Psychopathologie de l’énonciation dans le champ de la clinique de l’agir : la notion de subjectivité sans sujet

Abstract

ObjectivesTo study the characteristics of a specific psychological mode of functioning, subjectivity without a subject, generating non-motivated behaviours, in a setting where consciousness and mental representations are erased in subjects having committed an offence or a crime, sexual or other. MethodThe instruction for the WAIS-R subtest Picture Arrangement were changed to “telling a story” to create a specific situation of utterance. The visual material can be shared in the here-and-now of the situation of utterance, giving the recipient-psychologist a particular place, and engendering specific impacts on the utterances. The text analysis uses the tools of enunciative linguistics and pragmatics. ResultsThe narrative and pragmatic structure of these texts falls into three meaningful constellations which determine threes types of enunciative subjectivity, characterised respectively by perplexity, minimisation and full awareness. Here, only the linguistic markers of perplexity, in association with what we define as eyewitness testimony, are presented and analysed from the psychopathological viewpoint. They reflect an obsessive, uncertain, visual understanding of reality, a chaotic perception of time, and a lack of intentionality and objectives. The level of consciousness of the subject towards his behaviour is low and perplexed. DiscussionThe central theme of this presentation is the psychological functioning of perpetrators of violent acts, calling on several examples, from three angles of approach: the situation of utterance, traces of the speaker's subjectivity and the place given to the recipient. ConclusionThis situation of utterance explores the meaning of the subject's words during the investigation procedure. The eyewitness testimony – lacking traces of the subject's identity and strongly dependent on the recipient's disambiguation in his or her effort to understand – can lead to incorrect interpretations and mislead the recipient towards a favourable evaluation of the discourse. This article raises the question of the subject's responsibility during the perpetration of the act.