Paul Verhage. Psychotherapy, Psychoanalysis And Hysteria

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Original text in English

Translation: Oksana Obodinskaya

Freud always learned from his hysterical patients. He wanted to know and therefore he listened carefully to them. As you know, Freud honed the idea of psychotherapy, which at the end of the 19th century was notable for its significant novelty. Psychotherapy has become a very common practice today; so popular that no one knows exactly what it is. On the other hand, hysteria as such has almost completely disappeared, even in the latest editions of the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) there is no mention of it.

Thus, this article is about what, on the one hand, no longer exists, and on the other, about what there is too much … So, it is necessary to define what we, from a psychoanalytic point of view, understand by the word "psychotherapy" and how we think about hysteria.

Let's start with a well-known clinical situation. A client comes to a meeting with us because he has a symptom that has become unbearable. In the context of hysteria, this symptom can be anything from classic conversion, phobic constituents, sexual and / or interpersonal problems, to more vague complaints of depression or dissatisfaction. The patient presents his problem to the psychotherapist, and it is normal to expect that the therapeutic effect will lead to the disappearance of symptoms and a return to the status quo ante, to the previous state of health.

This is, of course, a very naive point of view. She is very naive because she does not take into account a wonderful little fact, namely: in most cases, a symptom is not something acute, not an exacerbation, on the contrary - it was formed months or even years ago. The question that appears at this moment, of course, sounds like this: why did the patient come now, why did not he come earlier? As it seems both at first glance and at the second, something has changed for the subject, and as a result, the symptom has ceased to perform its proper function. No matter how painful or inconsistent the symptom may be, it becomes clear that the symptom previously provided some stability to the subject. It is only when this stabilizing function is weakened that the subject asks for help. Therefore, Lacan notes that the therapist should not try to adapt the patient to his reality. On the contrary, he is too well adapted because he participated in the creation of the symptom very effectively. one

At this point we meet with one of the most important Freudian discoveries, namely that each symptom is, first of all, an attempt to heal, an attempt to ensure the stability of a given psychic structure. This means that we have to rephrase the client's expectations. He does not ask for relief from the symptom, no, he only wants to restore his original stabilizing function, which was weakened as a result of the changed situation. Therefore Freud comes up with a very strange idea, strange in the light of the above-mentioned naive point of view, namely the idea of "flight to health". You will find this expression in his work on the Rat Man. The therapy has just begun, something has been achieved, and the patient decides to stop, his health has improved significantly. The symptom was essentially barely altered, but apparently it did not bother the patient, it did bother the surprised therapist.

In view of this simple experience, it is necessary to redefine the idea of psychotherapy as well as the symptom. Let's start with psychotherapy: there are many types of therapy, but we can roughly divide them into two opposite groups. One will be a re-covering therapies and the other will be dis-covering. Re-cover means not only recovery, improvement of well-being, but also something to cover, cover, hide, that is, an almost automatic reflex of the patient is present after what we call a traumatic event. In most cases, this is also a therapeutic reflex. The patient and therapist form a coalition to forget, as soon as possible, what was mentally disturbing. You will find a similar miniaturized process in the reaction to Fehlleistung (reservations), for example slip slip: "It doesn't mean anything at all because I'm tired, etc." A person does not want to be confronted with elements of truth that can be extracted from a symptom; on the contrary, he wants to avoid it. Therefore, it should come as no surprise to us that the use of tranquilizers is so common.

If we apply this type of psychotherapy to a hysterical patient, we may achieve some success in the short term, but in the long term it will inevitably lead to failure. The main hysterical question is that it cannot be covered. We will see later that the central hysterical question becomes fundamental to the search for human identity. While the psychotic question is about existence - "To be or not to be, that is the question", the neurotic question is "How do I exist, what I am as a person, as a woman, what is my place among generations as a son or a father like a daughter or a mother? " Moreover, the hysterical subject will abandon the main cultural answers to these questions, from the "generally accepted" answers (therefore, puberty is a normal hysterical period in a person's life when he refuses the usual answers to such questions). It is now easy to see why supportive “healing” therapies fail: these types of psychotherapies will use common sense answers, that is, answers that the hysterical subject categorically refuses …

If you want a typical example of such a situation, you just need to read Dora's case. Through her symptoms and dreams, Dora never stops asking what it means to be a woman and a daughter in relation to a man's desire. In the second dream we read "Sie fragt wohl hundert mal", "she asks almost a hundred times." 2 Instead of paying attention to this questioning of himself, Freud gives her the answer, the generally accepted answer: a normal girl wants, needs a normal guy, that's all. As a young hysterical woman, Dora could only put aside such answers and continue her search.

