La sesión de tiempo variable busca renovar la radicalidad de la práctica paicoanalítica. Transcript: Speaker 1 But at the time, Lacan was writing, his interventions were also very much about contending with and unseating what he saw as schools of thought and practices of therapy that had de radicalized Freud, right? Yeah. Speaker 2 And hence the need for their return. Exactly. To the to the radicality. Speaker 1 And so they made so they may not have been, say, giving us like a the repeated familiar, you get so comfortable, you no longer feel any stakes to it 50 minute hour with someone who basically Says, and how do you feel? And like, I hope you have a good weekend, right? It’s not the same thing for him then. But his targets, namely the Kleinians and ego psychologists, both of whom we’ll talk about later, in the context of his essay, he sees them as having produced practices and theories That are equally just formal, that are equally about vindicating a theory over and against certain other sort of like claims of of illness, if suffering, a transformation, whatever. But the idea there is through things like through the short session, or through things like making you talk about Lac so much, he is going to return you to what he sees as being radical. The character of the return to Freud is simultaneously a polemical claim against contemporary visions of what therapy should be or could be or could only be. And it’s also a attempt to return to what made the beginning enterprise of therapy with Freud so important to begin with. (Time 0:35:26)
lacaniano práctica psicoanálisis
lacaniano práctica psicoanálisis
Reading Lacan as Structured and Functional Lacan’s essay ‘The Mirror Stage’ marked his international emergence in the psychoanalytic community, moving away from Freudian tradition to focus on the structural and functional aspects of Freud’s ideas, rather than a literal vs. metaphorical interpretation. Transcript: Speaker 2 Very, very different traditions. So we’re going to, we’re going to stop there with the bio because we are going to talk more about the sort of group and movement that formed around Lacan. But right now, we’re going to finally get into talking about this essay, the mirror stage. And it is really an early essay, by Lacan. And it’s him taking a step onto the international stage in terms of the international psychoanalytic community. So we’re going to bracket for a moment, the equal Freudian, and all the sort of like later, like apparatus of like, like, anianism, and get into it. I want to say really quickly before we do that, I want to call back to something that you said a little while ago, Patrick, that I think is really astute, where you’re you’re talking about, It’s not quite that you’re saying that Freud is literal and Lacan is metaphorical, right? That’s not that’s not right. That’s that’s reductive. But there is a way in, in which you can read Lacan as taking so much of what Freud is thinking about in some very concrete terms, and thinking about them in terms of structure and in terms Of function. (Time 0:47:50)
The Dynamic Production of the ‘I’ The title is intentionally structured with every word stacking on top of the other, and the italicized ‘I’ appears like a variable. The standout concept is the ‘I’ as a built-in function in the title, representing a functional character rather than a static entity. This highlights a dynamic production of the ‘I’ as something that is continually produced and not a given static entity. Transcript: Speaker 1 Do we kind of notice anything about this title right from the get go? Does anything kind of leap out does? Speaker 3 It feels like Matthew to me, formative function, like every word stacking on top of every other it feels intentional. Speaker 1 And even I in the pink is italicized. It looks like a variable. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 2 Absolutely. I mean, I think the thing that stands out here is just the concept of the I as a function built in, built into the title. Speaker 1 So yeah, so this is already something to point to here, right? You know, if you look at like books of froyds that are translated or articles of froyds that are translated, oftentimes they have titles like The Ego and the Id, Morning and Melancholia. In other words, processes or disorders and psychic agencies, like entities that are kind of to use a fancy word, reified, which is to say thingified, they have a certain substantial Character. Here, what Lacan is highlighting is a functional character, right, which suggests one, this language of mathematics. And he definitely is going to play a lot with math, like sort of metaphors here. But it also suggests the way in which whatever this thing is that we call an I is not a given static entity, but is rather something that is dynamically produced and presumably has to be Produced in an ongoing kind of way. (Time 0:53:36)
