-10-
Discreet forms of passage to the act
Luc Vander Vennet
Belgium
The study of the ‘passage to the act’ [passage à l’acte] took
an important place in the teaching of Lacan from the beginning. At the
time he wrote his doctoral thesis, psychiatrists were involved in a
discussion about the question of ‘responsibility’, for example in cases
of unmotivated murders.The study of these unmotivated acts were at the
heart of his thesis on the case of Aimée, as was the unmotivated murders
by the Papin sisters. In his article on psychosis in the Ecrits
Lacan mentions that it was this study that brought him to
psychoanalysis. What is at stake in the passage to the act is indeed the
question of jouissance and its regulation and this is indeed what
psychoanalysis is about. So, as Zenoni(1) says, the strangeness or the
‘unmotivated’ character of the passage to the act is not a kind of
anomaly, something exterior to humanity, but on the contrary something
that reveals the fundamental elements that constitutes the human being
itself.
an important place in the teaching of Lacan from the beginning. At the
time he wrote his doctoral thesis, psychiatrists were involved in a
discussion about the question of ‘responsibility’, for example in cases
of unmotivated murders.The study of these unmotivated acts were at the
heart of his thesis on the case of Aimée, as was the unmotivated murders
by the Papin sisters. In his article on psychosis in the Ecrits
Lacan mentions that it was this study that brought him to
psychoanalysis. What is at stake in the passage to the act is indeed the
question of jouissance and its regulation and this is indeed what
psychoanalysis is about. So, as Zenoni(1) says, the strangeness or the
‘unmotivated’ character of the passage to the act is not a kind of
anomaly, something exterior to humanity, but on the contrary something
that reveals the fundamental elements that constitutes the human being
itself.
As
the paradigm of jouissance changes, the point of view about passage to
the act changes too. From a breaking through the mirror, to a wild form
of castration, separation or extraction. So this phenomenon takes on
different forms from all kinds of suicide, to all kinds of self-
mutilation or of striking the kakon in the Other.
The
introduction of the term ‘ordinary psychosis’ permits us to read a
range of ‘discreet’ forms of passage to the act that are not so explicit
but are much more ‘ordinary’ so that we need to ‘read’ them. The nature
and frequency of the passage to the act can be an index of this
structure.
“I feel like having fallen out of the scene to be”.
The way this subject introduced himself at the beginning of the cure
reminded me of the pair of concepts Lacan uses to explain the phenomenon
of the passage to the act in his seminar on anxiety. He speaks there
about the scene and the world. He studies once again the
mirror phase, but now he no longer points at the image but at the border
of the mirror that marks the limit of the illusionary world of
knowledge which he calls the scene. He distinguishes this scene from the world of
the real. He then describes the two fundamental characteristics of the
passage to the act. First as a falling out of the scene to join the
world, a passage from the scene to the world. And
secondly, this passage to the real has to be considered as an absolute
identification with the object to which the subject reduces himself.
This is the key that permits to read several forms of passage to the
act: the defenestration as a falling through the frame of the window,
the suicide as leaving the scene of life, the fugue as a wandering
around in the world as a vagabond.
This
passage to the real is the common point between the passage to the act
and the clinic of psychosis that takes discreet forms in the ordinary
psychoses. The fine examination of their frequency and nature can permit
us to read and distinguish them.
“I feel like having fallen out of the scene to be.
Although my friends are still friendly with me and keep inviting me,
its feels as if I’m absent when I’m present, as a kind of fundamental
exclusion”, is a discrete form of this passage from the scene to the
world. Especially when we discover its repetitive character and the
number ofscenes to be that he has set up throughout his life, falling out of them every time again.
We
read these forms today in all kinds of discreet forms of disappearing,
of isolation or not participating. What is more ordinary today than an
interruption of work or study for a trip around the world? The
repetition of this interruptions and their abruptness can reveal
something different. Even as the different changes of work, of
interests, of activities. That are, at the same time, the most ordinary
phenomena in our modern world.
Or,
what about the girl that asks my advice about how to deal with her
parents? They have a conflict and each time she tries to discuss about
it she’s thrown out once again. “What is it that I’m doing wrong? Should
I speak to them in another way?” This apparently questioning of her
subjective implication will reveal a series of passages to the act.