This means that already at this point we are faced with the confusion of psychotherapy and ethics. In the works of Lacan you can find beautiful words about this: "Je veux le bien des autres", I - these are the words of the therapist, - "I want only the best for others." So far so good, this is a caring therapist. But Lacan continues: "Je veux le bien des autres a l`image du mien," - "I wish only the best for others, and this corresponds to my ideas." The next part shows us a further development in which the dimension of ethics becomes more and more evident: “Je veux le bien des autres al`image du mien, pourvu qu`il reste al`image du mien et pourvu qu`il depende de mon effort ". 3 "I wish all the best to others and it corresponds to my ideas, but on condition, firstly, that it does not deviate from my ideas, and secondly, that it depends purely on my concern."

Thus, the great danger of the caring therapist is that he maintains and rewards his own image in the patient, which inevitably leads to the discourse of the master, to whom the hysterical discourse is strictly oriented, and thus the outcome is predictable.

Meanwhile, it becomes clear that we cannot give a definition of psychotherapy without a definition of hysteria. As we said, hysteria focuses on the issue of identity and interpersonal relationships, mainly gender and intergenerational. Now it is absolutely clear that these questions are of the most general nature - everyone must find answers to these questions, which is why, in Lacanian terminology, hysteria is a definition of normality. If we want to define hysteria as a pathology, then we must look for a symptom that will lead us to one new and important thought.

Oddly enough, one of the first tasks that the therapist should address during the first consultation is finding a symptom. Why is this so? It is obvious that the patient shows his symptoms, this is the reason, in the first place, for which he comes to us. However, the analyst must look for a symptom, or rather, he must look for a symptom that can be analyzed. Therefore, we do not use the idea of "trick" or anything like that. In this regard, Freud offers the concept of Prüfungsanalyse, analysis-research, literally, not a "test-case", but a test (taste-case), an opportunity to try how it suits you. This becomes all the more necessary because of the fact that at present, owing to the vulgarization of psychoanalysis, anything can appear to be a symptom. The color of the car you buy is symptomatic, the length of the hair, the clothes you wear or don’t wear, etc. Of course, this is not entirely applicable, so we have to return to the original meaning, which is psychoanalytic and very specific. You can see this already in Freud's early writings, in Die Traumdeutung, Zur Psychopatologie des Alltagslebens, and Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten. Here we find the idea that, from a psychoanalytic point of view, a symptom is a product of the unconscious, in which two different drives find a compromise in such a way that the censorship can be deceived. This product is not random, not arbitrary, but subject to specific laws, which is why it can be analyzed. Lacan finished this definition. In his return to Freud, the symptom is, of course, a product of the unconscious, but Lacan clarifies that each symptom is structured as a language, in the sense that metonymy and metaphor are the main mechanisms. Certainly, the verbal structure is designed in such a way that it opens up the possibility of analysis through free association.

So this is our working definition of a symptom: we have to find a symptom to analyze if we want to start analyzing. This is what Jacques-Alain Miller called “la precipitation du symptôme,” the overthrow or precipitation of the symptom: the fact that the symptom must become visible, palpable, like the sediment of a chain of signifiers, so it can be analyzed. 4 This means, for example, that only depressive complaints or marital problems are not a symptom as such. Moreover, the circumstances must be such that the symptom becomes unsatisfactory, because the symptom can be completely, perfectly satisfying. Freud uses the metaphor of equilibrium in this respect: a symptom, being a compromise, is usually a perfect balance between loss and gain, which gives the patient a certain stability. Only when the balance turns into a negative side will the patient be willing to invest in therapy. Conversely, once the balance is restored, there is nothing surprising about the patient's departure and his "flight to health".

