Clinical Study Days
January 12 and 13, 2007
Miami Beach, Florida
The Lacanian Orientation in Practice
Four Points by Sheraton Miami Beach
4343 Collins Avenue · Miami Beach, Florida 33140
Friday, January 12, 2007
Presentation
Lacan’s work is marked by a relentless re-examination by Lacan himself of his own work over the years, as he responded to the various clinical exigencies with which he was confronted and the changes and developments in psychoanalysis itself. The World Association of Psychoanalysis has continued in this path, with a continuous examination and review of the concepts and organization of psychoanalysis as it faces the clinical demands of today.
In preparation for the Clinical Study Days, we are offering a Workshop in which we will offer presentation and discussion on seven major topics of the work of the Lacanian Orientation of recent years. All the presentations will demonstrate current Lacanian approaches to the treatment demands of today.
Clinical Study Days 2
Psychic Suffering and the Treatment Challenges in the Postmodern World
Four Points by Sheraton Miami Beach
4343 Collins Avenue · Miami Beach, Florida 33140
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Presentation
In our times, clinical practice has evolved into a tool destined to return a subject to effective social and occupational functioning in the least amount of time with the least cost to the companies involved in the process. This results in different therapeutic proposals that categorize that which « does not work, » or what we can call the « dysfunctional factor. » The only problem with that is that what becomes an obstacle to effective functioning is not always what is an obstacle for the subject involved. Even though psychoanalysis is not indifferent to these requirements of our time, the ethics of psychoanalysis of the Lacanian Orientation takes an interest in the symptomatic value that leads a subject to make a demand for help. The symptom in an analytic sense is already a subjective response to what is at stake in his psychic suffering.
One of the characteristics of our time, which Jacques-Alain Miller locates as beyond post-modernity, is precisely the difficulty subjects face in forming symptoms. We can see that happening in the increase in the phenomena of acting out and passage à l’acte; and in the increase in impulsivity and other form of defenses that situate the subject and his suffering within a fence, alone and separated from the Other and also from the others.
This is not far from the tendency that science has today to emphasize biological causes to explain every mental phenomenon. This is a discourse that applies an epidemiological model to the mental health realm. But a subject responds in a different way than an organ of the body. A subject’s words cannot be matched with standardized responses found in a manual. Psychiatry has evolved into a pharmacology seeking its support in a pseudoscientific appropriation of the neurosciences. The end result of this is the absence of the capacity “to listen” and to bring out what is most singular in a subject.
To oppose this, Lacan proposes the “parlêtre,” the speaking being. Psychoanalysts today are confronted with the challenge to elevate the spoken word to a level different than that of the input-output of information, a level that obliges the subject to “hear what is said behind what is being said,“ as Lacan says it in “L’Etourdit.” This leads the subject to the discovery of his own involvement in his suffering and his role in the cure.
The Program will feature a Lecture by Marie-Hélène Brousse, followed by the presentation of five clinical cases with discussion.
