De l’épistémologie de la psychiatrie à une épistémologie psychanalytique. Entretien avec Paul Bercherie, 17 avril 2021

Abstract

ObjectiveThis interview with the psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Dr. Paul Bercherie attempts to mobilize the major questions that traverse the epistemology of psychiatry and of psychoanalysis. Our conversation covers his work on classical psychiatric knowledge–the subject of his doctoral dissertation–as well as more recent work that questions the conceptual geography of the contemporary psychoanalytic field. MethodIn this open conversation, Paul Bercherie speaks about his training at the end of the 1960s, his various experiences of analysis, and his research path, which led him to develop a singular method of investigation at the interface between practice and theory. The richness of this unique journey is also supported by numerous references to the intellectual context of the time. ResultsReturning to the foundations of psychiatry allows us to revisit the complexity of these texts and illustrates the fruitfulness of the dialogue between French and German psychiatry, which nevertheless has the same objectivist and organicist basis. The author also sheds light on the inconsistency of certain nosographic elaborations. A second series of works serves to resituate Freud in his theoretical context. It results in the demonstration that the discovery of the unconscious is developed within a dated theoretical framework that is poorly suited to its innovation. DiscussionThe Freudian subject of autonomy, the perceptive, cognitive subject, which was that of classical psychology and philosophy, will be called into question by the theories of structuralism, which bases the subject on a heteronomous theory, in which the latter is conceived as a response to the linguistic and social structures which determine it. ConclusionsContemporary psychoanalysis unfolds in the form of separate currents, based on different ethical and theoretical conceptions. However, an analysis shows that the four main currents are individualized from different dimensions already included in the Freudian text. Paul Bercherie argues that these currents should not only be opposed but, instead, that they could benefit from being integrated into a multi-referential clinical orientation. This makes it possible to offer differential but complementary approaches for the patient.