Patricia Stewart – Act and Behaviour Pavlovian Fallacies
 
THE LETTER 18 (Spring 2000) pages 35-46
 
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. The other possibility suggested by the title is an examination of what might be meant by act in this context. This is also Lacan’s concern in the Seminar, as he seeks to delineate the operational field of the concept. What is it that Lacan establishes about an act, and how do acts relate to behaviour? It is this second concern that I have tried to open up here.