With this working definition, we can begin our investigation of the symptom as the goal of our clinical practice. This practice is essentially a deconstruction of the symptom, allowing us to go back to its roots. The most famous example is perhaps Signorelli's analysis of Freud's Psychopathology of Everyday Life - a perfect illustration of Lacan's idea that the unconscious is structured like a language. However, we find one important detail here. Every analysis of a symptom, however thorough it may be, ends with a question mark. Even more - the analysis ends with something that is missing. When we read Signorelli's analysis, at the base of Freud's schema we find the bracketed expression “(Repressed thoughts),” which is just another formulation of the question mark. 5 Every time - every individual analysis goes through this - we will come across something like this. Moreover, if the analyst is persistent, the patient's response will be anxiety, which is something new, something that does not fit into our understanding of the symptom.

It follows that we have to differentiate between two different kinds of symptoms. First of all, this is a classic list: conversion symptoms, phobias, obsessive phenomena, erroneous actions, dreams, etc. The second list, on the other hand, contains only one phenomenon: anxiety, more precisely, raw, unprocessed, non-mediated anxiety. As a result, the phenomenon of anxiety extends to what Freud called the somatic equivalents of anxiety, for example, disturbances in the work of the heart or breathing, sweating, tremors or tremors, etc. 6

It is quite obvious that these two types of symptoms are different. The first is diverse, but has two important characteristics: 1) always refers to a construct with a signifier, and 2) the subject is the beneficiary, i.e. beneficiary - one who actively uses the symptom. The second, on the contrary, is located strictly outside the sphere of the signifier; moreover, it is not something created by the subject; the subject is rather a passive, receiving party.

This radical difference does not mean that there is no relationship between the two types of symptoms. On the contrary, they can be interpreted as almost genetic lines. We started with a question mark, with what Freud called "Repressed Thoughts." It is in this questioning that the subject is seized with anxiety, more precisely with what Freud calls "unconscious anxiety" or even "traumatic anxiety":

? → unconscious / traumatic anxiety

Further, the subject will try to neutralize this "raw" anxiety, by means of its meaning, so that this anxiety can be transformed in the field of the psychic. It is important to note that this signifier is secondary, derived from the original signifier, which was never there. Freud calls this a "false connection", "eine falsche Verknüpfung". 7 This signifier is also the primary symptom, the most typical example is of course the phobic signifier. Thus, we must demarcate, draw a line - this is what Freud called the primary defensive process, and what will later be called by him primary repression, in which the border signifier is intended to serve as a defensive prohibition as opposed to an unweakened anxiety.

This trait of the signifier, being the first symptom, is only the root cause of the arriving (subsequent) series. Development can take the form of anything as long as it remains within the sphere of the signifier; what we call symptoms are exclusively knots in the greater verbal tissue, while the tissue itself is nothing more than a chain of signifiers that constitute the identity of the subject. You know Lacan's definition of the subject: "Le signifiant c'est ce qui représente le sujet auprès d'un autre signifiant", that is, "A signifier is that which represents the subject to another signifier." Within this chain of signifiers, secondary defenses can come into play, especially repression itself. The reason for this defense is again anxiety, but anxiety of a completely different nature. In Freudian terminology, this is a signaling alarm, signaling that the chain of signifiers has approached too close to the core, which will result in unweakened anxiety. The difference between these two anxieties is easy to spot in the clinic: patients tell us that they are afraid of their anxiety - this is where their clear difference lies. Thus, we can expand our drawing:

At the same time, we not only have differentiated two kinds of symptoms and two kinds of defenses, but we also arrive at an essential Freudian distinction between the two kinds of neuroses. On the one hand, there are actual neuroses, and on the other, psychoneuroses.

