Analyst's Desire Research Articles

Weaving deceptive webs and untangling emotional truths.

This paper explores how the allure of magical thinking and groupthink contrasts with intuition of emotional truth. Since truth can terrify, the author suggests that a longer learning curve is needed to apprehend what Bion (1970a) called the "evolving O" of the analytic session. Traumatized patients are described as dream weavers who spin webs of partial truths and lies around their true selves. For the analyst, untangling these webs involves what Bion (1970b) calls an "act of faith." Clinical material is presented to show how groupthink and other concretions of thought can, under favorable circumstances, be transformed on the wings of psychic truth. Alternatively, uncontained violent emotions can become calcified, creating a carapace over the chrysalis of the patient's true self. The author concludes that the analyst's desire for a particular treatment outcome can unwittingly lead to the formation of an adhesive web where healthy analytic culture becomes a cult. Paradoxically, it is only when there is equal attention to emotional truth and lies that a trajectory of growth is likely to evolve.

Impossible Ethics.

The proper practice of psychoanalysis repudiates a rule-based code of ethical conduct. A conflict exists, however, between Freud's rejection of the Biblical commandment to love one's neighbor as oneself and his development of psychoanalytic techniques that demand something very much of this ilk. Other essential conflicts in analytic practice include the impossibility of removing the analyst's desire from the analytic relationship, the unruly nature of unconscious processes in both analyst and analysand, and the après-coup nature of ethical recognition. A discourse of ethics is recommended in which analysts are called on to consider the ethical demands of each clinical moment. Ethical demands on the analysand, as well as the analyst, bring to light the way in which analysis rests on the foundational ethical situation into which humankind is born.

The unconscious knowledge of the subject and the desire of the analyst in the drug clinic

The clinical care to drug patients requires that unconscious dimensions of the subject who drugs and the accompanying analyst be observed, considering that these dimensions precede and imply the patient’s condition of dependence. Thus, this work aims to clarify psychoanalytic perspectives that guide the approach of the toxicomanphenomenon in the setting of care. Concepts such as “unconscious” and “analyst desire” were taken in order to elucidate how the analytical situation constitutes an individualizing treatment and is opposed to the classical psychiatry method. Therefore, it is emphasized the existence of a particular knowledge in each patient about his drug addiction, which was not predicted by medical nosology. Therefore, the psychiatric technique is considered insufficient and an approach is explored that seeks to better interpret drug addiction, having as a tool to base the analyst’s desire. In addition to the central concepts brought by the title, the work also goes through the notions of “language”, “malaise in culture”, “I”, “monomania”, “castration” and “drive maturation”. The research started from the bibliographical investigation method, referring to the theme “Drug addiction” in the scope of Psychoanalysis and classical psychiatry. The literature of consecrated authors who cross-trust such knowledge, such as Freud, Lacan and Bercherie, was used.

Cuando el privilegio de lo singular orienta en lo múltiple

En este trabajo exploramos la posibilidad de que la función deseo del analista opere en cada integrante de un equipo terapéutico de atención a las adicciones. Para ello trabajamos con un grupo de formación y un grupo de expertos, revisando la noción deseo del analista desde lo conceptual, y explorando lo que sucede en la experiencia de un programa de tratamiento a las adicciones. Pudimos concluir que el deseo del analista es una posición ética que comanda la experiencia analítica, y que, clínicamente no conviene pensar a todo el equipo operando desde esta función, ya que cada integrante desde su saber contribuye a alojar al paciente y a construir un pasaje a un segundo tiempo en donde la problematización por el consumo abra las puertas de un posible análisis. El tratamiento institucional a las adicciones debe ser con otros, y haciendo una apuesta por el sujeto y el síntoma.

Considerações sobre a operância do psicanalista e a política do ato psicanalítico

Considerando o ato psicanalítico, a autora revisa e avança sua pesquisa sobre o neologismo de Lacan “operância”, produzido na esteira de suas elaborações sobre o ato psicanalítico e a Escola. Nessa ocasião, o acento se coloca no litoral entre o desejo do analista e o ato analítico, ambos na dependência lógica da posição que sustenta a operação da transferência, apontada em 1967 com a expressão porte-à-faux. Um percurso nas elaborações em que Lacan avança sobre o objeto a, articulando a causa do desejo e o mais-de-gozar, aponta que a operância é efeito do paradoxo do ato e põe à prova tanto a direção da cura quanto a sustentação de um trabalho de Escola, em particular no passe.

