Issue 71 now available

The Letter, Issue 11, Autumn 1997, Pages 83 - 97 AFFECT: IT'S THE REAL THING * Aisling Campbell Anyone who teaches psychoanalysis will have had to attempt to answer the commonplace criticism of Lacan that he neglects the question of affect. Lacan's apparent intellectualism further compounds his crime. His emphasis on the signifier is often seen as somehow distancing analysis from some real beyond of the subject - that real that is the affective life of the subject, as though affect were a 'tip of the iceberg' hinting at some pure raw state underneath. For many critics of Lacan one gets the impression that affect is, like Coca Cola, 'the real thing'; if direct access to the source of affect could be gained, one could get in touch with some ectoplasmic material rather like the aura seen in Kirlian photography which bears testament to what Lacan ironically calls the magic of psychoanalysis. [1] Certainly in many forms of psychotherapy it is affect rather than speech which is seen as the royal road to the unconscious and the aims of such therapies may be formulated as attempting a type of affective reallocation. The assumption is that if the patient were aligned with his true feelings his actions would have some kind of guarantee. It is as though if affects could only be reallocated to their original ideas a subject of knowledge could be established. Analysis does not approach the problem in this way however, although it may involve connections between ideas and affects. It seems to me that we cannot think about affect without a notion of the subjectivity as structured by the signifier. The unconscious within this framework is a very specific one, which does not presume an ontologically consistent 'real thing' beyond the subject, taking us away from the concept of affect as a primaeval feeling state that somehow predates the subject.

The Letter, Issue 11, Autumn 1997, Pages 76 - 82 AN EX-EYETY: A LACANIAN SIGNIFIER? * Josette Zouein In a virtual dictionary of umheimlich, we read the following: An exciety: Anxiety between vinegar and acid. An egg-sighty: See 'Histoire de l'oeil, by Georges Bataille; Anex-eyety: Clairvoyance; Organs donatini. An ex-eyety: See 'Sandman'; See 'The Merchant and the Genie'. An ex-sighty: Oedipus; King Lear; Last session of a Lacanian analysis. An x eye-eaty: See 'The devouring eye’, by Roger Caillois. An Xeyety: Because artists in general and painters in particular, make it possible to see what is not to be seen. Un ex-eyety: The ethics in 'The Merchant and the Genie', in 'The Thousand and One Nights'. ’Selon Lacan, ce n ’est pas I ’homo homini lupus mais lajouissance qui constitute le lien le plus primitif entre le sujet et l'Autre... ’ M. Safouan. ’The eye is not satisfied with seeing. Ecclesiastes 1:8. In his commentary on Freud's umheimlich, [1] Lacan notes the importance given by Freud to the linguistic analysis of the concept 'Uncanny'. This is a fact which, from his point of view, justifies the importance which he conferred on the function of the signifier. Here, Lacan seems to be asking, was Freud a Lacanian, avant la lettre?

The Letter, Issue 11, Autumn 1997, Pages 60 - 75 PUTTING THE FAMILY IN THE PICTURE Antoinette Wills Family albums can read like biographies cataloguing a person's life narrative diacronically in a series of images. Similarly, one photograph and the brief moment which is captured, can, if we ask questions, contain all one's history synchronically. Who is standing next to whom? Who from the family is present or absent? A look, a smile or a frown, - these elements of a photograph can take us beyond the two dimensional image and draw us into the unconscious life of the family. Children's drawings of their family can be viewed in a similar spirit, a snapshot of a child's life and at the same time a window into their unconscious place in the structures in which they find themselves. Kate and Adam are a brother and sister who are adopted. In analysing their pictures I will present an impression of their lives and in so doing place their family back in the picture. It is not novel to approach the play of children as a means of expression. From the moment in 1920 when Freud observed his grandson playing with a reel and formulated that through play the child was both representing and mastering the anxiety that he felt about separation from his mother, we have looked at the non-verbal, symbolic expressions that children offer us as a valuable source of interpretation. Freud's insight into the anxieties that childhood presents us with, centres on the premise that the functions of the family go far beyond the biological, and so the particular struggles of adoptive children, immediately subverting any notion of 'biological family' or 'instinctual family' interests me.