Where a symbolic separation is impossible a separation in the real is
realized by an endlessly making herself throw out of the family scene.
To
conclude: all these kinds of discreet forms of passage to the act may
serve as discreet signs of ordinary psychosis. Although this seems to me
not to be the most important point. In all these cases the very moment
they appear, the way a subject tries to remediate them, the very
specific kind of object they ‘real-a-lize’ are very singular.
Instead of being discreet signs of psychosis, they will reveal
themselves in the cure as the sign of their psychosis. That’s what
psychoanalysis is really about.
1. A. Zenoni, L’Autre pratique Clinique, érès, 2009
2. J. Lacan, Séminaire X, L’Angoisse, Seuil, 2004, p 137
– 9 –
Distinction de l’imaginaire et du symbolique :
une clinique du détail
Patricia Bosquin-Caroz
Belgique
Extrait issu du texte paru sur l’Hebdo-blog n°63, consacré à la prochaine Journée FIPA. Pour le texte complet, “Appréhension imaginaire ou symbolique du phénomène clinique : la croyance délirante », cliquez sur hebdo-blog
Au cours de son
séjour en prison, qui précède son hospitalisation, après quelques
semaines d’incarcération, le délire de persécution d’Aimée à l’égard de
l’actrice tombe du jour au lendemain. Lacan rencontre une malade
« guérie ». Il remarque alors que les thèmes du délire qualifiés de
paranoïaques, mêlant thèmes de persécution et thèmes mégalomaniaques,
sont lors de son admission à l’hôpital complètement réduits. Aimée, qui
prêtait à Mme Z. l’intention d’assassiner son enfant, se demande même
comment elle a pu croire cela. Ses compagnons de cellule, ainsi que la
responsable de la prison, n’en croiront pas leurs oreilles. Aimée va
être mise en observation. Lacan s’interroge sur le statut à donner à
cette guérison. Il observe que la non adhésion intellectuelle d’Aimée à
ses anciennes croyances délirantes n’empêche aucunement celles-ci de
demeurer intactes. Comment repère-t-il ce trait fondamental, au principe
du phénomène de la croyance délirante, et qu’il désignera par celui
« d’inertie dialectique » ?
Dans un sous
chapitre de sa thèse intitulé « Attitude mentale de la malade quant à
l’histoire de son délire et quant à ses thèmes », il souligne qu’Aimée
fait montre d’une intégrité intellectuelle complète dans les épreuves de
capacité et que le rappel des faits provoque chez elle une certaine
honte, un sentiment de leur ridicule voire même de regret. Pourtant, il
remarque que bien que les thèmes de son délire n’entraînent plus
maintenant aucune adhésion intellectuelle, certains d’entre eux n’ont
pas perdu toute « valeur d’évocation émotionnelle dans le sens de
croyance ancienne ». « J’ai fait cela, parce qu’on voulait tuer mon
enfant », dira-t-elle. Lacan souligne la forme grammaticale utilisée par
Aimée, comme il le dit : directe et conforme à cette croyance ancienne.
Dans une présentation de malade, il relève aussi la façon dont elle
s’adresse au public, « …à voix basse, mais frémissante, elle s’abaisse
certes à l’excuse, mais invoque la sympathie due à une mère qui défend
son fils. » Il déduit de ces observations la puissance subsistante de
certains thèmes délirants sur la malade.
Ainsi, c’est à
partir de détails cliniques que Lacan établira la différence entre la
conscience et la croyance délirante. Il s’agit de deux niveaux
différents qu’il placera plus tard sur son schéma L en distinguant le
plan imaginaire de l’ordre symbolique. A cet égard, il soulignera, cette
fois à propos de Schreber, que l’axe de la communication imaginaire
avec le petit autre, en l’occurrence sa femme, n’était aucunement altéré
par le commerce délirant que Schreber entretenait avec l’Autre, dans ce
cas, Dieu.
