Mailing List of the Eurofederation of Psychoanalysis
PIPOL NEWS 60
Après coup of PIPOL 6
A Sunny Weekend in Brussels
Jean-Daniel Matet
There were lots of people -1300 delegates— at the Square Meeting Centre in Brussels, for the 2nd Congress
of the EuroFederation of Psychoanalysis, PIPOL VI, on 6 and 7 July
2013. The careful reception and preparation by Gil Caroz’s organising
team favoured a rigorous exchange which demanded to be prolonged beyond a
very precise timing.
On Saturday, in ten multi-function rooms, 120
speakers from many countries of the EuroFederation and the WAP
(Argentina, Belgium (Brussels, Flanders and Wallonia), Brazil, Bulgaria,
Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece,
Ireland, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Spain,
Switzerland) gave an overview of clinical practice in institutions or in
the private practice of psychoanalysts. Each one-hour session, with a
moderator and a discussant, was an opportunity to discuss two papers on a
variety of subjects, in Italian, Spanish, French, Flemish and English.
The general orientation was given under the title “The case, the
institution and my experience of psychoanalysis.” Some trying to capture
the logic of the treatment, the effects on the symptom, jouissance and
interpretation, consequences of the evolution in the relations of the
masculine and the feminine. Others testified to these consequences in
the institutional clinic – always considered on a case by case basis-,
as well as to the institutions themselves, their structure and their way
of functioning.
On Sunday, the presentations concentrated in
the plenary hall, with high quality simultaneous translations, to
approach the evolution of the forms of desire and jouissance marked by
an expansion of the feminine. The opening address by the Vice-President
of the European Parliament, Isabelle Durant, who articulated with
precision her interest for the papers of this congress, was able to
translate what she observed of political life in Europe, and its
resistances and hopes for the place of women in contemporary lifestyles.
The President of the EuroFederation, Gil Caroz, who welcomed her, found
an opportunity to express to her the sentiment of a friendly
relationship shared through the fights led since the Forum of Women, in
Paris in 2010. The President of the WAP, Leonardo Gorostiza, introduced
the presentations by recalling the orientation given by Jacques-Alain
Miller through Lacan’s teaching.
The first session brought a precise light
onto the clinic after Oedipus, through the feminine clinic (Eric
Laurent), the decline of psychiatry (Miquel Bassols), and the
institution when it gives place to the feminine (Alexandre Stevens).
Under the title “Lacanian Actions,” the
original initiatives of three women — in Moscow, Yulia Akhtyamova, in
Paris, Mireille Battut with La main à l’oreille, in Belgium, Nathalie
Laceur, through the expertise oriented by the Lacanian clinic during a
court trial- who showed their determination to displace conventional
discourses by relying on their own experience of psychoanalysis.
As the guest speaker of the following
session, chaired by Lilia Mahjoub and Jacques-Alain Miller, failed to
attend due to unforeseen circumstances, Clotilde Leguil and Ben Verzele
showed the link that is established between the analysand’s supervision
and his/her interventions in cases received in institutions. At the risk
of only hearing the echo of the effects on the analyst of the encounter
with the patient, with emphasis on counter-transference, Jacques-Alain
Miller noted the necessity, for the future, to go “to the bottom of the
structure” in the analysis of a case.
The afternoon began with an intervention by
Mitra Kadivar, two weeks after her visit to Paris, who recounted her
journey in Teheran to promote the Freudian text and transmit her
enthusiasm for its translation into Persian. Not without a humorous
touch that her analytic formation has given her, she showed, under her
chosen title, “A superb self-reliance,” the obstacles she faced on her
pathway and the support she found from Jacques-Alain Miller, the Schools
of the WAP, but also her fierce determination, achieving a transmission
of the corrosive salt of the Freudian message within the Iranian
society of her time.
Echoing their recent publications, Mercedes
de Francisco, Philippe Hellebois and Stella Harrisson made some figures
of the contemporary feminine resonate (“Hypermodern women”) through
literature on “Love in the Feminine,” “Scandalous Women,” “News on
Feminine Sexuality.”
The last session, Feminine Passages, gave the
floor to four Analysts of the School (AS) — Hélène Bonnaud, Paola
Bolgiani, Guy Briole, Araceli Fuentes — who were able to transmit to us
that which, in their analyses, had shifted in relation to the body and
the mother.
Jacques-Alain Miller, in a commentary of some
sections of Lacan’s recently published Seminar VI, Desire and Its
Interpretation, showed the mutation outlined by Lacan with regards to
the place of the Other of language and the status of the object, still
related to the image, but anticipating its real status through the
formula of the fantasy introduced in the graph. The novelty of his
reading has made us even more eager for his course to resume where these
commentaries will unfold.
Gil Caroz briefly concluded these two intense
congress days by thanking the many members of the organising team who
impeccably assured the development of the Congress. He himself received a
very long applause for the work he carried out over the last three
years as head of the EuroFederation, before handing it over to his
successor, Jean-Daniel Matet, elected the previous day by the General
Assembly.
The hospitality and friendliness of the
Belgian colleagues, from Friday evening around drinks, strengthen the
affectio societatis, culminating in the soirée which brought the
delegates together in this wonderful place that is the Albert Hall, and
gave this congress a warm working atmosphere.
9th July 2013
Translation: Florencia F.C. Shanahan and Ian Curtis
