The first consequence Brousse identified in
relation to
the father’s
disappearance,
as afore
defined, is
the rise of
the imperative
on one hand
and
permissiveness
on the other,
“it may be a
paradox, but
its not a
contradiction.”
Turning to the
linguists,
imperative can
be defined
alternatively
as order,
command,
demand,
generally not
an
interdiction,
and
definitively
as an act of
language. In
this way, on
the side of
imperative,
Brousse
situated:
Super-ego,
Command,
Voice, and on
the out-side
of the side of
the
imperative:

Demand
(SàD),

and Will.  On
the side of
prohibition,
we find:
Ego-ideal, the
law,
statements,
and on the
out-side of
the side of
prohibition:
Desire as
signified of
the law. Thus,
citing Lacan
in Kant avec
Sade (1963),
Brousse
identified the
necessary
distinction
between will
as not
necessarily
unconscious
and desire as
always
unconscious,
emphasizing
two different
modes of
eroticization,
two different
modes of
jouissance.
Will is linked
to a position
of enunciation
in the
particular and
the object of
voice, while
eroticization
in desire is
linked to the
subversion of
barriers and
has to do with
the universal.
Relying on
Miller’s
reference,
Brousse
states:
“Kant’s moral
law is the
attempt to
universalize
the imperative
of the
Super-Ego.”

Nowadays,
it is the
imperative
that is far
more present
in everyday
discourse than
the law, and
so Brousse
asked: “What
changes on the
clinical
side?” In
response, she
cited two key
indications.
First,
permissiveness,
i.e. the
weakening of
the laws, is
the condition
of the rise of
the Super-ego,
“not only are
they not
contradictory,
they are
complementary.”
Second, a new
form of
symptom is
taking more
and more
importance in
psychopathology
today and that
is addiction.
Addiction is
the new form
of the symptom
in the era of
the rise of
the Super-ego
and is
determined far
more by the
object
although it
maintains
something of
the signifier
and the image.
It has the
weight of the
real. With
addiction,
there is no
dependency:
not dependent
on sex, not
dependent on
love, but only
on the object.
The imperative
saves you from
dependency
making you
into a slave
of the object,
but free from
all else.

The
second lecture
of the
weekend, “The
Freudian
Superego and
the Lacanian
Superego,” was
given by
Pierre-Gilles
Guéguen at
NPAP on the
morning of
March 19^th.
Guéguen
commenced by
commenting on
Freud’s
“The Ego and
the Id,” the
text which
introduced the
second
topography.
Guéguen,
following a
comment of
James
Strachey,
highlighted
that
Freud wrote
this text
under the
pressure of
redefining the
psychoanalytic
meaning of the
unconscious.
Is it only the
repressed or
does it
coincide with
the drive?
Guéguen
emphasized
that there is
a hesitance in
Freud to
disarticulate
the Ego-ideal
from the
Super-ego,
which we see
Freud
construct
along two
dimensions.
With the
first, the
Super-ego is
understood as
a part of the
ego that
permits or
rejects the
drives; thus
triggering
moral
censorship and
unconscious
guilt. Second,
Guéguen
underlined the
dimension of
the Freudian
Super-ego’s
entanglement
with the law
of the father
and the
Oedipus
Complex. The
first
identification
which is an
identification
with the
father, has
two forms,
that of the
idealized
father and
that of the
father who
prohibits and
enforces the
law of incest.
In early
Lacan, as
early as
Seminar I,
Guéguen noted
that we
already find
references to
the Super-ego
as imperative,
“which is so
severe that it
is an insane
law that goes
as far as
having a
disregard for
itself,” and
as “a
ferocious and
obscene
figure.” It
refers to a
father that
says ‘No!’ up
to a point of
a masochistic
jouissance.
Given that,
Guéguen
inquired ‘what
is the right
position of
the analyst in
the
treatment?’