This is Freud's first nosology. He never gave up on it, only improved, especially with the help of the concept of narcissistic neuroses. We won't go into it here. The opposition between actual neuroses and psychoneuroses will be sufficient for our purposes. The so-called actual neuroses are not so “actual”, on the contrary, their understanding has almost disappeared. Their specific etiology, as described by Freud, has become so obsolete that no one further studies it. Indeed, who today dares to say that masturbation leads to neurasthenia, or that coitus interraptus is the cause of anxious neuroses? These statements carry a strong Victorian stamp, so we'd better forget about them altogether. Meanwhile, we also tend to forget the main idea following these Victorian references to coitus interruptus and masturbation, namely that, in Freud's theory, actual neurosis is a disease in which the somatic sexual impulse never receives mental development, but finds an outlet exclusively in somatic, with anxiety as one of the most important characteristics, and together with a lack of symbolization. From my point of view, this idea remains a very useful clinical category, or may, for example, relate to the study of psychosomatic phenomena that have the same characteristics of lack of symbolization, as well as perhaps the study of addiction. Moreover, actual neuroses may later become highly “relevant” again, or at least one form of neurosis. In fact, the most recent so-called "new" clinical categories, with the exception of personality disorders, are, of course, nothing more than panic disorders. I will not bore you with the latest details and descriptions. I can only assure you that they do not bring anything new compared to Freud's publications on anxious neuroses from the previous century; moreover, they are completely missing the point in their attempts to find a non-essential biochemical basis that activates panic. They are completely missing the point because they failed to understand that there is a causal link between the absence of words, verbalization - and the growth of specific forms of anxiety. Interestingly, we don't want to go into this. Let us just emphasize one important point: actual neurosis cannot be analyzed in the literal sense of the word. If you look at its schematic representation, you will understand why: there is no material for analysis here, there is no symptom in the psychoanalytic sense of the word. Perhaps this is the reason that after 1900 Freud did not pay enough attention to him.

This leads us to the realization of a specific object of psychoanalysis, psychoneuroses, the most famous example of which is hysteria. The difference from actual neuroses is obvious: psychoneurosis is nothing more than a developed protective chain with a signifier against this primitive, anxiety-provoking object. Psychoneurosis achieves success where the actual neurosis has failed, which is why we can find at the basis of each psychoneurosis an initial actual neurosis. Psychoneurosis does not exist in pure form, it is always a combination of an older, actual neurosis, at least that is what Freud tells us in Investigations of Hysteria. 8 At this stage, we can illustrate almost graphically the idea that each symptom is an attempt to re-covery, which means that each symptom is an attempt to mean something that was not originally signified. In this sense, every symptom and even every signifier is an attempt to master the initially disturbing situation. This chain of signifiers is endless, because there is no attempt that would give a final solution. Therefore, Lacan will say: "Ce qui ne cesse pas de ne pas s'écrite", "That which is constantly being said, but will never be said" - the subject continues to speak and write, but never reaches the goal in prescribing or pronouncing a specific signifier. Symptoms, in the analytic sense of the word, are the connecting links in this never-decreasing verbal fabric. This idea was developed by Freud for a long time and found its final development in Lacan. Freud discovered, first of all, what he called “forced association,” “Die Zwang zur Assoziation,” and “falsche Verknüpfung,” a “false connection,” 9 showing that the patient felt the need to associate the signifiers into what he saw as traumatic core, but this connection is false, hence the "falsche Verknüpfung". Incidentally, these assumptions are nothing more than the basic principles of behavior therapy; the whole concept of stimulus-response, conditioned response, and so on, is contained in one footnote in Freud's Investigations of Hysteria. This idea of forced association has not received enough attention from post-Freudians. Nevertheless, in our opinion, it continues to clarify several important points in Freud's theory. For example, further Freudian development brought us the idea of "Ubertragungen", plural hyphenation, which means that the signified can be moved from one signifier to another, even from one person to another. Later we find the idea of secondary development and the complex function of the ego, which says the same thing, only on a larger scale. And finally, but not least, we find the idea of Eros, drives that strive in their development towards greater harmony.

Psychoneurosis is a never-ending chain of signifiers emanating from and directed against the original, anxiety-provoking situation. Before us, of course, the question is: what is this situation, and is it really a situation? You probably know that Freud thought it was traumatic, especially sexy. In the case of an actual neurosis, the sexual bodily attraction cannot find an adequate outlet in the mental area, thus, it turns into anxiety or neurasthenia. Psychoneurosis, on the other hand, is nothing more than the development of this anxiety-provoking nucleus.