The Letter, Issue 11, Autumn 1997, Pages 43 - 59 THE PALE CRIMINAL AND THE NEED FOR PUNISHMENT: A FREUDIAN PERSPECTIVE Stephen J. Costello You do not intend to kill, you judges and sacrificers, before the beast has bowed its neck? Behold, the pale criminal has bowed his neck: from his eyes speaks the great contempt. 'My ego is something that should be overcome: my Ego is to me the great contempt of man' ... But the thought is one thing, the deed is another ... An image made this pale man pale. He was equal to his deed when he did it: but he could not endure its image after it was done ... the blow he struck charmed his simple mind ... Thus says the scarlet judge: 'Why did this criminal murder? He wanted to steal'. But I tell you: his soul wanted blood and not booty: he thirsted for the joy of the knife! ... And now again the lead of his guilt lies upon him, and again his simple mind is so numb, so paralysed, so heavy. If only he could shake his head his burden would roll off: but who can shake his head? ... This poor soul interpreted to itself what this body suffered and desired - it interpreted it as lust for murder and greed for the joy of the knife ... Much about your good people moves me to disgust, and it is not their evil I mean. How I wish they possessed a madness through which they could perish, like the pale criminal ... Thus spake Zarathustra. Nietzsche, Of The Pale Criminal', Zarathustra's Discourses. In this article, I wish to set out Freud's psychoanalytic interpretations of pale criminality which are scattered throughout the corpus of his works. 'Pale criminality', a term taken from Nietzsche by Freud, is understood to mean criminals suffering from a sense of unconscious guilt. We shall see that for Freud, pale criminality expresses the externalisation of unconscious guilt and the attendant need for punishment. As such, it is intimately inter-connected to the superego and thus to the Oedipus complex.

The Letter, Issue 11, Autumn 1997, Pages 16 - 42 SEDUCTION - THE UNIVERSAL ENIGMA A CLINICAL CONSIDERATION OF THE SUBJECT(ED) Colman Duggan Introduction There is an inherent potential for psychical trauma involved in the everyday encounter between the human subject and the culture into which he is born. Trauma emerges from a combination of internal and external factors, as can be seen in the differential responses of individuals to the experience of infantile seduction on the one hand, an external phenomenon, and the emergence of sexuality in the subject on the other, as an internal experience. For example, some subjects experience sexual seduction as children, resulting in psychic trauma. Others experience such a seduction but do not appear to experience traumatisation, and yet another group do not experience sexual seduction as children, yet are traumatised by the experience of their own emerging sexuality. What contribution does psychoanalysis offer to help make sense of this contradiction? Seduction is the central axis around which the following discussion is organised. Theoretical considerations follow the early Freud between 1896 and 1906, encompassing the founding years of psychoanalysis and the transformations in Freud's thinking on the subjects of sexuality and sexual trauma. The elaborations of Freud's original theory on infantile seduction, pursued by Ferenczi (1933) and Laplanche (1989), are considered, to demonstrate the continuing usefulness of this concept in contributing to a psychoanalytic understanding of sexual trauma.