Dans le séminaire
III, à propos des phénomènes élémentaires, Lacan distingue le contenu
imaginaire, soit le sens qui est compréhensible pour tout le monde, de
la structure. Il y fait référence à sa thèse : « Dès cette époque, j’ai
souligné avec fermeté que les phénomènes élémentaires ne sont pas plus
élémentaires que ce qui est sous-jacent à l’ensemble de la construction
du délire. Ils sont élémentaires comme l’est par rapport à une plante,
la feuille où se verra un certain détail de la façon dont s’imbriquent
et s’insèrent les nervures – il y a quelque chose de commun à toute
plante qui se reproduit dans certaines des formes qui composent sa
totalité. De même, des structures analogues se retrouvent au niveau de
la composition, de la motivation, de la thématisation du délire, et au
niveau du phénomène élémentaire.[1] »
Lacan constate que c’est toujours la même force structurante qui est à
l’œuvre dans le délire, qu’on le considère, dit-il, dans une des parties
ou dans sa totalité. Avec l’abord des psychoses, Lacan va nous rompre à
une discipline qui consiste à distinguer l’appréhension immédiate et
imaginaire du phénomène, de l’appréhension structurale du phénomène
élémentaire… D’une certaine façon, c’est déjà sur cette voie qu’il nous
menait dès 1932.
[1] Ibid., p. 28.
– 8 –
Six extracts from the text
Who is Mad and Who is Not?
On Differential Diagnosis in Psychoanalysis
Pierre-Gilles Guéguen
Paris
(Read the full text in Attach file, Reprint from Culture and Clinic , Minnesota press, Issue N°1, 2013)
Extract 1
There
is a cross fertilizing movement at play between two streams of thought
all along thework of Lacan. On one hand, in the name of psychoanalysis,
he discards any kind of segregation of our fellow humans (for example
when he defines madness as the essence of human liberty in his first Écrits
or when he proclaims in 1976 that “Everyone is mad”); this is the Lacan
in favor of continuism. On the other hand he tries to build up very
precise definitions of what the phenomena to be addressed through
psychoanalysis might be: their logics, their minute description, their
clear-cut differences.
is a cross fertilizing movement at play between two streams of thought
all along thework of Lacan. On one hand, in the name of psychoanalysis,
he discards any kind of segregation of our fellow humans (for example
when he defines madness as the essence of human liberty in his first Écrits
or when he proclaims in 1976 that “Everyone is mad”); this is the Lacan
in favor of continuism. On the other hand he tries to build up very
precise definitions of what the phenomena to be addressed through
psychoanalysis might be: their logics, their minute description, their
clear-cut differences.
Extract 2
When
Lacan says, “We are all mad, that is to say, we are all delusional” one
might take it as a strict equivalent of “we are all psychotics”. If it
were so, the option would totally be in favor of the late Lacan and
erase the first part of his teaching. It emerges as extremely important
to stress the very subtle way in which J.-A. Miller comments on this
sentence. His indications in this matter are fundamental since they have
bearings on the very practice of analysis.
Lacan says, “We are all mad, that is to say, we are all delusional” one
might take it as a strict equivalent of “we are all psychotics”. If it
were so, the option would totally be in favor of the late Lacan and
erase the first part of his teaching. It emerges as extremely important
to stress the very subtle way in which J.-A. Miller comments on this
sentence. His indications in this matter are fundamental since they have
bearings on the very practice of analysis.
In his last lecture
of the year 2008, he takes a very clear standpoint: “The madness at
stake here, this generic madness, is general, or rather universal. It is
not psychosis. Psychosis is a category from the clinic with which we
try to capture something which anyway inscribes itself in this very
universal.” And Miller indicates that the signifier “delusional” in this
particular sentence of Lacan’s is to be understood as: “taken within
the network of meaning” (which cannot be avoided since human beings are
captured within the network of language).
Extract 3
Within
the Freudian Field the debate on un-triggered psychosis turned out to
be a widely shared concern in 1998 when the category of Ordinary
Psychosis was created by Jacques-Alain Miller during a research program
of the Sections Cliniques du Champ freudien.
the Freudian Field the debate on un-triggered psychosis turned out to
be a widely shared concern in 1998 when the category of Ordinary
Psychosis was created by Jacques-Alain Miller during a research program
of the Sections Cliniques du Champ freudien.
The
concept of ordinary psychosis was at first of restrictive extension but
became rapidly in vogue. In the beginning it was presumed to concern
only some rare cases in which the foreclosure of the Name of the Father
remained un-decidable. A consensus soon turned up that it was not rare
to have to deal with an indetermination in the diagnosis of a case even
after lengthy preliminary interviews. As a matter of fact there were
already hints of it in Lacan’s first teachings when he mentioned
un-triggered psychosis. And sometimes, even though psychosis is
technically onset, it takes very discreet forms (an isolated elementary
phenomenon for example).