But what is this core? Initially in Freudian theory, it is not only a traumatic scene - it is so traumatic that the patient cannot or does not want to remember anything about it - the words are missing. Yet, throughout his research in the Sherlock Holmes style, Freud will find several features. This core is sexy and has to do with seduction; the father appears to be a villain, which explains the traumatic nature of this core; it deals with the issue of sexual identity and sexual relations, but, in a strange way, with an emphasis on pregenitality; and finally, it is old, very old. It would seem that sexuality is before the onset of sexuality, so Freud will speak of "pre-sexual sexual fright." A little later, of course, he will pay tribute to infantile sexuality and infantile desires. In addition to all these features, there were two others that did not fit into the picture. First of all, Freud was not the only one who wanted to know, his patients wanted it even more than he did. Look at Dora: she is constantly seeking knowledge about the sexual, she consults with Madame K., she swallows Mantegazza's books on love (these are Masters and Johnson at the time), she secretly consults a medical encyclopedia. Even today, if you want to write a scientific bestseller, you have to write something in this area, and you are guaranteed success. Second, each hysterical subject produces fantasies, which are a strange combination of knowledge secretly acquired by them and an allegedly traumatic scene.

Now we need to digress into a possibly completely different topic - the question of infantile sexuality. The most outstanding characteristic of infantile sexuality concerns not so much the problem of infantile-sexual games, but rather the most important one - it is their (infantile subjects) thirst for knowledge. Just like the hysterical patient, the child wants to know the answer to three related questions. The first question concerns the difference between boys and girls: what makes boys boys and girls girls? The second question concerns the topic of the appearance of children: where did my younger brother or sister come from, how did I come from? A final question about father and mother: what is the relationship between the two, why did they choose each other, and especially what are they doing together in the bedroom? These are the three themes of childhood sexual exploration as Freud described them in his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. 10 The child acts like a scientist and invents real explanatory theories, which is why Freud calls them "infantile sexual exploration" and "infantile sexual theories."As always, even in adult science, a theory is invented when we do not understand something - if we understand, we will not need theories in the first place. The attention-grabbing topic in the first question concerns the lack of a penis, especially in the mother.

The explanatory theory speaks of castration. The obstacle in the second question - the appearance of children - concerns the role of the father in this. Theory speaks of seduction. The final stumbling block concerns sexual relations as such, and the theory only provides pregenital answers, usually in a violent context.

We can describe this with a small diagram:

Each of these three theories has the same characteristics: each is unsatisfactory and, according to Freud, each is ultimately discarded. 11 But this is not entirely true: each of them can disappear as a theory, but at the same time it does not disappear completely. Rather, they reappear in the so-called primitive fantasies about castration and the phallic mother, seduction and the first father, and, of course, about the first scene. Freud recognizes in these primitive fantasies the basis for future, adult neurotic symptoms.

This brings us back to our question about the starting point of neurosis. This primordial scene is not so much a scene as it has a direct bearing on the question of origin. Lacan is credited with reworking the Freudian clinic into structural theory, especially with regard to the relationship between the Real and the Symbolic, and the important role of the Imaginary. There is a structural gap in the Symbolic, which means that some aspects of the Real cannot be symbolized in a certain way. Every time the subject is confronted with a situation that relates to these parts of the Real, this absence becomes apparent. This non-softened Real provokes anxiety, and it, returning, leads to an increase in endless protective imaginary constructs.

Freudian theories of infantile sexuality will find their development in the well-known formulations of Lacan: "La Femme n'existe pas" - "The woman does not exist"; "L'Autre de l'Autre n'existe pas" - "The Other The Other does not exist"; "Il n'y a pas de rapport sexuel" - "Sexual relationship does not exist." The neurotic subject finds his answers to this unbearable lightness of non-being: castration, the first father, and the first scene. These responses will be developed and refined in the subject's personal fantasies. This means that we can clarify the further development of the chain of signifiers in our first scheme: their further development is nothing more than primary fantasies, from which possible neurotic symptoms can develop, against the background of latent anxiety. This anxiety can always be traced back to the initial situation, which is caused by the development of defenses in the Imaginary. For example, Elizabeth von R., one of the patients described in Investigations of Hysteria, became ill at the thought of having an affair with her deceased sister's husband. 12 In the case of Dora 13, Freud notes that the hysterical subject is unable to endure a normal arousal sexual situation; Lacan will summarize this idea when he states that every encounter with sexuality is always unsuccessful, “une recontre toujours manqué,” too early, too late, in the wrong place, and so on. fourteen