The Letter, Issue 11, Autumn 1997, Pages 1 - 15 "LIKE STRAW": RELIGION AND PSYCHOANALYSIS William J. Richardson Summary In describing the end of psychoanalysis as the arrival of the analysand at the point of 'subjective destitution', Lacan cites as an analogy the experience of Thomas Aquinas at the end of his life when he suddenly stopped writing, explaining to his secretary that he could no longer continue because everything that he had written up to then seemed to be 'like straw'. In the following essay, the writer attempts to discern the meaning of Thomas's remark and evaluate the import of Lacan's analogy. For Thomas, the remark suggests nothing of what Lacan calls the 'destitution of the subject' but rather a 'destitution' that follows upon the failure of the metaphysical structures of his rational synthesis to account in any adequate way for his own concrete (perhaps mystical) experience of the sacred. What appeared 'like straw', then, was the scaffolding that another language would call (properly or not) 'onto- theo-logy', which in turn is structured, psychoanalytically speaking, by the Lacanian categories of the symbolic and imaginary. Accordingly, what characterised Thomas's experience would be the disillusionment with this symbolic/imaginary synthesis by reason of his encounter with what he called God in the real. Thus, religious 'meaning', for example, the interpretation of human suffering in terms of union with the suffering Christ) need not be considered, as Lacan suggests, a repression of the real (of 'what does not work') but rather a way of confronting it. ***** Thomas Aquinas and Jacques Lacan make strange bedfellows. One would hardly presume to associate them together in any degree of proximity, were it not Lacan himself who invited us to do so. For in his Proposition of October 9, 1967, concerning psychoanalysis in the (Freudian) School, [1] where he discusses his conception of the end of the psychoanalytic process, he interrupts the argument at a crucial moment by introducing a mysterious analogy: 'Sicut palea, as Saint Thomas says of his work at the end of his life - like manure'. [2]

The Letter, Issue 10, Summer 1997, Pages 111 - 120 ON THE POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS OF LACANIAN THEORY: A REPLY TO HOMER Yannis Stavrakakis Writing this article was stimulated by the argumentation put forward by Sean Homer in Issue 7 of The Letter [1] concerning the political implications of Lacanian theory. As I understand it Homer's argument presupposes the distinction between political theory and political praxis or politics, a distinction which I will not question but instead will take as granted. What I will also take as granted, and here I am in full agreement with Homer, is that the interventions in political theory that are inspired by Lacanian psychoanalysis - and, together with Homer, I am mainly referring to Zizek and Laclau - have introduced a series of innovative and extremely productive, if not groundbreaking, insights that are beginning to change the nature of our theoretical terrain. This is particularly true for the field of the theory of ideology since 'if psychoanalysis has anything to offer political theory in general or the politics of representation in particular it is [mainly but not solely] in the field of ideology'. [2] Here two points are crucial: first of all the Lacanian idea of a constitutive Real impossibility located at the heart of the socio-symbolic world - of a lack in the Other - which in Laclau's work assumes the form of the 'impossibility of society', that is to say of the irreducibility of social antagonism and the ultimate dislocation of all social constructions - discourses, ideologies, etc; secondly, the Lacanian conception of fantasy (as a screen that attempts to suture this constitutive lack in the Other) which in Zizek becomes the nodal point for the analysis of ideology as a fantasy construction that attempts to make the impossible society possible, to articulate the Utopian dream of bringing us back the part of ourselves (jouissance) which is sacrificed upon entering the socio-symbolic field. Homer does not seem to question the importance of all these insights. What he questions is the effect they have on politics. The idea of the impossibility of society, for example, as Homer argues, 'may make for good theory but... does it make for good politics?'. [3] In other words Homer's fear is that Lacanian theory of ideology, although successful as a theoretical enterprise, leads to a dangerous no-way-out in terms of political praxis:

The Letter, Issue 10, Summer 1997, Pages 98 - 110 THE REMAINS OF THE DAY Eithne Lannon This paper sets out to examine the obsessional and his desire through an exploration of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel The Remain's of the Day. It focuses on the protagonist of the novel Stevens, butler of Darlington Hall and his struggle with his desire. In The Ethics of Psychoanalysis Lacan says of the obsessional: (What the) behaviour of the obsessional reveals and signifies is that he regulates his behaviour so as to avoid what the subject often sees quite clearly as the goal and end of his desire. [1] In other words what the obsessional (in this case Stevens) fears is an encounter with his desire and he engages in compulsions and rituals in order to protect himself from such an encounter. Stevens uses the institution of the butler and its in-built ritualistic nature as a socially approved medium through which he can engage in the ritual and control inherent in obsessional behaviour. It provides for him an established set of rules and rituals, which are shared and understood by others in the profession and those who act within the institution. In his role as butler Stevens seeks to attain a perfect 'dignity' and within this context is able to justifiably avoid the risk of realising his desire.