However
in some Schools of the AMP from 2004 to 2008, the vogue for the
category of ordinary psychosis – and it is a fact that the increasing
number of cases to be found is correlated with the ongoing decline of
the Name of the Father in our civilization – and the emphasis put on
rapid therapeutic effects in psychoanalytic treatment as developed in
the French psychoanalytical free clinics created by the École de la
Cause freudienne, produced an inflationist bubble of indecisive
diagnosis and maybe some disarray for many clinicians who did not see
the point of using clinical categories that were obsolete in modern
psychiatry when the “new clinic in fashion” was the clinics of the
knots.
Extract 4
Some precision and reflection about the overextension of “ordinary psychosis” was necessary. Miller
presented these details in a lecture he gave in English under the title
“Ordinary Psychosis Revisited”. This text of reorientation is to be
read as a landmark and a turning point in our clinics.
presented these details in a lecture he gave in English under the title
“Ordinary Psychosis Revisited”. This text of reorientation is to be
read as a landmark and a turning point in our clinics.
Extract 5
In
the same text Miller also indicates that in the differential diagnosis
of ordinary psychosis the clinician has to look for a negative
differential approach: if it is not a neurosis then it is a psychosis
although it is not triggered. He mentions that the most solid reference
to discriminate between ordinary psychosis and neurosis is Hysteria for
which there is a very sturdy structural apparatus in the Freudian and
Lacanian corpus.
the same text Miller also indicates that in the differential diagnosis
of ordinary psychosis the clinician has to look for a negative
differential approach: if it is not a neurosis then it is a psychosis
although it is not triggered. He mentions that the most solid reference
to discriminate between ordinary psychosis and neurosis is Hysteria for
which there is a very sturdy structural apparatus in the Freudian and
Lacanian corpus.
Extract 6
The
proposition: “We are all mad but we are not all psychotics” should also
be examined in light of the theory of generalized foreclosure
formulated by J.-A. Miller in 1986, since at first sight it seems to
object to it.
proposition: “We are all mad but we are not all psychotics” should also
be examined in light of the theory of generalized foreclosure
formulated by J.-A. Miller in 1986, since at first sight it seems to
object to it.
– 7 –
Méconnaissance de la psychose ordinaire :
de quelques conséquences
François Ansermet
Suisse
Ce qu’il y a
d’extraordinaire dans la psychose ordinaire, c’est qu’on n’y pense pas
forcément – ses signes étant effectivement discrets, fins, plus
difficilement repérables que les symptômes extraordinaires de la
psychose : hallucination, délire, ou phénomènes élémentaires au sens
classique.
d’extraordinaire dans la psychose ordinaire, c’est qu’on n’y pense pas
forcément – ses signes étant effectivement discrets, fins, plus
difficilement repérables que les symptômes extraordinaires de la
psychose : hallucination, délire, ou phénomènes élémentaires au sens
classique.
Bizarreries,
maniement particulier du langage, troubles fins de la pensée, rejet
brusque de l’autre, poussées d’angoisse non reconnues comme telles,
prises pour une difficulté d’inscription sociale ou des barrages dans
les relations, débranchement du temps des autres, désinsertion, toutes
sortes de dérèglements qui surgissent sans qu’on les ait vu venir, ni
qu’on n’arrive à les considérer comme un ensemble.
maniement particulier du langage, troubles fins de la pensée, rejet
brusque de l’autre, poussées d’angoisse non reconnues comme telles,
prises pour une difficulté d’inscription sociale ou des barrages dans
les relations, débranchement du temps des autres, désinsertion, toutes
sortes de dérèglements qui surgissent sans qu’on les ait vu venir, ni
qu’on n’arrive à les considérer comme un ensemble.
Il s’agirait aussi
de penser le rôle du traumatisme dans ce type de psychose, parfois cause
du déclenchement ou qui reste enkystée dans ce qu’on prend comme une
réaction au traumatisme – le traumatisme étant devenu aujourd’hui à la
fois prépondérant et une explication généralisée du malaise individuel
et collectif.
de penser le rôle du traumatisme dans ce type de psychose, parfois cause
du déclenchement ou qui reste enkystée dans ce qu’on prend comme une
réaction au traumatisme – le traumatisme étant devenu aujourd’hui à la
fois prépondérant et une explication généralisée du malaise individuel
et collectif.
