic license, or else psychoanalytic license, in the issue of the use of language, various handlings are allowed…
“Nothing again nothing. Do you know nothing?
Do you see nothing? Do you remember Nothing?”
T.S. Eliot –The Waste Land
[1] M. H. Brousse, « La psychose ordinaire à la lumière de la théorie lacanienne du discours », Quarto, 94- 95, p. 13.
[2] G. Caroz, « Quelques remarques sur la direction de la cure dans la psychose ordinaire », Quarto, No 94 -95, p. 54.
[3] La psychose ordinaire, « Lalangue du transfert dans les psychoses », Le Paon, p. 149.
[4] J. Lacan, «L’Etourdit », p. 490.
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– 4 –
Ordinary Psychosis and Addiction in the Postmodern Era
Thomas Svolos
United States
Starting from the premise that we are in a new social era, which we can call postmodernism, we can observe two major clinical phenomena. It was psychoanalysis that formulated the first major phenomenon with the name, from J.-A. Miller in 1998, of ordinary psychosis. I would observe that the other social and psychiatric fields don’t know what to say about this – books on things like the manic world of today, and the NIMH researchers and clinicians are arguing about psychiatric diagnosis. Psychoanalysis, in contrast, has worked for 20 years now with ordinary psychosis, putting it to use as a concrete response to what we find in the analytic experience.
The second major clinical phenomenon is addiction – whose importance is no doubt recognized in the social field, the psychiatric field and in psychoanalysis.
So, I pose a question: what, if any, relationship or connection exists between these two different clinical phenomena in our current social era? My wager here is that one answer to this question might be developed following Lacan’s graph of sexuation.
I would start with an observation from the upper half of the graphs. I argue that we can characterize the pre-postmodern era as falling within a masculine position. The paternal imago was strong and the world was phallicized. All of x was under the function of the phallus. Thus, this world was a realm of neurosis, in the classical sense. Then, of course, we have the exception. Now, much has been made in the exegesis of the graph of the position of the exception as the obscene father (from Freud). But, why not look at this position differently? The classical Lacanian notion of psychosis, of Schreberian psychosis, is yet another articulation of this position – an exceptional x that does not fall under the dominion of the phallus. Thus, we have a clinic with clear boundaries organized around the masculine position with regard to the sexual non-relation – a clinic of neurosis or exceptional psychosis, phallus or no phallus.
As for our postmodern era: this can be structured around the feminine position. We might start with the observation that there does not exist an x that is not subject to the phallic function, that is not signified. We might read this at a social level as the Marxist observation that there is no limit now to commodification and the extension of the value system that derives from capitalism to all domains of subjective experience (capital as limitless, all about flows, liquid, etc.). Or, at a subjective level, we might say that there is no longer the position or the fantasy of exception. But, the phallic function of all x is not complete, it is not all. And, here is where I suggest we might pinpoint both ordinary psychosis and addiction.
J.-A Miller identified three things for the clinician to look out for in ordinary psychosis: disturbance of the body (eg, the body event); disturbance in the social relation; or, a disturbance in the innermost sense of being. I suggest that these might be understood, in a sense, as an incomplete or not all functioning of the phallus with regard to the body (not fully mortified by discourse), social discourse (not fully organized by the phallus), or sense of being (the master signifier not fully in place). In contrast with the pre-postmodern masculine position, where it is all or nothing, here in the postmodern on the feminine side, it is a matter of not all, for all.
What is interesting to me is to think of what we might say about addiction in this context. One hypothesis, which I would propose, is that if ordinary psychosis is an articulation of the subjective position, addiction is the staging of a subject’s relation with the object a. And here we can go back to Miller’s three themes, which are indeed three of the ways of addiction: for body effects, the experience of intoxication; for an effect in social relations – to act differently around others; or, to change one’s innermost sense of being (“I only feel myself when I use” is a frequent refrain). For Lacan, addiction is defined as detachment from the phallus. But, for some, the detachment is not absolute or complete (though, I think we can in fact articulate a Schreberian addiction – da logic of addiction as exception), but not all for the ordinary psychotic. Thus, I suggest that, in the postmodern era, following the logic of the feminine position with regard to the sexual nonrelation, ordinary psychosis and addiction might in fact have this logical link.
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Societies and Groups of the NLS
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– 2 –
Subjective and objective in “ordinary psychoses”
Marco Mauas
Israël
I remember that some years ago Jacques-Alain Miller quoted Seneca in his definition of what “classic” means: something you don’t learn or read, but rather you relearn or re-read. Since then, this line is a sort of a good friend of mine. I read the line as an invitation.