The Letter, Issue 10, Summer 1997, Pages 86 - 97 PANDORA'S BOX ON THE FUNCTION OF SECRECY IN PSYCHOANALYSIS * Katrien Libbrecht Introduction One of the chapters of Herbert Strean's Behind the Couch. Revelations of a Psychoanalyst invokes the story of Mr. X, a man who entered analysis with the statement that he would tell everything to the analyst, except his name: 'Just put me down on your list as Mr. X'. [1] This could be a pure Freudian case-history, if it were not for the observation that Strean, despite his overwhelming curiosity and eagerness to know, does not force his analysand to unveil the secret of his name. Instead, he relies on the reactions that this analysand conjures up in him - his so- called counter-transference - to direct the analytic process to the point where Mr. X acknowledges his own identity and the fantasy enclosed in his name, Reginald - 'My friends call me Reggie'. In the aftermath of lifting the secret of his name, Reginald reveals other secrets, that is, other elements he had until then willingly hidden from the analyst. Reginald entered analysis with the conviction that analysts are very persistent people, in that thev force their analvsands to tell them everything that comes to mind. Moreover, as Mr. X, he explicitly challenged the Freudian ground-rule in forcing the analyst to accept him on this one condition that he could keep his name secret. The case-study perfectly matches Freud's experiences with the analytic ground-rule of free association, namely that every patient, in his or her own way, tries to create at least one exception to the rule of telling everything that comes to mind. [2] However, Strean's reaction to his patient's secrecy differs from Freud's.

The Letter, Issue 10, Summer 1997, Pages 73 - 85 BRYAN CHARNLEY - BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE * Phil McAree In 1971, while a student at the Central School of Art and Design, Bryan was diagnosed as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. In 1982, he began to use what he called his 'inner upheavals' as a source of inspiration. 'My work' he wrote, 'springs out of the necessity to make something positive out of the impossible situation I find myself in'. Bryan's ultimate creative act was a series of seventeen self-portraits, painted between April and July 1991. They represent a deliberate attempt at self-investigation. There is a commentary to accompany each painting except the last two. Ten days after their completion, he committed suicide. Bryan says in the commentary to one of his works, that his hope was to 'state with depth what it is to be human and schizophrenic'. Freud said in a letter to Marie Bonaparte: Mediocre spirits demand of science a kind of certitude which it cannot give, a sort of religious satisfaction. Only the real, rare, true scientific minds, can endure doubt, which is attached to all our knowledge. I always envy the physicists and mathematicians who can stand on firm ground. I hover, so to speak, in the air. Mental events seem to be immeasurable and probably always will be so. [1] In art interpret these works, although I will most likely end up doing so. In this case the artist was committed to exposing his inner self, expressing what it is to be schizophrenic and human at the end of the twentieth century. The link between the feeling of the artist and the forms of his art is not in question. I want to look at them in conjunction with Lacan's structuralist paradigm of the psychosis and the mirror stage, emphasising the individual's constraints rather than his freedoms as replicated in this series of paintings.

The Letter, Issue 10, Summer 1997, Pages 40 - 72 READING PLATO'S SYMPOSIUM Barry O'Donnell Introduction Lacan decided that an analysis of the Symposium of Plato in his Seminar of 1960 - 1961 would be an illuminating detour by which to investigate the transference relation in psychoanalysis. [1] This investigation centred on the question of the desire of the analyst and the ethical implication of where the analyst ought to situate himself in order to respond to the transference. Central to the discussion is the concept of identification and the role of the ego ideal. There is a danger in analysis that the analyst is offered the place of the ego ideal for the analysand and that he assumes this position by abandoning his role as subject-who-is-supposed-to-know (sujet-suppose-savoir) and erroneously taking the position of the one who knows (master of knowledge). In this case the desire of the analyst is the desire to 'understand' the analysand and falling for this lure is a sign of the incompetence of the analyst. The challenge facing the analyst is much more difficult than reaching an understanding and communicating that understanding to the analysand. It requires the ability to know how and when not to know, to be able to be desiring in the full sense that Lacan gives to this term, and to do this in a way that makes possible the realisation of the desire of the analysand by the analysand. It is primarily by a certain refusal on the part of the analyst that the dynamic of the transference should work. This refusal, this Versagung or not- saying [2] requires a clear distinction between 'identification' at the level of the imaginary (a narcissistic identification involving the ideal ego), and identification at the level of the Symbolic (which involves the ego ideal). Where should the analyst position himself so that these two identifications, which are always present, can be distinguished? Lacan suggests that this position is possible only from the place of the lack in the Other, the place of S(0) on the Graph of Desire. The end of analysis and the resolution of the transference have to do not just with an arrival at this place where the seemingly endless metonymical movement of the signifier comes to a halt before the big phi, the term of symbolic castration, but also with a pointing beyond this place of the void, this place towards which the che vuoi? of the analysand is directed. In other words the end of analysis should not stop at the place where the subject recognises himself as desirable but should point to some beyond (and it seems to be the recognition of the lack in the Other, the ouden of the analyst, which constitutes this pointing) so that the subject recognises that he is implicated as desiring.