Lacanian Concept of Desire in Analytic Clinic of Psychosis

The conceptof desire is central to Lacan's theory and practice, even if it is not among the four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis—unconscious, Trieb, repetition, transference, it can be understood that it underlies all of them. The concept of desire is inherent to the ethics of psychoanalysis that Lacan formulated, therefore it is especially concerned with a practice whose operation is defined by the function of analyst's desire. However, this central thesis of Lacan has been called into question with regard to psychosis. Some Lacanian scholars have derived from the foreclosure of the Name-of-the-Father a lack of desire in psychosis. This paper aims to discuss the relative absence of references to the concept of psychotic desire in Lacanian schools. The debate is relevant because Lacan did exclude neither desire nor psychosis from his conception of analytic treatment. It is frequent that in the transmission of the approach of this type of cases into the Lacanian schools, the concept of desire is not used, but rather the consequences of its absence are emphasized (De Battista, 2012). For example, in two of the latest publications compiled by Miller, where there are more than 20 clinical cases of psychosis treated by Lacanian analysts, the concept of desire is not evoked to think about the changes caused by the cure. In the clinical cases where this concept is mentioned, the authors highlight that desire has not operated (cf. Borie, 2011; Dewambrechies-La Sagna, 2011; Di Ciaccia, 2011; Zerghem, 2011; Klotz, 2012; Magnin et al., 2012). In the argumentation of these authors, this non-operational desire would go hand in hand with intrusive and invasive phenomena that would account for a delocalized jouissance, whose restraint would depend on its fixation through identifications, delusional metaphors or writing practices, introducing a limitation of jouissance (Maleval, 2000; Soria Dafunchio, 2008; Miller, 2011, 2012). Other authors claim that desire would not be absent in psychosis (Lombardi, 1992; Soler, 2004), nonetheless it is restricted to paranoia, declaring its abolition in schizophrenia (Quinet, 2006). However, even in those cases where psychotic desire is considered, the affirmation of its existence does not go hand in hand with a clarification of its operation in the cure. The authors again resort to the idea of an invasion of jouissance, which should be limited (Soler, 1987; Quinet, 2006; Soria Dafunchio, 2008; Miller, 2011, 2012; Redmond, 2013). The notion of limitation of jouissance is that which is most frequently used to account for the analytical treatment of psychosis (Maleval, 2000). In view of the current state of affairs with regard to the subject treated, the following questions deserve—in my view—an investigation. Firstly, Is desire the exclusive patrimony of those clinical types derived from the pere-version (neurosis/perversion)? What would be the Lacanian arguments to sustain the absence of desire in psychosis? Secondly and according to my hypothesis of the importance of psychotic desire, which kind of desire would operate in psychosis?

The Analyst's Desire and the Problem of Narcissistic Resistances.

分析师不可避免地会欲求着与病人的特别体验，这常常导向自恋性基础上的阻抗。这样的欲望形式是值得思考的。 可以检视一下这五种假设： 1 分析师情不自禁地会有欲望，并想要被分析者认可这些欲望； 2 这些欲望经常标识了分析师的理论信仰和技术性干预； 3 自恋性的欲望及其影响在分析实践中是普遍存在的； 4 病人经常在留心分析师的各种目的；5 病人常常希望分析师将他的欲望放在一边来倾听自己，以使病人能够深入到自己的利益中去。拉康“二元关系”的概念是这一讨论的核心。新克莱因派关于自恋性阻抗的位置也将被探究，而“分析性第三者”的概念也成为了这一问题的一个潜在解决方式。由此扩展的一个案例阐明了这些主要观点。

Deseo del analista, la transferencia y la interpretación: una perspectiva analítica

The present paper is a theoretical review of transference, analyst's desire and interpretation as a psychoanalytic concepts and analytic elements. The main question is how the analyst's desire, transference, and interpretation take place in psychoanalytic clinic? Transference and interpretation are the most important elements in analysis, however, the analyst's desire occur before the analytic situation, the analyst's desire and the transference create the atmosphere to the interpretation.

