Report: Lacanian Compass VideoSeminar, May 15, 2011

with

Jean-Pierre Klotz

On May 15, Lacanian Compass met for our first VideoSeminar of the year, on the theme « The Psychoanalytic Act in the 21st Century. »

Our guest was Jean-Pierre Klotz (Member, ECF; Bordeaux and Paris, France). Klotz presented an incisive first exploration of this complex theme that has not received much attention in the English-speaking world. In his talk, he highlighted the distinction between the desire of the psychoanalyst and the psychoanalytic act; he emphasized the retroactive determination in play in the psychoanalytic act; he put emphasis on silence of the analyst, in distinction to the act as interpretation; and, drawing on the most recent sessions of the Course of Jacques-Alain Miller, he made a subtle exploration of the difference between being (être) and existence in psychoanalysis, linking the psychoanalytic act to the existence, not of the psychoanalyst, but the existence of the Unconscious or of jouissance. A lively discussion followed the presentation which laid the groundwork for many paths we might explore in the year ahead.

The second part of the meeting was the presentation of a case by Jose Armando Garcia (Miami, Florida). The case involved the work of Garcia with a boy in an agency setting. The case demonstrated the great finesse of the analyst in responding to the differential demands of the parents and the lack of enunciation of the child–creating, in the preliminary session reported here, a loss for the child that could lead to some articulation of suffering on his part. In the discussion that followed, an interesting question was raised as to whether or how we might consider the work of the clinician in preliminary sessions as part of the psychoanalytic act.

The Lacanian Compass VideoSeminar series is a program for the Members of the WAP in the United States and regular participants in our Clinical Study Days and other programs of the Lacanian Compass. For further information, visit the Lacanian Compass website.