Act And Behaviour: Pavlovian Fallacies

There are two possible emphases in the title of this congress. Firstly it provides an opportunity to examine the aspects of the psychoanalytic act which are essential to it as a specifically psychoanalytic phenomenon. Lacan's focus in this Seminar is certainly on the ways and the extent to which we may describe the practice of psychoanalysis and on its essence. The psychoanalytic act, he tells us, defines those who practise it.[1] The other possibility suggested by the title is an examination of what might be meant by act in this context.…