Guéguen
stressed that
interpretation
is more
compatible
with the
position of
the analyst as
the Ego-ideal
rather than as
the Super-ego.
This is why it
is important
to radically
distinguish
the Ego-ideal
from the
Super-ego. The
Ego-ideal
includes a
large part of
the imaginary
which is not
to be
disregarded,
taking into
account what
Jacques-Alain
Miller calls,
“the equality
of the
consistencies.”
The Super-ego
pertains to
the symbolic
register only
and leads to a
mortification
of the libido,
commanding the
subject to
sacrifice
jouissance,
which we
translate
today as the
concept of
division. The
divided
subject does
not work in
its own
interests, but
rather works
against
itself. We see
this division
already in
Freud through
the
conceptualization
of Eros and
Thanatos.
Freud was the
first to
declare that
there are
always
symptomatic
remainders in
analysis.
Lacan proposed
to turn the
impasse at the
end of
treatment into
a solution,
relying on an
identification
to the
symptom, once
its most
florid
manifestations
have been
reduced. We
call this
reduction le
sinthome. As
Guéguen noted,
“the problem
that the
Super-ego
raises for the
analyst is to
measure how
the drive may
be civilized,
promote a
social bond,
and to prevent
the process of
segregation…
Psychoanalysis
above all
constitutes an
experience of
Ethics.” From
‘Must not do
it!’ to ‘Must
do it!’ both
commandments
can have the
same effect of
conveying
death. It is
not enough to
acknowledge
that the
authority of
the father has
declined and
that the
globalization
of the world,
in particular
the advance of
digital
technology,
has produced a
liquid
society. As
Lacan
emphasized,
“The
unconscious is
political. The
unconscious is
transindividual”
(1967). Miller
returned to
this reference
twice in his
course of “The
Divine
Details”
(1989) and
“The
Experience of
the Real in
Psychoanalysis”
(1999).   

In
the last
section of
Guéguen’s
talk, Freud
the dualist vs
Lacan the
monist,
Guéguen relied
upon Miller’s
reference
published
under the
title
“Lacanian
Biology,”
where the
latter he
demonstrates
that Lacan
discarded the
dualist
conception of
the drive and
took a strong
stand for a
monist
conception of
the libido. In
Lacan’s
teaching, the
death drive
disappears as
a concept with
the ascendancy
of the axiom
of the absence
of the sexual
relation. Two
other monist
categories
will be
developed in
Lacan’s
post-structuralist
period
¾ one being
the discourse
in Seminar
XVII and the
other being le
sinthome,
substituting
the binary
fantasy-symptom
in the classic
period of
Lacan. These
conceptual
innovations
prevent
psychoanalysis
from becoming
fossilized and
admit the ways
in which the
relationship
between
psychoanalysis
and society
has changed.
As Guéguen
elaborated,
“jouissance is
not imposed on
us by an
internal
sexual drive
as much as it
is by the
unending
solicitations
of the market,
advertising,
business, and
all the
attempts to
persuade us to
augment and
modify our
bodies.” Words
and images
enter our
bodies
producing all
kinds of
affects and
there is a new
relationship
between the
signifier and
the body. In
its former
conception,
purely
formalist, the
signifier
elevates some
bodily part to
the level of
the signifier
and there is
some
jouissance
that is
elevated to
the status of
the symbol.
But Miller
suggests that,
“the other
question
raised by the
late Lacan is
the reverse of
this operation
of
symbolization,
it is the
operation of
corporealization.”
It concerns
the way
signifiers and
knowledge
enter the body
and produce
jouissance.
This is why
Miller moves
to discuss
porn in his
introduction
to the 10^th
Congress. From
Seminar XX on,
Lacan will
call affect
the bodily
affect of the
signifier,
which
designate
affects of
jouissance.
Affect is
something that
disturbs the
function of
the living
body.

The
third lecture
of the
weekend, “The
Rise of the
Ego in the Era
of the
One-all-alone,”
was given by
Marie-Hélène
Brousse at
NPAP on the
morning of
March 20^th.
Proceeding
from the
rising concern
with identity
politics in
contemporary
American
discourse,
Brousse
differentiated
between
identity
(gender, race,
etc.) and the
psychoanalytic
concept of
identification
of which there
are three
modes: the
unary trait
(trait unaire;
einziger zug),
the hysterical
one, and the
identification
with the
symptom. Both
identity and
identification
have to do
with a common
point, even if
they are not
the same, and
touch
immediately on
the question
of the
semblant,
although for
centuries we
have been
thinking that
nature gave us
our
identities.
The dimension
of the
imaginary, and
the power of
the image, is
something
which is Real.
When Lacan
introduced the
mirror stage,
his reference
for the image
is that it is
Real. There is
the Real
included in
the dimension
of the
Imaginary,
just as the
Real is
included in
the Symbolic.
The Real is
also to be
treated at the
level of the
Real of the
Real.