Afraid to Commit: Proposing Psychoanalysis and the Paradox of the Analyst's Desire

What makes us think of one patient as “analytic” and another one not? What is at stake when we make the case for the deep engagement fostered by a psychoanalysis? Using a clinical example, the author examines enactments in which the analyst unconsciously avoids substantive involvement with patients likely to entail contact with her most disavowed aspects of self. The importance of frequency is revisited given the contemporary foci on field theories and the ubiquitous influence of the analyst's subjectivity. The author argues that immersion in dyadic processes is required to understand why both participants may resist it. Epistemological shifts undermining objectivity and psychoanalysis’ diminished cultural prestige require the analyst to make the case for analysis. Yet, although the analyst's desire is necessary, her reliance on her individual sense of “fit” leaves her too dependent on each specific relational matrix to both express and protect her personal and professional selves.

The currency of analysis: Some reflections on Haydée Faimberg's The Telescoping of Generations

In an alternative reading of Haydée Faimberg's influential book on the telescoping of generations it is suggested that the analyst's desire for knowledge and her unconscious financial greed elicit an acting out in the patient. Rather than the content of Mario′s stories constituting the revelation of a secret, it is argued that it should be interpreted as the patient's attempt at rescuing his own desire from the analyst's relentless imposition of a rigid epistemic and financial regulatory framework.

Da psicanálise ao ensino de ciências: o "desejo do docente" e o "professor como um lugar"

Apresentamos, neste trabalho, reflexões produzidas no contexto de um grupo de pesquisa, deflagradas a partir da seguinte questão: seria possível fundamentar a Formação de Professores como uma metáfora a Lacan? Como resposta positiva a esta questão, discutimos aqui dois exemplos: (i) inicialmente, apresentaremos a ideia de "desejo do docente", um conceito que poderia operar no campo da Formação de Professores de maneira semelhante ao desejo do analista no campo da Psicanálise; (ii) em seguida, a metáfora do "professor como um lugar". A apresentação de cada um dos pontos é seguida de extratos de diálogos entre pesquisadores, que ocorreram durante um encontro de pesquisa. Como foi possível mostrar, por meio da apresentação dos diálogos, a proposta de metaforizar frases da psicanálise de orientação lacaniana produziu discussões ricas em ideias e questões originais, dentro do enfoque geral de evidenciar suas implicações para o ensino de ciências e para a educação.

The analyst's desire in the clinic of anorexia

The present work deals with the issue of the analyst's desire in the psychoanalytical treatment of anorexia. It analyzes important elements to establish transference in these cases, as the pursuit of death and the choice of refusing food as a way of controlling the demands of the Other. It then discusses the "analist's desire" function in this clinic. Rejecting the definition of a treatment model and the structural categorization of anorexia, we can find in the cases of the girl of Angouleme (Charcot) and Sidonie (M. Mannoni) present possible subjective ways to get out of this psychopathological impasse, by means of this function.

The Analyst's Need and Desire

The analyst's capacity to do analytic work is both a talent and a need. This paper discusses the analyst's empathic capacity as arising from early childhood wounds and deficits that draw us to the profession in the first place and sustain our commitment to it over time. The selection of analytic work as a career is, for many and perhaps most of us, more an imperative than a choice. Over time, the pressures on the analyst's narcissistic equilibrium can change, exposing vulnerabilities that may be insufficiently attended to, as we valorize the needs of others over our own. Psychoanalytic work demands a regressive and progressive fluctuation of emotional resonance within a context of structured power imbalances. There are also dynamic, resistive pressures to level the imbalances from within ourselves and from the analysand as the analytic context both stimulates and frustrates needs and wishes for both analyst and analysand. The constant dismissal of personal need is frustrating and depleting, yet the analyst is also partially gratified and titillated by the moments of attunement that the analysand offers. The frustration of asymmetry is counterbalanced by the seduction of mutuality, temporarily unsettling and decentering the analyst. We must come to this work centered and fortified, past injuries largely healed and mourned, our present desires largely sated. The importance of social supports, including a primary intimate relationship, is discussed as part of the necessary framework around which we conduct our work.