Let's recap what has been said. What are we talking about now? We are thinking about a very general process that Freud called Menschwerdung, the becoming of a human being. A human being is a subject who is a “speaking being”, “parlêtre”, which means that he left nature for the sake of culture, left the Real for the Symbolic. Everything that is produced by man, that is, everything that is produced by the subject, can be understood in the light of this structural failure of the Symbolic in relation to the Real. Society itself, culture, religion, science - initially nothing but the development of these questions of origin, that is, they are attempts to answer these questions. This is what Lacan tells us about in his popular article La science et la vérité.15 Indeed, all these cultural products are produced essentially - how? and why? - relations between a man and a woman, between a parent and a child, between a subject and a group, and they establish rules that determine at a given time and in a given place not only the answers to these questions, but even the correct path, discourse, the very finding of the answer. The differences between the answers will determine the characteristics of different cultures. What we find on this macro-social bowl is also reflected on the micro-bowl, within the deployment of the individual members of society. When a subject constructs his own particular responses, when he develops his own chain of signifiers, of course, he is drawing material from a large chain of signifiers, that is, from the Big Other. As a member of his culture, he will share, more or less, the responses of his culture. Here, at this point, we encounter hysteria once again, finally, together with what we have called covering or supportive psychotherapy. As different as these supportive therapies are, they will always resort to general answers to these questions. The difference in lies is only in the size of the group that shares the answer: if the answer is "classical" - for example, Freud and Dora - then this answer is the most common denominator of a given culture; if the answer is "alternative", then he resorts to the joint opinion of the lesser alternative subculture. Other than that, there is no significant difference here.

The hysterical position is essentially a rejection of the general response and the possibility of producing a personal one. In Totem and Taboo, Freud notes that the neurotic subject flees from an unsatisfying reality, that he shuns the real world, "which is under the rule of human society and social institutions jointly created by him." 16 He eschews these collective entities because the hysterical subject looks through the inconsistency (fallibility) of the guarantees of this general answer, Dora discovers what Lacan calls "le monde du semblant," the world of pretense. She does not want any answer, she wants the Answer, she wants the Real Thing, and moreover, it must be produced by the great Other without any lack of anything. To be more precise: the only thing that can satisfy her is a fantasmatic first father who can guarantee the existence of the Woman, who, in turn, will create the possibility of Sexual Relations.

This latter assumption enables us to predict where the hysterical symptoms will be generated, namely at precisely those three points where the big Other fails. Therefore, these symptoms always become visible in the transference situation, and in clinical practice, and in everyday life. In his early works, Freud discovered and described the mechanisms of the formation of symptoms, especially the mechanism of condensation (thickening), but soon enough he noticed that this was not all. On the contrary, the most important was that every hysterical symptom is created for or in spite of someone, and this has become a determining factor in psychotherapy. Lacan's theory of discourse is, of course, a further development of this original Freudian discovery.

Freud's central pioneering idea is the recognition that every symptom contains within it an element of choice, the Neurosenwahl, the choice of neurosis. If we investigate this, we will understand that it is not so much a choice, but rather a refusal to choose. Every time a hysterical subject is faced with a choice regarding one of these three central themes, he tries to avoid this and wants to keep both alternatives, therefore, the central mechanism in the formation of a hysterical symptom is precisely condensation, a thickening of both alternatives. In an article on the connection between symptoms and hysterical fantasies, Freud notes that behind each symptom, not one, but two fantasies - masculine and feminine. The overall result of this non-choice is, of course, that which ultimately leads nowhere. You cannot have a cake and eat it. Freud gives a very creative illustration when he describes a well-known hysterical seizure in which the patient plays both roles in the underlying sexual fantasy: on the one hand, the patient pressed her outfit against her body with one hand, like a woman, while with the other hand she tried to rip it off. his - as a man … 17 A less obvious, but no less common example concerns a woman who wants to be maximally emancipated and identifies with a man, but whose sex life is full of masochistic fantasies, and in general is frigid.

It is this refusal to make a choice that makes the difference between the hysteria of every parlêtre, every speaking creature on the one hand, and pathological hysteria on the other. Each subject must make certain choices in life. He may find an easy way out with ready-made answers in his society, or his choices may be more personal, depending on his or her level of maturity. The hysterical subject refuses ready-made answers, but is not ready to make a personal choice, the answer must be made by the Master, who will never be the master in full.

