PIPOL NEWS FLASH 15 – EuroFederation of
Psychoanalysis
Lacan
Quotidien 333 – Tuesday June 18th
2013
Translated by Francine Danniau
Meeting Mitra Kadivar in Paris, towards Brussels
Mitra Kadivar
was the guest of the ECF, The School of the Freudian Cause on June the 15th
for a “Meeting with Mitra – Five months after”. She made herself heard on her
career, her position, her determination to pursue her actions so that more
value will be given to Psychoanalysis in Iran, on her optimism for her country,
during a two hour discussion with the audience, led by Jean-Daniel Matet,
director of the ECF. The meeting was also attended by “La
règle du jeu” and “Lacan Quotidien”.
She will
intervene at the Congress Pipol 6 (title
of her paper: “A Superb Self-Reliance”) of the Eurofederation of
Psychoanalysis in Brussels on the 6th and 7th of July, “After
Oedipus, Women are conjugated in the future”.
Pipol News asked Anne Poumellec to ask
Mitra some questions.
In your country, the
elections to the presidency are taking place today. How do you see the future
of your country?
One must know, concerning my
country, what in France is in general mostly ignored, that the Other of Iran is
never where you expect him to be. Everything is unpredictable in Iran, this
country never meets the expectations and, what happens most of the time is a
good surprise. Yesterday, I ran to vote at the Iranian Embassy in Paris. We now
see the moderate candidate being ahead of the others: nobody expected this.
[At the end of the afternoon we learned, against all odds, that the
moderate candidate had won the elections in the first round. “Many things will
change” Mitra Kadivar commented, pointing out that this reformer favorites the
NGOs activities]
Psychoanalysis to you, was
it an encounter?
My choice as a little girl had
been science and medicine, with the idea to specialize in psychiatry. But my
encounter with Freud, with Freud’s texts, which I read in the excellent Standard Edition, was overwhelming: I
absolutely had to follow Freud. After a first stay in France, I came back
determined to start my analysis, which lasted ten years, in Paris. My analyst
being a Lacanian, much later, he happened to send me the transcript of the
course of Jacques-Alain Miller, “The Lacanian Orientation”: In it I recognized
the existence of a teaching – I had not found the like elsewhere. What remains
crucial to me is the forced choice of Freud, in no way one can separate me from
Freud, what I call my Freudian trap.
At the end of my analysis, back
in Teheran, I could have, by preference, continued the scientific research and
studied Freud at the same time. Noticing the ignorance of the Other pushed me
to teach, to make Freud known in Iran through his texts.
What is the importance of Psychoanalysis in Teheran? More precisely,
what is the importance of Psychoanalysis of the Lacanian Orientation? Does she
have a place at the university, in the institutions of care, in places where
formation is given? Could you describe to us your activities of transmitting
psychoanalysis in Iran?
On my return to Iran, twenty
years ago, after my training by means of my personal analysis in Paris, with a
Lacanian analyst, I found all academics, psychiatrists, psychologists,
etc…pretended to practice psychoanalysis without having been analyzed
themselves. People also said they were analyzed by the mere fact of having
followed seven sessions of any practice using speech.
I understood that I needed to
start talking of what a psychoanalysis is about and thus I started to teach. Till
today I have to fight against what is called “wild” psychoanalysis. I rely on
the writings of Freud, on my analysis and my knowledge of Lacan. The three
dimensions (the Real, Symbolic and Imaginary) defined by Jacques Lacan, clarify
psychoanalysis and prevent derailments left by the post Freudian imaginary
concepts.Together with my students, we
again go through the texts of Freud, and step by step, we translate, which
pushes us to thoroughly research all nuances offered to us by the Persian
language.
To accommodate this work, I
managed to make an association recognized, as a public utility, with the status
of a NGO: The Freudian Association.
This association is a place of
teaching – mine and that of my students, it is also the place to lodge the
office of my practice, in particular the welcoming of new analysands – often of
students too, I call it the “recruitment”.
The project is to add to this a
center for treating the psychological dependency of drug addicts. A place for
applied psychoanalysis, where my students could demonstrate the effectiveness
of psychoanalysis, in comparison with all current practices in Teheran, fast,
but often failing in the end.
The women in Iran, what can you say about them?
The history of Iran is very old
and its conversion to the Shiite Islam only occupies about the last quarter of
that history. Pre-Islamic influences (Zoroastrian and Mithraism) are very strong in the country. The women don’t
have the same status as in the Arabian countries where the influence of the
Sunni Islam is extended. In Iran, I can assure you, culture and knowledge are
very much validated, which explains my privileged place in that country.