The Paradox of Psychoanalytic Experience and Phenomenology In this discussion, Lacan suggests that the ‘eye’ has a formative and creative role, particularly in the psychoanalytic experience, which is distinct from clinical sessions. This implies an expansion of the category of psychoanalytic experience. Lacan’s work also contains phenomenal logical aspects, linked to the school of thought associated with 20th-century French and Austrian-German philosophers who study the ways things appear. Transcript: Speaker 1 It’s paradoxical. So that’s what’s going on here. Now, Lacan, in this title, as it’s presented at least in English, seems to be suggesting one, we’re going to talk about this thing called the eye as a function, as having a formative that Is creative, or at least a shape influencing role. And as being revealed in what he describes as a psychoanalytic experience, this latter two words, right, it’s not in clinical sessions, right, or in our experience as clinical psychoanalysts, It’s instead the psychoanalytic experience. Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, I think that’s no, I’m just I’m just nodding enthusiastically at you, because I think there is there’s a sort of expansion of what that category even means. That’s it work here. Speaker 1 Yeah, and he seems to be in some ways, it’s one aspect of it. And it’s worth saying here for those of you who are interested in such things that Lacan has a lot of quote unquote, phenomenal logical aspects, right? And phenomenology is a broadly speaking, if we want to name it in this terms that are most relevant here, it’s a school of thought associated with 20th century French and largely Austrian German writers, philosophers who are talking about the ways in which things appear, it’s an attempt to. (Time 0:57:32)
The Essence of Psychoanalytic Experience The concept of psychoanalytic experience presented in the discussion is distinct from the clinical view, focusing on a psychoanalytic approach to contemplating experiences. The targeted audience includes psychoanalysts engaging in philosophical thinking rather than solely clinical or metapsychological matters. The essay emphasizes subject formation and repositions psychoanalytic experience as the discussion of self-formation. Transcript: Speaker 1 But but any event, right, this idea of the psychoanalytic experience here is not necessarily the clinical experience. It’s about like a psychoanalytic orientation to thinking about experience. And the people that he positions as an audience are people who are psychoanalysts, but who are not just thinking about clinical things or even metasychological things, but are also Sort of thinking in this certain philosophical term that might be a little alien to Freud. Speaker 2 Yeah, I think that’s right. And I mean, you look, you might think that we’re making too much of this seemingly simple term psychoanalytic experience. And maybe we are, that’s possible, I’ll entertain it. This essay, as we will talk about at some length, and as is already evident in the title that Patrick is like very deliberately having us slow down with, it’s about subject formation. Yes. So if you want to think about one way to understand the sort of re-situating of what is proper to this idea of psychoanalytic experience, you might think that for Lacan, we are in the realm Of psychoanalysis whenever we are talking about the formation of the self. And that is in so many ways, what this essay is about, is about the formation of the self, it is about the formation of (Time 1:00:59)
The Formation of the Self in Psychoanalytic Experience The key insight of this snip is the re-situating of psychoanalytic experience as being about the formation of the self, which is inherently other to itself, even when it perceives itself to be whole. This re-situated understanding contrasts with the Freudian perspective and encompasses the subject as the subject of experience, a participant in psychoanalytic therapy, the subject of language, and the subject of the social or ideological order. Transcript: Speaker 2 So if you want to think about one way to understand the sort of re-situating of what is proper to this idea of psychoanalytic experience, you might think that for Lacan, we are in the realm Of psychoanalysis whenever we are talking about the formation of the self. And that is in so many ways, what this essay is about, is about the formation of the self, it is about the formation of the self, as always already other to itself, even at the moment when It perceives itself to be whole. Speaker 1 And we should say here too, note that these, this way of thinking is different from the Freudian one, we’ve already used this term subject, right? And subject can mean a lot of different things. Now what’s at stake here is much more difficult because one, he’s talking about like the subject, yes, as like the subject of experience, but also the subject as in like the person as A arena of speculation or a participant in psychoanalytic therapy, but also the subject is like it’s the subject of language, the subject of the social order or an ideological order, Which is later where people go at this. (Time 1:01:52)