This takes us to our final point, to the goal of psychoanalytic treatment. Earlier, when we distinguished between re-covering and dis-covering forms of psychotherapy, it was absolutely clear that psychoanalysis belongs to the re-covering. What do we mean by this, what will be the common denominator of this statement?

So what is the basic tool of psychoanalytic practice? This is, of course, an interpretation, an interpretation of the so-called associations given by the patient. It is common knowledge that the popularization of the Interpretation of Dreams has led to the fact that everyone is familiar with the idea of the manifest content of dreams and latent dream thoughts, with the therapeutic work of interpreting them, etc. This tool works very well, even when the person is not careful, as was the case with Georg Grottek and the "wild analysts" with their machine-gun style of interpretation. In this field, the difficulty lies not so much in giving an interpretation, but in getting the patient to accept it. The so-called therapeutic alliance between therapist and patient quickly becomes a battle over who is right. Historically speaking, it was a failure in such an over-interpretative process that led to the analyst's silence. You can even trace this development in Freud himself, especially in the interpretation of dreams. His first idea was that analysis should be carried out exclusively through the interpretation of dreams, so the title of his first major study was originally intended as "Dream and Hysteria." But Freud changed it to something completely different, "Bruchstück einer Hysterie-Analyze", only a fragment of the analysis of hysteria. And in 1911, he would warn his students against not giving too much attention to dream analysis, because it could become an obstacle in the analytic process. 18

Nowadays, it is not uncommon for such changes to occur on an already smaller scale during the supervision process. The young analyst is enthusiastically absorbed in the interpretation of dreams or symptoms, even with such enthusiasm that he loses sight of the analytic process itself. And when the supervisor asks him or her what the ultimate goal is, he or she finds it difficult to give an answer - something about making the unconscious conscious, or symbolic castration … the answer is completely vague.

If we want to define the purpose of psychoanalysis, we must return to our schematic representation of what psychoneurosis is. If you look at it, you will see: one infinite system of signifiers, that is, basic neurotic activity is interpreted as such, originates at these points where the Symbolic fails and ends with fantasies as a unique interpretation of reality. Thus, it becomes obvious that the analyst should not help to prolong this interpretation system, on the contrary, his goal is to deconstruct this system. Therefore, Lacan defined the ultimate goal of interpretation as the reduction of meaning. You may be familiar with the paragraph in the Four Fundamental Concepts where he says that an interpretation that gives us meaning is nothing more than a prelude. “Interpretation is aimed not so much at meaning as at restoring the absence of signifiers (…)” and: “(…) the effect of interpretation is isolation in the subject of the core, kern, to use Freud's term, non sense, (…)” … 19 The analytic process brings the subject back to the starting points from which he escaped, and which Lacan would later call the lack of the big Other. That is why psychoanalysis is undoubtedly an opening process, it opens layer by layer until it reaches the original initial point where the Imaginary begins. This also explains why moments of anxiety during the analysis are not unusual - each subsequent layer brings you closer to the starting point, to the base point of the alarm. Re-covering therapies, on the other hand, work in the opposite direction; they try to install common sense in adaptation responses. The most successful variant of covering therapy is, of course, the concretely realized discourse of the master, with the incarnation of the master in flesh and blood, that is, the guarantee of the first father in the existence of a Woman and Sexual Relations. The last example was Bhagwan (Osho).

Thus, the ultimate goal of analytic interpretation is that core. Before reaching that end point, we have to start from the very beginning, and at this beginning we find a fairly typical situation. The patient places the analyst in the position of the Subject Supposed to Know, "le sujet suppose de savoir." The analyst presumably knows, and therefore the patient makes his own free associations. During this, the patient constructs his own identity in relation to the identity that he attributes to the analyst. If the analyst confirms this position, the one that the patient gives him, if he confirms it, the analytic process stops and the analysis fails. Why? It will be easier to show this with the example of the well-known Lacanian figure called the "inner eight". twenty

