The Question of Orthodoxy: Clinical Reflections on the Direction of the Cure

It is not an easy task to resolve the dilemma whimsically expressed by Lacan when he said: 'A psychoanalysis is the treatment one expects to get from a psychoanalyst', and his remark, in counterpoint, that the former determines the latter. I appreciate Lacan's little joke because it connects the question of Freudian psychoanalysis with the practice itself rather than with a programmatic, defined conceptualization which would limit our leeway, given where we are now in terms of psychoanalytic study.…