Issue 71 now available

The Letter, Issue 28, Summer 2003, Pages 1 - 22 THE INTERGENERATIONAL TRANSMISSION OF THE HOLOCAUST TRAUMA: THE LEGACY OF AN IMPOSSIBLE MEMORY Veroniek Knockaert, Gertnidis Van de Vijver, Filip Geerardyn Remember you are forbidden to remember. Remember you are forbidden to forget. [1] INTRODUCTION Although the scientific and clinical interest in children of holocaust survivors dates from the end of the 1960s, fundamental questions and controversies remain unsolved. [2] Is the trauma of the holocaust transmitted to the next generation, and if so, by what mechanism(s)? Some authors consider the concept of the 'second generation' as an illusion and judge the transmission process as nonexistent. Further, many dispute whether or not the second generation displays more or less psychopathology than other comparable groups. Some scholars even emphasize that the heritage of the holocaust can positively affect the descendants. Clinicians tend to agree that it is impossible to grow up in a family with holocaust survivors without actually becoming infected with the injuries they sustained. [3] In recent literature on the intergenerational transmission of holocaust trauma, reviewed in the first part of this paper, some authors have tried to overcome the sharp differences between the viewpoints of 'researchers' and 'clinicians'. Inspired by the difficulty or even impossibility 1) to define the effects of the holocaust trauma uniformly and 2) to describe the descendants of the holocaust survivors as a homogeneous group, this new stance aims at a differentiated approach, focusing on the singularity of each subject concerned. As a first step, the development of a conceptualisation of trauma is needed that can account for the complex and various vicissitudes of survivors of the holocaust and their descendants. In the second part of this paper, we will argue that Freudo-Lacanian psychoanalysis provides numerous interesting points of departure for such a project, such as its conception of the singularity of the subject and of the complex, circular interaction between a subject and its environment.

The Letter, Issue 28/29, Summer/Autumn 2003, Pages i - iii

The Letter, Issue 27, Spring 2003, Pages 122 - 134 TRUTH OR FICTION: PSYCHOANALYTIC DISCOURSE WHOSE TRUTH IS IT ANYWAY? * Maryrose Kiernan In contemporary Irish society, perhaps more that ever before, the myths of the 'truths' we hold about our society and of our past history are being exposed and challenged. Following the public apology by An Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern T.D., in May 1999 to those adults who had experienced abuse as children, while in care in Irish institutions, the National Counselling Service was established. [1] One would imagine that this action would have led to a greater openness and understanding in our society as to the cause and nature of childhood abuse and trauma, both for the victims and the perpetrators. However, one of the most striking findings of the SAVI Report is the extent to which sexual violence is still a completely private and hidden matter for almost half of those affected. With increasing media and professional attention and increasing numbers reporting, it has been easy to consider that there had been a thorough airing of the subject in the public domain with 'no surprises' remaining. This is not the case. [2] Heightened media attention given to the issue of sexual abuse has led to what has been called a 'moral panic' about the violent nature of the world we live in. Interfamilial stories of child sexual abuse are underemphasised while those of a more sensationalist nature, involving paedophile rings, clerical abuse etc., are highlighted. [3]

The Letter, Issue 27, Spring 2003, Pages 113 - 121 OF COURSE I'M NOT A RACIST ... BUT * Helen Sheehan On the 3rd December 1969 Lacan was questioned by a member of a rather rowdy audience of over 800 people at the University of Vincennes, where he gave his first impromptu lecture. The question ran as follows 'People talk about a New Society. Will psychoanalysis have a function in that New Society and what will it be like'? [1] The 60's in general and in particular the late 60's had witnessed an increasing call for new freedoms. For example the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association had been founded in 1967. By 1968, the activists among them, most notably Bernadette Devlin, were identifying with the confrontational political tactics made popular in France, Germany and America. Student revolt was the order of the day and the human cry of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity echoed throughout the troubled spots of our globe. This passion for these ideals are still raging the world over and the question posed by that student in 1969 is perhaps even more relevant today, where these ideals once again lead to sacrifice and to death. The question then becomes does our particular discipline, psychoanalysis, have anything new to say to such calls for a newer, freer Society? As Charles Melman has remarked: Psychoanalysts in a more or less intuitive way, consider that the field of their responsibility comes to a halt at the boundary of the family organisation and that they do not have to make any pronouncement, to become engaged when they are challenged by the Social Field. [2]