The Letter, Issue 10, Summer 1997, Pages 26 - 39 SOME REMARKS ON WILLIAM FRIED'S PRESENTATION: 'AN OVERTURE AND ITS VICISSITUDES: THERAPY, ANALYSIS ...?' Andre Michels The case presented raises many questions. I should like to raise only a few of these here. To begin with, the context is not without significance. William Fried has supplied us with some very important information that allows us to advance a couple of hypotheses about this. - 1 - You returned from your holidays and were somewhat anxious 'about the gaps that had lately appeared in [your] private practice schedule' and you asked yourself 'whether and when [your] next referral would come'. For this reason, you were very happy to receive a call from a former patient and your 'wishful thought was that he was calling now to resume treatment'. When it turned out that he wanted to introduce a new patient to you, at first you were happy about this but you had a few doubts and scruples as to whether you should be accepting him at all from an ex- patient, especially since the latter wanted to visit and eventually to resume treatment.

The Letter, Issue 10, Summer 1997, Pages 14 - 25 AN OVERTURE AND ITS VICISSITUDES: THERAPY, ANALYSIS OR...? * William Fried I should like to begin this presentation by describing a little of my own state of mind prior to receiving the phone call in which the patient I shall be discussing was referred to me. I had just returned from a three week summer vacation trip and spent an additional week vacationing at home. My plan was to resume work with my private patients in a few days' time and to return to my job the following week. Like most of us, I was anxious about the gaps that had lately appeared in my private practice schedule and wondered whether and when my next referral would come. It was with considerable excitement then, that I responded to a phone message from a former patient from whom I had not heard for about eighteen months since he terminated his treatment. In the interim, I had learned that his father, who had been chronically ill for years, had died. At the time we had stopped working together, I felt that, though there was still much we could have done, the timing of the termination made sense in the light of his life's circumstances and the significance of what we had, in fact, achieved over a period of many years. My wishful thought was that he was calling now to resume treatment.

The Letter, Issue 10, Summer 1997, Pages 1 - 13 THE INSTITUTIONALISATION OF PSYCHOANALYSIS * Tom McGrath The word 'Institute' can be understood to refer to a society or organisation for the promotion of scientific or educational aims or objects. The process of creating structures through and within which these objects can be fostered on a continuing basis could be considered to be what is referred to as 'institutionalising' something. It has to do with making it permanent and fixed and looks to the lasting establishment of whatever desirable aim is in question. In this sense then the word 'institute' - (and the derived 'institutional' and 'institutionalise') - has clearly positive associations and sounds like a thoroughly worthwhile enterprise - depending of course on the particular aims in question. There is also the verb, 'to institute', which can mean to establish, found, or initiate and sometimes to appoint. The word is usable legitimately in a wide variety of contexts and with a wider variety of meanings fairly generally carrying the notion of initiating some procedure or system. To 'institutionalise' carries something like the same meaning, with the additional sense of putting what has been initiated on a longer-term basis.

The Letter, Issue 10, Summer 1997, Pages i - iii

The Letter, Issue 9, Spring 1997, Pages I - ii