The analyst's desire in the era of intersubjectivity

The increasing discourse of the concept of intersubjectivity in modern psychoanalysis has pushed the interest in the intrapsychic and its emphasis on drive and object into the background. Authors who wish to avoid a one-sided focus on intersubjectivity usually subscribe to a dual dimensional approach, taking both perspectives into account. In this article, the analytic situation is described not in two, but in three dimensions, the analytic function constituting a third dimension necessary for the interplay between the other two dimensions. Focusing on the analyst's position, the author presents a model that consists of (1) the-analyst-as-subject, (2) the-analyst-as-function, and (3) the-analyst-as-object. The analytic function is understood to be invested with a particular form of desire and it is argued that the asymmetry between this desire of the analyst and the desire of the analysand is a central characteristic of the analytic situation.

Show Me the Money

The fee expresses the analyst's desire. Money struggles between patient and analyst offer an outstanding opportunity for conflicting subjectivities to be revealed and understood. Alternatively, avoiding fee conflicts can lead to treatment stagnation and analytic poverty. Nevertheless, analysts frequently fear and avoid this discussion, knowing that the fee is an intrusion of their own need. Jessica Benjamin's particular perspective on intersubjectivity suggests that this either/or dilemma of competing needs can be resolved through a both/and exploration process that establishes mutual recognition. Indeed, productive fee negotiations can expand intimacy between patient and analyst and increase the patient's capacity with money, limit setting, ambition, desire, and mutuality in his outside life. Analysts' resistances to asking for more, as well as patients' resistances to paying, are described. There are two clinical examples, one that shows the pitfalls of sidestepping this treacherous interaction, and one that illustrates the transformational power of a fee confrontation.

Nonsexual exploitation of patients--an ethical perspective.

These are some instances of nonsexual exploitation that I have become aware of over the past several years. Some of them have resulted in complaints to various ethics committees, but most have not. Many colleagues are unaware that such behavior is in any way unethical. As far as analytic principles are concerned, many of these problems can be rationalized or the psychoanalytic theory can be modified to fit the Procrustean bed of the analyst's desire. Yet when you get down to it, the bulk of the Principle of Medical Ethics with Annotations Especially for Psychiatrists is derived from a few elements of the Hippocratic principles and a large chunk of psychoanalysis. Understanding what the nature of the therapeutic relationship is and applying some basic psychoanalytic principles will result in one's own code of conduct that will not be appreciably different from that suggested by the Principles of Medical Ethics. If we as psychoanalysts will attend to these psychoanalytic points of view, there will be little need to consult the book.

Four seasons in femininity orfour men in a woman's life

The feminine complaint that Alex's passion echoes, raising it to a level rarely attained, is not limited to the pursuit of sexualjouissance. Nor can it be reduced to an aversion on the part of women to a morality of the signifier, as maintained by a certain reading of Freud. Very precisely, the persistent note in feminine restlessness is a certain relationship of the subject to the insufficiency of the signifier, which the quest for love registers. The fact that language lacks the very quality that would make it credible and that would guarantee that discourse corresponds to what desire attests to is what delivers femininity over to the unnameable. In love she requires from the other member of the social bond the signifier that is lacking within the structure of femininity and that causes the call tojouissance in her body that drives her to distraction. Thus, the structure at stake in femininity, to which Alex's hysterical passion bears witness, defines in writing, that is, by a mark left on the body, the limitation of the reality of ajouissance which persists beyond the signifier and the object of the fantasy. When the analyst's desire offers support to this quest for a limit tojouissance on the part of a subject, it is in desire that the reality of sex and the other is linked to the signifier that would testify to the truth of the amorous discourse in the unconscious. Thus from one man to another, from the love of the father to the loss of a son, including the desire of the lover and the law of the husband, a woman finds herself supporting, with the letter of her body, the signifier which in its words testifies tojouissance as a place to lose oneself.