The Letter, Issue 27, Spring 2003, Pages 90 - 112 THE SUPER-EGO AND ENJOYMENT* David Cluxton Introduction According to a new report one in four men under the age of forty have lost their libido and low testosterone levels are to blame. [1] The 'classic' symptoms of this debilitating condition are loss of energy, drive and potency, which have the knock-on effect of ruining sexual relationships and can even affect jobs if men lose their competitive edge. The blame for this testosterone crisis is levelled at modem-living in the guise of excessive stress, binge drinking and even pollution. The proposed solutions? TRT (Testosterone Replacement Therapy) or Viagra. Despite indicating that the main sign of 'low testosterone' is depression, anxiety and a lack of self-confidence the aetiology and treatment of this 'condition' forecloses upon any psychical component or involvement whatsoever but would sooner blame 'tight underpants.' Whether modern-living is now more stressful or libidinal levels now lower than they were in the past is a question that is open to debate. What seems certainly to have changed, however, is the manner of response taken to such issues nowadays. The inherent assumption of the above study and its subsequent reporting in a daily newspaper is that this 'new problem' should surprise and perhaps even shock us. For living in such a liberated and permissive society we should be amazed to find so many not enjoying. We are inclined to think that in having unburdened ourselves of the excessive prohibitions and taboos against sexual enjoyment that characterised Freud's era, that we now have it easy, that there is no longer anything to obstruct us and that there are no more excuses. So when men are found to be impotent the scientific wisdom is that it must be the result of some physical malady; for what possible psychical reason could there be for not enjoying in the absence of sexual prohibition? Hence what we find in this study is an account of aetiology and treatment that is pitched at the level of the Real of the body, man's potency and sexual enjoyment is an issue purely related to physical mechanics. What such biologico-medico jargon disregards is precisely the dimension of the phallus, its knowledge therefore is cast as pure S2, knowledge that lacks any reference to the master signifier, Si. In the absence of law, as carried by Freud's super-ego, which prohibits and restricts sexual enjoyment we now find in its place an order of neutered scientific knowledge administering our enjoyment. It seems to me, therefore, that this scientific knowledge as illustrated by the above report is symptomatic of the very thing that it aims to explain, the insufficiency of paternal symbolic authority in the administration of enjoyment.

The Letter, Issue 27, Spring 2003, Pages 83 - 89 LACAN AND MATISSE: OVERLAPPING DISCOURSES? * Brendan Staunton The Joy of Life - Henri Matisse - 1906 [1] What we see here on this canvas is not a scene from the world we see ordinarily. This painting - The Joy of Life - is not conceived in terms of verisimilitude. The aesthetics of realism is being replaced by the Oriental aesthetics of decoration. No waves crash on this yellow beach to disturb the dancers, musicians or lovers. This is a dream world of Arcadian patterns, paradisal design and pre-lapsarian colours. A dream world inspired by reality, the theme of The Golden Age is an ancient myth. Matisse was here trying to bring the theme to life, because myths had lost their flavour, lost their traditional role and function of accessing a background that made sense of the foreground of peoples' lives. Once upon a time, myths were marvellous mediations of meaning. But the aesthetics of realism had grown old, had become a stylisation rather than a style, and a new means of expression was required. In this painting all the action and inaction takes place on the ground, the ground of background. This is an imaginary world, not tied to anatomical accuracy, naturalistic colour or mathematical perspective. We see green trees, blue grass and a loving couple with only one head!

The Letter, Issue 27, Spring 2003, Pages 72 - 82 WRITING AND ENJOYMENT: A Commentary * Patricia McCarthy Like the beautiful game of soccer, writing this paper has been an effort of two halves. The little blurb you have there in your Congress programme, refers to the first half, which, earlier this week, I decided I would have to completely abandon! Relying on the oracular function of interpretation, 'interpretation ... is only true by its consequences, like every oracle. Interpretation is not put to the test of a truth that can be settled by a yes or no, it unleashes the truth as such' [1] - and by means of a simple clinical example - I had intended to talk about a truth-effect or subject-effect as it was unleashed in the context of a dream. Essentially, I had intended to confine my comments to the action of the signifier, to the pas-de-sens, the step of sense/nonsense produced by the signifier for another signifier. This is in keeping with Lacan's 1957 paper The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious in which he elaborates on the status of the letter as indistinguishable from the signifier.