1- What is “neurosis”?
This is a question which emerges from JAM’s “Ordinary psychosis revisited”. When Jean-Pierre Deffieux visited us in December, he could ask the question with his own voice. The effect is shocking. When you read Freud’s texts for the first time, especially if you are still slightly inclined to believe in prohibitions or prescriptions or proscriptions of sexuality, it seems very clear what neurosis is about. It consists in a variety of symptoms, none of which is crystal clear from the beginning, but you feel they are there. You didn’t need to question their existence. Now, suddenly, there is a question: what do you mean, “neurosis”? This is not a question which arises outside your framework, on the contrary, it is, if we use the terms of Thomas Kuhn, at the center of your scientific community. If “neurosis” was at a certain point a Freudian paradigm, the very existence of the question: “what is neurosis”, implies a certain change in paradigm. Something has changed, softly but surely. Perhaps it is not a “scientific revolution”, but not so far from it.
Jacques-Alain Miller re-defines neurosis, the good old paradigm, posing a series of “criteria”, as –only for example– a clear cut differentiation among Ego, Id and Superego, and a clearly delineated Superego. I personally needed a re-reading of Freud to try to formulate what could be this “clearly delineated”. Wasn’t it clearly delineated from the beginning?
Well, in his text “The economic problem of masochism”, from 1924, Freud stresses that what he calls Superego:
“…is much a representative of the Id as of the external world. It came into being through the introjection into the Ego of the first objects of the id’s libidinal impulses – namely, the two parents. In this process the relation to those objects was desexualized; it was diverted from its direct sexual aims. Only in this way was it possible for the Oedipus complex to be surmounted. The super-ego retained essential features of the introjected persons – their strength, their severity, their inclination to supervise and to punish. As I have said elsewhere, it is easily conceivable that, thanks to the defusion of instinct which occurs along with this introduction into the ego, the severity was increased. The super-ego – the conscience at work in the ego – may then become harsh, cruel and inexorable against the ego which is in its charge. Kant’s Categorical Imperative is thus the direct heir of the Oedipus complex.”
So, a “clearly delineated Superego” is a Superego whose two-faced representation may be clearly noted, one face toward the external world, and the other face toward the Id and its drives. Kant’s categorical imperative is also a no-imperative if it lacks the drive’s severity, a detail that is clearly stressed in Lacan’s “Kant with Sade”.
Jean-Pierre Deffieux, in the opportunity of his seminar in Israel last December, referred to the question “what is neurosis?”, and answered—among other very important details that I will not present here—by a no less surprising rupture of paradigm: you need to be sure of the presence of desire in the case. He quoted Lacan’s seminar “Desire and its interpretation”, lesson of 24 June 1959: “This desire of the neurotic is something which is only a desire at the horizon of all his behaviour.”
2- What is “psychosis”?
In his June 2012 intervention closing the NLS Congress in Tel-Aviv, Eric Laurent brought about this other question. It was so soft that perhaps we didn’t feel what was all about.
At the beginning, he makes one point, and it is what was for Freud the scope of this term:
“The psychoses were understood by Freud as a form of productive discourse, sustaining the effort of subjects who fall wide of any belief in the father and ordinary tragedy, and responding to the clinical field newly systematised by psychiatry.”
From there, he arrives to the relationship that may be established between symptom, singularity and the difficulties and even impasses in classification:
The paradox is that we took on board the word “psychosis” at a time when a new systematicity, a new classification, was emerging in the discourses. Lacan’s teaching turned this approach to psychosis into the indication of a path where, just as we consider the full set of equivocations at the level of the Other rather than the rules, we consider just how much in each case the subject is unclassifiable. Les inclassables de la clinique was a title chosen by Jacques-Alain Miller for one of our congresses. The clinic’s unclassifiable cases mark the effort by which the symptom, beyond groupings according to typical forms, can designate a subject’s singularity.
I say this is situated in the same direction as Lacan’s later teaching. When the most elementary questions arise as new, the new paradigm reveals itself as “subjective”, more than objective, including more than ever the psychoanalysts themselves.
It reminds me some lines of the very early Lacan, when in his “variations of the standard treatment”, he writes:
“Thus an external coherence persists in the deviations of analytic experience that surround its axis, with the same rigor with which the shrapnel of a projectile, in dispersing, maintains its ideal trajectory with the center of gravity of the pyramidal shape it traces out.
The condition of the misunderstanding which, as I noted above, obstructs psychoanalysis path to recognition thus turns out to be redoubled by a misrecognition internal to its own movement.”
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