Brousse
then proceeded
to construct
the
relationship
from the One
to the body,
and from the
body to the
ego. There is
something of
the One (Y a
de l’Un)
implies that
instead of
referring
yourself to
what can give
you two, the
feeling of
being, which
is a master
signifier; you
refer yourself
to a mirror
image added to
a belief. The
formula of “I
am” either has
to do with the
master
signifier, as
in identity
politics, or
it has to do
with the
object a left
by the
experience of
jouissance and
the encounter
of a signifier
which gives
you your name
of jouissance.
The third one
is the ego,
the Joyce
solution, the
reference for
which is
Seminar XXIII,
a solution
which Lacan
universalizes
as a new
definition of
the symptom,
which makes of
the ego a
symptom.
Indeed, the
ego can be a
symptomatic
solution under
certain
conditions.
The Cartesian
cogito which
held as a
metaphysical
and
epistemological
theory from
the 17^th
century up to
present, only
functions now
by the
necessity of
saying, “I
think I am”
all the time.
In a society
where the big
Other is less
powerful
because of the
Analyst’s
discourse and
the
Capitalist’s
discourse,
what is going
to be used in
order to
sustain
identity is
the ego, as
the imaginary
consequence of
the mirror
stage. The
rise of the
ego in the era
of the
One-all-alone
is linked to
the rise of
the imperative
against the
signifier
without
signified. In
psychoanalysis,
Miller
emphasizes the
importance of
the
unconscious as
Real, but in
the
contemporary
Master’s
discourse, as
Brousse
contended, the
unconscious is
being more and
more pushed to
the imaginary
side. As a
consequence of
the fall of
the One of the
exception and
the rise of
the
One-all-alone,
we can see the
importance of
the ego in
everyday
pathology. So, with
the rise of
the ego in
contemporary
society, the
concurrent
question that
Brousse posed
– and on which
the lecture
and conference
ended – was as
follows: what
happens to
narcissism at
the end of
analysis?

Twelve
case
constructions
presented by
twelve
clinicians,
each with a
discussant,
offered
diverse
conditions of
treatment,
location, age,
and clinical
structure.
Common themes
emerging
throughout the
weekend
included the
paradox of the
unchanged
nature of the
fantasy,
divorced from
time, and the
proliferation
of symptoms
and Super-ego
imperatives in
the 21^st
century as
witnessed in
the
contemporary
clinic.
Participants
were surprised
to find 19^th
and 20^th
century
fathers,
mothers, and
subjects
veiled under
the discourse
produced by
the
capitalism,
science, and
its
corresponding
gadgets and
applications:
i.e. the
iPhone,
Tinder, and
the like.
However, no
less
surprising,
participants
found a
proliferation
of 21^st
century
subjects,
indexed by
cases of
ordinary
psychosis
which were
marked by an
inability to
distinguish
and prove
neurotic
structures.
This was
supplemented
by cases of
hysterical and
obsessional
neurosis
dressed in new
guises. In all
cases,
discrete signs
of structure
and the lack
thereof led to
pertinent
questions and
considerations
regarding the
direction of
the treatment
related to
each subject’s
singularity.
In other
words, “so now
you have the
structure, but
what do you
do?” From a
certain
democratization
of the
analyst’s
position, to
the assumption
of the
position of
the Ego-ideal
as a necessary
maneuver to
avoid falling
into the
position of
the Super-ego,
each clinician
ably exposed
the knowledge
of their acts,
constructions,
and
interpretations.
Accordingly,
each clinician
and discussant
engaged in a
fine
construction
of the
handling,
doing, and
making of a
subject’s cure
for which each
is credited as
a practitioner
and
transmitter of
essential
psychoanalytic
findings that
will continue
to be pursued
and refined at
the next
Clinical Study
Days, the 10^th,
that will take
place in
Miami.

“Superintendent”:
Cyrus Saint
Amand
Poliakoff-Discussant:
Liliana
Kruszel;
“I am the
Dictator, the
Destroyer of
My Life”:
Pamela King
– Discussant:
Alicia Arenas;
“A Brilliant
Brain – I
Should (Must)
Shine”:
Francine
Danniau –
Discussant:
Jeff Erbe;
“Mental
Anorexia in
the Elderly: 
A demand for
love”: Ellie
Ragland
– Discussant: 
Nancy
Gillespie;
“Claustration”:
Jared Russell –

Discussant:
Pamela King;
“Feel Good! An
imperative to
excitement”:
Elizabeth
Rogers
– Discussant:
Maria Cristina
Aguirre;
“Performance
Demands in the
University: Is
the
Transferential
Relationship
Still
Possible?”:
Gary Marshall
– Discussant:
Pierre-Gilles
Guéguen;
“Little    
Leo: From must
have, to may
be”:
An Bulkens
– Discussant:
Karina
Tenenbaum;
“Aunty Needle
Heel”:
Josefina
Ayerza-Discussant: 
Fabio Azeredo;
“I’m Gonna Get
Them! (Quos
ego-!)”:
Michele
Julien-Discussant:
Tom Svolos;
“The father’s
demand”:
Stephanie
Swales-
Discussant:
Gary Marshall;
“To make a
stop”: John
Burton Wallace
V- Discussant:
Alicia Arenas.