If you look at this figure, you will see that the analytical process, represented by a continuous closed line, is interrupted by a straight line - the line of intersection. At the moment when the analyst agrees with the transference position, the outcome of the process is identification with the analyst in such a position, this is the line of intersection. The patient will stop deconstructing the excess of meanings, and, on the contrary, will even add one more to the chain. Thus, we return to re-covering therapies. Lacanian interpretations tend to abandon this position, so the process can go on. The effect of these never-waning free associations has been beautifully described by Lacan in his Function and Field of Speech and Language. This is what he says: “The subject is more and more detached from“his own being”(…), finally admits that this“being”has always been only his own creation in the sphere of the imaginary, and that this creation is completely devoid of any nor was there any credibility. For in the work he has done to recreate it for another, he discovers the original alienation, which forced him to construct this being in the form of another, and thus always condemning him to abduction by this other. 21

The result of the creation of such an identity is ultimately its deconstruction, together with the deconstruction of the Imaginary Big Other, which reveals itself as another homemade product. We can make comparisons with Don Quixote Cervantes, Don Quixote in analysis, for that matter. In analysis, he could discover that the evil giant was just a mill, and that Dulcinea was just a woman and not a princess of dreams, and of course that he was not a knight errant, which did not interfere with his wanderings.

This is why analytic work has so much to do with the so-called Trauerarbeit, the work of sorrow. You have to go through mourning for your own identity, and at the same time for the identity of the big Other, and this work of mourning is nothing more than a deconstruction of the chain of signifiers. In such a case, the goal is exactly the opposite of a jubilant identification with the analyst in the position of the big Other, which would be just a preparation for the first alienation or identification, one stage of the mirror. The process of interpretation and deconstruction involves what Lacan called "la traversée du fantasme", a journey through phantasm, the basic phantasm that constructed the subject's own reality. This or these basic phantasms cannot be interpreted as such. But, they institute the interpretation of symptoms. On this journey, they are revealed, which leads to a certain effect: the subject is eliminated, (turns out to be outside) in relation to them, this is “destitution subjective”, need, deprivation of the subject, and the analyst is eliminated - this is “le désêtre de l’analyste”. From this point on, the patient will be able to make his own choice, in full agreement with the fact that every choice is a choice devoid of any guarantees outside the subject. This is the point of symbolic castration where the analysis ends. In addition, everything depends on the subject himself.

Notes:

1. J. Lacan. Ecrits, a selection. Trans. A. Sheridan. New York, Norton, 1977, p. 236 ↩
2. S. Freud. A case of hysteria. S. E. VII, p.97. ↩
3. J. Lacan. Le Séminaire, livre VII, L'éthique de la psychanalyse, Paris, Seuil, p. 220 ↩
4. J. A. Miller. Clinique sous transfert, in Ornicar, nr. 21, p. 147. This precipitation of the symptom occurs at the very beginning of the development of the transfer. ↩
5. S. Freud. Psychopatology of everday life, S. E. VI, p.5. ↩
6. S. Freud. On the grounds for detaching a particular syndrome from neurasthenia under the description “anxiety neuroses”, S. E. III, p. 94-98. ↩
7. S. Freud. Studies on Hysteria, S. E. II, p.67, n.1. ↩
8. S. Freud. Studies on Hysteria, S. E. II, p. 259 ↩
9. S. Freud. Studies on Hysteria, S. E. II, p. 67-69, n. 1. ↩
10. S. Freud. Three essays on the theory of sexuality. S. E. VII, p. 194-197 ↩
11. Ibid ↩
12. S. Freud. Studies on Hysteria, S. E. II, p. 155-157 ↩
13. S. Freud Fragment of an analysis of a case of hysteria, S. E. VII, p. 28. ↩
14. J. Lacan. Le séminaire, livre XI, Les quatre concepts fondamentaux de la psychanalyse, Paris, Seuil, p. 53-55 and 66-67. ↩
15. J. Lacan. Ecrits. Paris. Seuil, 1966, p. 855-877 ↩
16. S. Freud. Totem and Taboo, S. E. XIII, p. 74. ↩
17. S. Freud. Histerical phantasies and their relation to bisexuality, S. E. IX, p. 166. ↩
18. S. Freud. The Handling of dream-interpretation in psychoanalysis, S. E. XII, p. 91 ff. ↩
19. J. Lacan. The four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis, Penguin, 1977, p. 212 and p. 250 ↩
20. J. Lacan The four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis, Trans. A. Sheridan. Pinguin, 1991, p. 271. ↩
21. J. Lacan. Ecrits, a selection, Norton, New York, 1977, p. 42. ↩