A cette liste, on
devrait ajouter le critère majeur de la « méconnaissance ». La psychose
ordinaire se présente d’abord en tant que méconnue, avec le paradoxe qu’elle va devenir d’autant plus envahissante qu’elle reste méconnue.
Ce qui fait du
repérage des signes discrets de psychoses ordinaires non seulement un
enjeu clinique majeur, mais un enjeu de société. S’adresser à un
psychotique comme s’il ne l’était pas, en plus de le laisser seul dans
sa souffrance, peut le pousser vers une tendance au passage à l’acte.
La reconnaissance
de la psychose ordinaire représente un enjeu majeur quant à l’incidence
de la psychanalyse dans le champ de la psychiatrie. On ne repère plus
les psychotiques en psychiatrie. En particulier dans la psychiatrie
d’enfant et d’adolescent, où les troubles du spectre autistique ont pris
toute la place. Dans la psychiatrie d’adultes, ce phénomène touche
progressivement les grands syndromes sur lesquels elle s’était
constituée, comme la schizophrénie et la paranoïa. C’est lourd de
conséquences.
On pourrait même
faire l’hypothèse que le déclin de la clinique participerait à la montée
contemporaine de la violence, dans la tendance du sujet à traiter
lui-même la faille non reconnue qui l’habite, en adoptant des prothèses
identitaires, des prêts-à-porter fanatiques, pouvant pousser à l’extrême
la destructivité qui l’habite.
Avec la psychose
ordinaire, on est dans le registre de la contingence plutôt que dans
celui de la causalité. Une contingence qui met en jeu l’événement, dans
ses valences traumatiques, mais qui tient aussi à l’impact du signifiant
sur la jouissance[1].
Cette
caractéristique clinique nécessite une attention particulière quant à la
rencontre avec le sujet et à la manière d’intervenir. Plutôt que de
dénouer une causalité en jeu, il s’agit plutôt de faciliter une
invention possible. Prendre ses repères dans les potentialités de
réponse du sujet, plutôt que dans la détermination de son impasse.
On a trop souvent
tendance à considérer la psychose comme un processus négatif, voire
comme un défect. Il y a aussi les potentialités qu’elle ouvre, qui
peuvent être un facteur d’invention, de créativité. Quel est le rapport
entre l’invention et la découverte[2].
Dans le champ des sciences, parfois une invention peut déboucher sur
une découverte. Une découverte nécessite de l’avoir d’une certaine
manière anticipée. Y compris lorsqu’il s’agit d’une découverte par serendipity[3].
Encore faut-il que le chercheur se saisisse de la contingence, où se
dévoile autre chose que ce qu’il cherchait. Tel serait un autre enjeu de
ce qu’enseigne la place de la contingence dans le champ de la psychose
ordinaire – un autre destin, inattendu, de ce qu’on ne peut se contenter
de voir comme un trouble.
[1] Voir Jacques-Alain Miller. Les six paradigmes de la jouissance. La cause freudienne, 93, 1999 ; voir ce qui concerne le 4ème
paradigme : « Qu’est-ce qui change d’un paradigme à l’autre ? C’est que
Lacan dément ce clivage du signifiant et de la jouissance dans ce
quatrième paradigme. Il forge une alliance, une artriculation étroite
entre le signifiant et la jouissance », p.15
[2] Jacques-Alain Miller, « Un rêve de Lacan »,
in : Le réel mathématique. Psychanalyse et mathématique. Textes réunis
et édités par Pierre Cartier et Nathalie Charraud, Agalma, Paris, 2004,
p. 124
paradigme : « Qu’est-ce qui change d’un paradigme à l’autre ? C’est que
Lacan dément ce clivage du signifiant et de la jouissance dans ce
quatrième paradigme. Il forge une alliance, une artriculation étroite
entre le signifiant et la jouissance », p.15
[2] Jacques-Alain Miller, « Un rêve de Lacan »,
in : Le réel mathématique. Psychanalyse et mathématique. Textes réunis
et édités par Pierre Cartier et Nathalie Charraud, Agalma, Paris, 2004,
p. 124
[3] Sylvie Castellin, Sérendipité. Du conte au concept, Seuil, Science ouverte, Paris, 2014
– 6 –
Learning to speak their lalangue: an indication of the course of transference in ordinary psychosis
Dora Pertesi
Greece
Nowadays,
in the era of the Other who doesn’t exist, ordinary psychosis gets on
well both with the non-existence of the Other, as well as with that of
the sexual relation. Why is that? “Because it replaces speech with
number and gives the value of the real to the semblant”[1], as M.-H. Brousse points out.