The Letter, Issue 27, Spring 2003, Pages 51 - 71 THE BIRTH OF THE HERO AND THE ORIGIN OF SOCIETY: RECIPROCITY AND INCEST IN COMPERT CONCULAINN * Marion Deane Compert Conculainn, the tale of Cuchulainn's conception and birth, has been handed down in two recensions, generally referred to as version 1 and version 2. Version 1 belonging to the first half of the eighth century was preserved in the lost Book of Druim Snechta ( Cin Dromma Snechta). It now remains in seven manuscripts, the oldest of which is Lebor na h-Uidre, preserved in the Royal Irish Academy. It is from this manuscript that the tale under consideration is taken. [1] The legend concerning Dubthach maccu Lugair's meeting with Patrick is recounted in Côrus Béscnai, a text of the Se nchas Mar, th e most important collection of Old Irish law-texts, dated to the early eighth century.[2 ] T he poet is said to have supplied details of pagan law to Patrick, who eliminated from it all those elements which were contrary to Christian doctrine. The Irish people consequently acknowledged two systems of law, the pagan law of nature and scriptural law.[3 ] T he main purpose of this legend, which 'explains the origins of the law in terms of mixed native and Christian inspiration'[4 ] w as to defend the traditional law that was under attack, chiefly on the grounds that there was such a 'wide gulf' between traditional marriage laws as expressed in Ca in Ldnamna, an d Christian doctrine.[5 ]

The Letter, Issue 27, Spring 2003, Pages 43 - 50 LEBAR NA H-UIDRE BOOK OF THE DUN COW A TRANSLATION by MARION DEANE Book of the Dun Cow One day the nobles of Ulster were around Concobur in Emain Macha. A birdflock used visit the plain in front of Emain. They used graze it until they left not even roots nor grass nor herbs in the ground. The Ulstermen were troubled to see them destroying their land. One day, they prepare nine chariots to pursue them, for it was a custom with them to hunt birds. Concobar was there in his chariot and his sister Deictire, and she was of marriagable age. She was chariot-driver to her brother.

The Letter, Issue 27, Spring 2003, Pages 32 - 42 FREUD'S SCIENTISM AND ITS IMPACT ON THE ANALYSIS OF THE WOLF-MAN * Frédéric Declercq The scientific-political dimension of the case of the Wolf-man Right from the start, the Wolf-man's analysis has a political dimension. In Freud's eyes, the primary significance of this analysis, is that it proves the importance of infantile sexuality in the aetiology of neurosis, - something which is denied by Jung and Adler. It [The case study of the Wolf-man] shows the predominant part that is played in the formation of neuroses by those libidinal motive forces which are so eagerly disavowed [by Jung], and reveals the absence of any aspirations towards remote cultural aims [Adler], of which the child still knows nothing, and which cannot therefore be of any significance for him. [1] According to Adler, neurosis has nothing to do with infantile sexuality but with the failure of one's subjective project due to cultural factors. So the clinical aspect is not the only one at play in the analysis of the Wolf-man. There's a scientific issue too. And indeed Freud appears to be driven by a scientific passion to know. He wants to know with certainty whether the Wolf-man did or did not dream the wolf dream when he was a child (for Jung's opinion was that it was dreamt in adulthood and projected back into infancy). Related to that, he also wants to know with certainty whether the dream reflected the observation of the coitus of his parents. According to Lacan, it is precisely Freud's scientific 'urge' that caused the so-called paranoid disturbance of the Wolf-man: We feel that throughout this analysis, this real brings with it the subject, almost by force, so directing the research that, after all, we can today ask ourselves whether this fever, this presence, this desire of Freud is not that which, in his patient, might have conditioned the belated accident of his psychosis. [2]

The Letter, Issue 27, Spring 2003, Pages 1 - 31

The Letter, Issue 27, Spring 2003, Pages i - iii

The Letter, Issue 26, Autumn 2002, Pages 212 - 224 DEPRESSION, SIGN OF THE TIMES? ON THE REAL IN CLINICAL WORK Els Van Compernolle Introduction Depression is omnipresent in contemporary clinical praxis. With statistics showing an enormous increase in the number of depressions in the last decades, depression is diagnosed as a sign of the times, inextricably bound up with the fate of the post-modern subject. Simultaneously, another change or shift is taking place: the so-called classical symptoms, with a psychosexual aetiology, seem to have disappeared (the disappearance of classical hysteria being a well-known example); instead, 'new symptoms' are emerging, with borderline, self- mutilation, eating disorders, aggressive and sexual acting out, etc... operating as new labels. It is as if the real is gaining ground on the symbolic in present-day psychopathology. In this paper, I discuss whether these two parallel trends are linked through a common cause, meaning that there is an underlying structural reason. My central thesis is that what we are seeing today in the high prevalence of depression is an anxiety-neurotic depression. By this I mean a form of depression functioning as a limit of the psychosexual or symbolic efficacy, situated at the border between the Real of puissance (the Other of the body) and the symbolic play of signifiers (the Other of language). I will argue, firstly, that depression can be phenomenologically present in the different clinical structures (that there's the possibility of a psychotic, perverse and neurotic way of being depressive), and secondly, that different modalities of depression in one and the same structure can occur, by opposing the anxiety-neurotic depression to the 'classical depression' (as can appear in the transference situation). Here, I will confine myself explicitly to the neurotic structure.