The I Function in Psychoanalysis The experience of the I function in psychoanalysis sets it at odds with the philosophy stemming from the cogito, as proposed by René Descartes. This notion opposes the idea of the ‘I’ as a thing of which one can possess total transparent self-certainty. Transcript: Speaker 2 Okay, we’re just going to go to English. It should be noted that this experience, the experience that psychoanalysis gives us of the I function. It should be noted that this experience sets us at odd with any philosophy directly stemming from the cogito. All right. So the cogito is a reference to René Descartes. If you know one thing about Descartes, it is right, I think therefore I am. Although if you do read that, that’s the Latin version. If you read, if you read the French version in the discourse on the method, it’s a pence d’oncche-sui. So more accurately, I am thinking, I mean, it goes both ways, but the present progressive is pretty important here. I am thinking therefore I exist or therefore I am existing. We could, but I promise we’ll not do too much on Descartes here. The purpose of bringing this up and unpacking it a little bit is to say that what LaCon is up to with this notion of the eye as a function is diametrically opposed to the idea that the eye Is a thing of which one can possess total transparent self certainty. Okay. (Time 1:17:24)
Reinterpreting Cogito Ergo Sum Lacan’s perspective on subjectivity is influenced by the field of linguistics and broad critiques of the Western episteme. He points out that in the Latin phrase ‘cogito ergo sum’, there is no explicit pronoun for ‘I’, and the assumption of the ‘I’ is already built into the verb. This leads to questions raised by thinkers like Bertrand Russell and existentialist Sartre about the identity of the ‘I’ that thinks and exists, suggesting the possibility of two separate identities. Transcript: Speaker 1 Lacan is also going to be a thinker who is operating a different moment when people are talking about subjectivity, because of like the relatively new field of linguistics at his point, A caesarean linguistic specifically, but also who is keen to think about critiques of the Western episteme more broadly, and critiques of the cogato that he’s already familiar with, And that some of his audience might already be familiar with. It’s worth saying here, just to quickly point to that, right? That if you look at, well, the Latin, cogito ergo sum, you will note that these are, well, for those of us who have Latin, right, that these, there’s, there’s no like pronoun in there, Latin could add a pronoun as an as a matter of emphasis, but it does it. Instead, with cogato, I think, and sum are marked in the first person, right? It’s I am therefore rather, I think therefore I am the eye is assumed from the get go. Speaker 3 Exactly. Speaker 2 It’s not assumed it’s built into the verb. Speaker 1 It’s snuggly. It’s smuggled into the verb, right? Speaker 3 That’s not the way it’s not. Speaker 1 It’s assumed as a given in the sense of it’s already inscribed into cogato and sum, but as Bertrand Russell at the time will say, you know, Bertrand Russell, a major thinker of this, and Also existentialist thinkers like Sart, who we know, Lacan is quite familiar with, and who mounts a similar critique of the cogato, how do we know that the eye that is doing the thinking Is the same as the eye that does the existing? Why not two separate ways? (Time 1:22:22)
Seeking reality beyond deception and illusions In order to build a solid foundation for his beliefs and theories, the individual aims to refute the possibility of being deceived or deluded in any way. He emphasizes the need to transcend hallucinations, dreaming, mental illness, and gaslighting, and rejects the idea of being a victim of self-deception or the deception of others. Additionally, he seeks to distance himself from the notion of being the sole creator of his reality, as he acknowledges the presence of external forces governing the simulation. Ultimately, the individual strives to establish a reality beyond the influence of evil deception and self-deception, aligning with the rejection of the Cartesian cogito and the psychoanalytic sense of being constantly deceived by oneself and others. Transcript: Speaker 2 By the evil deceiving demon. Right. Speaker 3 Literally, like he has to imagine a demon. And it’s like, it’s sort of like God but evil. Speaker 2 Yeah, it’s a demi- I mean, I know we have a word for that, and it’s Satan, but he doesn’t quite. Speaker 1 It’s a demi, or it’s more, right? Speaker 3 It’s it’s like- Or maybe even an evil genius. Speaker 1 It’s been a while since- It’s the people who are running the simulation, right? Speaker 2 But in any event, he has to say we’re not in the matrix. Speaker 1 Right. Yeah. But he reaches the theological language to do it. Speaker 2 It’s almost like- Yeah, it’s kind of where a lot of this stuff falls apart. Speaker 1 So it’s from the get-go, even before he builds it, right? It’s like in order for me to be doing this, I can’t be hallucinating, I.e., I can’t be dreaming or mentally ill. And two, I can’t be being deceived either by some other that’s gaslighting me or through some illness that I’m experiencing. In other words, the Cartesian cogato is absolutely not the type of person or is not the person in the full psychoanalytic sense because in the psychoanalytic sense, one thing we always Do is sleep. We dream. Speaker 3 And we have- And they’re constantly deceived- And we deceive ourselves. By ourselves and others. Yes. Yeah. Speaker 1 Yeah. Speaker 2 So this is of course- Yeah, this is all here. (Time 1:25:39)