in the era of the Other who doesn’t exist, ordinary psychosis gets on
well both with the non-existence of the Other, as well as with that of
the sexual relation. Why is that? “Because it replaces speech with
number and gives the value of the real to the semblant”[1], as M.-H. Brousse points out.
The semblant is our language, the language as a social bond. So, how do some subjects express themselves?
In
our era, we see subjects who are almost disconnected from the social
bond, who however keep a degree of connection through certain
signifiers, or through certain ephemeral norms, such as blogger,
performer, hacker, etc. We need to note that the names of these norms do not set a limit to jouissance,
because they are linked with a community that is not founded by an
ideal, but through a common name (i.e. hackers) which is the opposite of
a nomination.
These
are subjects who do not possess the Name-of-the-Father as a pivot point
of the symbolic order and of the delineating of jouissance. Very often
this absence is even likely to endanger their own life. Multiple
addictions, (alcohol, drugs, extreme sports, etc.) lead them to a
jouissance without limits, and that is because going beyond limits is a
way for these subjects to feel their body, “release adrenalin”, as is
characteristically said.
Transference
in its turn has undergone modifications. We cannot use the traditional
transference terms anymore (Subject-Supposed-to-Know). And that is
because these subjects feel almost threatened by a bad Other, are
suspicious, laconic, cynical, ironic, speak their own language, a
language which has very little to do with the semblant. However, a way
needs to be found for transference to develop.
Within
the context of the democratization of the Other, which according to
J.-A. Miller is inherent to ordinary psychosis, one could respond, as G.
Caroz maintains, with “a democratization of the relationship between
analyst and analysand, which often gives the analytic session the air of
a democratic discussion, of an exchange” [2].
Following
the above, my opinion is that we often need to adopt the signifiers of
the social or the biopolitical Other, as well as the subject’s talking
style and language. Just like an analyst who learns the Donald [3]
language, in attempting to communicate with a little girl, in the same
way we can feel free to learn something from the special language and
style of the subject. This is a language which contains elements of the lalangue,
to which the unconscious is subjected as knowledge that has been
processed, knowledge which consists of equivocities and homophonies,
according to Lacan [4]. One can assume, as J.-A. Miller notes, that this language “is not a presumable language, but a language exposed” [5].
A language exposed touches upon something of the order of the real. In that sense, if the lalangue
of the subject crashes constantly the semblant of the discourse then,
we can tear this down, too. If they use slang, then by tearing down the
semblant, we can use slang, too. If the language they use is more of a
metonymic nature, we can introduce ourselves to a metonymic discourse.
If they use word patterns (e.g. legit instead of legitimate), we can
occasionally adopt this pattern. If they speak using a lot of foreign
words, why not do the same ourselves?
In
any case, a language exposed is very often used by poets and can have
not only effects of signification, but mainly of a hole. We are not
poets, but we need to learn by and through poets the following: poetic
license, or else psychoanalytic license, in the issue of the use of
language, various handlings are allowed…
“Nothing again nothing. Do you know nothing?
Do you see nothing? Do you remember Nothing?”
T.S. Eliot –The Waste Land
Translated from Greek: Haroula Kollia
[1] M. H. Brousse, « La psychose ordinaire à la lumière de la théorie lacanienne du discours », Quarto, 94- 95, p. 13.
[2] G. Caroz, « Quelques remarques sur la direction de la cure dans la psychose ordinaire », Quarto, No 94 -95, p. 54.
[3] La psychose ordinaire, « Lalangue du transfert dans les psychoses », Le Paon, p. 149.
[4] J. Lacan, «L’Etourdit », p. 490.
[5] La psychose ordinaire, p. 327.