The Letter, Issue 26, Autumn 2002, Pages 187 - 211 THE LIES, THE WISH AND THE WARDROBE: HOMOPHOBIA, HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE CLOSET ON THE COUCH Ray O'Neill Anal -ysing Homosexuality The first time I went to see a therapist, a psychiatrist, at twenty years of age I was told to pray to cure myself of my homosexual affliction, though it had not been an issue presented in that our one and only session. Granted this was ten years ago and homosexuality was illegal in Ireland, but through my trainings from counsellor to psychoanalyst the issues and instruction around homosexuality have always presented a blind spot. Not merely the over simplified and cliched generalisations reducing male homosexuality to anal sex, but more significantly the ignorance around our ignorance. No matter how politically correct the times and people may have become, having a gay friend or neighbour or even a gay client, never makes you an authority. A little bit of knowledge is always a dangerous thing, especially when projected from one human subject to another. The central value and strength of psychoanalysis has always been that it recognises each human subject as individual and in theory avoids generalisations. Only 1 the client can know what is wrong with him, can know what will 'cure him, and ultimately knows whether or not he wants to be cured. The analyst is more a witness than a healer or specialist, witnessing the analysand's speech, his narrative and by his very presence in the transference, his 'with-ness' facilitating deeper awareness within the analysand's own psyche.

The Letter, Issue 26, Autumn 2002, Pages 133 - 161 THE CASE OF THE 'FALLING MAN': AN EXAMINATION OF THE FUNCTION OF DEMAND IN ANALYTIC PRACTICE Carol Owens You know that what we are trying to do here, namely in the difficulties, in the impasses, in the contradictions which are the fabric of your-practice- it is the most elementary supposition of our work that you should be aware of it - is to try to bring you back always to the point where these impasses and difficulties can also show themselves to you with their full significance... [1] One is aware here of the terrible temptation that must face the analyst to respond, however little, to demand. [2] Since I have been struck in my own practice with the difficulties of dealing with demand in its various guises, and since this management of demand and its function within the analysis strikes me as being a core element of Lacanian analysis, I wish, in this paper, to go some way toward a technical and clinical exegesis of the difficulties and problems which the concept of demand poses in an analytic treatment. [3] Meriting a mere page of entry in Evans' Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis[4], Evans inscribes the concept of demand as originating from the 1956-7 seminar, and gently orders its progression through Seminar V and the Direction of the Treatment paper culminating in a short gloss on Seminar VIII. While Nobus, [5] in his commentary on Lacanian practice does much greater justice to the concept, weaving it in and out of his broad discussion on Lacan's 'return to Freud' project, still, I feel that the concept is underplayed in terms of what I believe to be its crucial place in the clinical practice of Lacanian psychoanalysis. It is true that Lacan himself does not privilege demand as one of the fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis, yet throughout Seminar XI demand is discoursed in relation to desire, in relation to the transference, and ultimately foregrounded in his concluding notes to the seminar where he reproduces the 'internal eight' schema, and makes the crucial point that in the transference demand is separated from the drive only to be brought back by the analyst's desire. [6] So, the appropriate handling of demand is always the responsibility of the analyst and this locates it as a fundamental technique of analysis.

The Letter, Issue 26, Autumn 2002, Pages 120 - 132 FREUD'S CLINICAL CATEGORY OF 'ACTUAL NEUROSES': THE RETURN OF THE REPRESSED * Ann De Rick Introduction Over the past decade, our society has had to confront the so-called 'new illnesses of the soul'. More and more, clinicians are confronted with pathologies that do not seem to fit into the three major Freudo-Lacanian diagnostic categories of neurosis, psychosis and perversion. These pathologies are borderline personality disorders, posttraumatic stress disorders, substance abuse, self-mutilation, attention deficit hyperactive disorder, psychosomatic phenomena, etc. Since psychoanalytic treatment is worked out only for the three categories mentioned earlier, especially neurosis, any attempt to treat the new patients in the same way is doomed to fail. Based on literature studies on these new pathologies, it can be hypothesised that they can be classified under the nosographic label Freud called actual neurosis. In order to confirm this hypothesis, we'll start with a discussion of actual neurosis as it was described by Freud. Next we will shed light on this theory from a Lacanian point of view, with special reference to Lacan's view on the emergence of the subject. Then, we will compare the findings of the literature with our theoretical notions. Finally we'll discuss some implications for treatment.