Jacques Lacan's Psychoanalysis

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

Trying to say something about such meaningful texts as the works of Freud and Lacan, you inevitably doom yourself to reproaches that some of these meanings - for some, perhaps quite obvious - were missed, but in There was a significant deviation in the presentation of those concerned.

However, already thanks to this first fear, it is possible to outline a starting point for further presentation, which, in the event of these reproaches, can serve as a kind of apologist for the speaker.

So, we take omissions and deviations of speech as a starting point. Thus, from the very beginning, we find ourselves at the very center of the problems under consideration, since the very concepts of omission and deviation pose a number of questions for us:

What is missing in the speech?

Where does speech deviate from?

Why and why was there a pass or deviation?

Where and where does speech deviate from?

From a practical point of view, the occurrence of a gap or deviation is an indication that speech is approaching the fact that, not currently being able to be expressed using words, it expresses itself in the form of a symptom. The absence of speech marks the place in which its cause was once hidden.

Moving from a descriptive to an explanatory presentation, one should point out the circumstances that give the key to understanding this state of affairs, namely: firstly, the function of speech is always its focus on another and, secondly, in speech, the subject always expresses it in one way or another. yourself. In addition, speech is built according to the laws of the language, in which the system of relations between people is originally laid. At least, according to the studies and observations of Claude Levi-Strauss, the formation of language historically, in fact, begins with the fixation of such relations, the classification of others by kinship and the prescription of the nature of their relationship with each other. When the subject speaks, he in any case inscribes himself into the general speech - discourse - of the people around him. Moreover, his verbal image of himself appears both in how and in what he says, regardless of who or what he speaks about explicitly. Thus, speech is always a story to another about himself, even in the case when this is internal speech, since the ability to speak a language was received by him from another, to whom this subject attributes the law expressed and existing in the language.

However, long before the subject of a language, that is, in early childhood, he already has, on the one hand, some experience that has neither an image nor a name, as well as an integral, but not yet indicated by words, perception of himself. When it comes time to call this experience and this own image in words, it turns out that some of their parts do not agree with the laws of relationships prescribed by language.

On the one hand, such parts of experience and one's own image, according to the laws of language, are embedded in interconnection with other concepts that bear the stamp of undesirability, censure, and punishment. But along with the danger of social rejection, there is a more complex circumstance: the archaic parts of the experience and the image of the subject cannot be fully reflected in the language due to its rough discreteness and, thus, it is impossible to turn them to another with the help of speech and, accordingly, to receive from him the desired answer. Regarding such parts, we can say that an attempt was made to designate them in words, to write them into their history, into the text of the subject, but this attempt ran into the obstacles described above. But what once took place in mental life remains in it forever. Remains in it and the described failed attempt, the result of which nevertheless became a multi-level connection between the word, the imaginary representation and the vague experience of the Real. There is only one way out: to displace these complexes into the unconscious, where they, being already marked with words, begin to be structured according to the laws of language as symptoms. As a result, in place of what is repressed in the text about oneself, from which any further statements are extracted, breaks are formed, from which, nevertheless, the threads of interconnections with other concepts that make up memories, that is, the history of the subject, diverge. The multidimensionality of this structure is dictated by the fact that one and the same meaning can be potentially expressed in different ways, and if some of these methods pass far from the resulting ruptures, others directly interact with them. But, on the other hand, the further the speech runs from such gaps, the more distorted it conveys what the subject wants to express by it.

In the course of psychoanalytic therapy, the subject begins to wander in distant roundabout ways, however, since he seeks a better understanding from the analyst so that he can save him from mental suffering, he gradually becomes convinced of the unsuitability of such distant paths. Pronouncing layer by layer his image, accepted by others, but truly dissatisfying him, the subject is getting closer and closer to his breaks, from which comes the fear of being rejected and despair at the opportunity to express their content, seeking satisfaction from the other. Where speech suddenly encounters such breaks, it either deviates or breaks off. This is how we see the nature of resistance. But it is also necessary to take into account that the content of the breaks in the subject's text about himself was formed at one time in relation to certain people who surrounded him in childhood. And the attempt to name their real and imagined parts in words was aimed at expressing these parts in front of them and getting the corresponding desired response. It is not surprising now that as they approach this content more and more, words begin to bear the stamp of the one to whom they should be directed. This seal, the form of expression, even if distorted beyond recognition, is essentially the wordy name of the person to whom the deviated or missed speech was intended. Thus, in the psychoanalytic process there is a transfer … Now the relationship between transference and resistance becomes clear. Behind the transfer is the name of the person to whom the request was sent about where the resistance comes from. And since the name and the content hidden behind it are inextricably linked, the recognition of the name also becomes a source of resistance, however, on the paths of speech approaching the breaks in the history of the subject, this name in the form of expression appears and becomes obvious much earlier than the content of this break … Resistance is born by forward transference.

Thus, in the beginning, psychoanalytic technique is reduced to helping the subject not to go astray; the analyst, by his interventions, makes it impossible for the subject to re-restore the old roundabout ways, sowing doubt about the content of strongly deviated, empty speech, increasing dissatisfaction with its suitability for self-expression.

The main intervention, interpretation, should be made at the moment of transfer - resistance, when the subject can already see the very ends of his breaking off, but complete speech, to which the interpreter's speech can be directly attached. And if such an attachment occurs, the content of the gap no longer needs to express itself through the symptom, since speech is returned to it. And although she herself still cannot express the imaginary ideas and vague experience of the Real behind her, they now become accessible to consciousness.

In addition, it should be noted that the time required to move deeper into the breaks in the subject's text may differ both for different subjects and for the same subject when working with his various symptom complexes. The speech cut off halfway to them is unlikely to resume from the same place in the next session, since everyday life between sessions, as opposed to psychoanalytic intervention, will contribute to a return to detours, convenient for establishing and maintaining an actual relationship. In other words, the setting-sanctioned break actually contributes to the subject's resistance.