9

th
NLS Congress
London, 2/3 April 2011
How Psychoanalysis or!s

How Psychoanalysis Works. This is not a question, this is an assertion. Because
psychoanalysis indeed works, contrary to what some noisily object to nowadays. Still, we
need to account or it.

The word !work" #oprer$, used in an intransiti%e way, is a stron& word. 'omin& rom the
(atin !operari", which means !to work", !to operate" or !operation", it in%ol%es an action
that produces an eect, an )ordered sequence o acts that eect a transormation
#accordin& to !Le Robert"$. To say it in a matter of fact way* psychoanalysis chan&es
somethin&, it yields results. By what means and with what aim is what we will show.

+t the end o his teachin&, (acan said that or all these years he did not stop questionin&
his !co,practitioners" )on the subject o knowin& how they could possibly operate with
words - . don"t say cure, one does not cure e%erybody. There are operations that are
eecti%e and that only happen with words.#/$ The power o the word was also what
0reud, in%entor o psychoanalysis, patiently &a%e account o to the supposed !impartial
person" who did not know anythin& o the !peculiarities o an analytic treatment", whom
he addressed in /123 on (ay +nalysis. The speciic use o words in the meetin& o a
psychoanalyst with his patient is neither su&&estion nor ma&ic. The way words are used
cannot be captured by other practices or any pre%ious knowled&e. 0reud says* )analysis
is a procedure sui generis, somethin& no%el and special, which can only be understood
with the help o new insi&hts , or hypotheses, i that sounds better.#2$ 0reud considered
that the hypothesis o the unconscious and the importance o se4uality in the
determination o neurosis were the two !cornerstones" o psychoanalytic theory,
deduced rom the e4perience.#5$

To &i%e our own account o how psychoanalysis works today, let us start rom what our
daily practice teaches us. (et us not hesitate to take thin&s rom the le%el o the
phenomena. (et us ask oursel%es what in a &i%en case took place and what was at work.
By doin& this we will pro%e that this !how" neither &oes back to, nor culminates in a
practical &uide that prescribes procedures to ollow or oreseeable and &eneralisable
results. We %eriy a&ain, as at the 'on&ress o the W+P in 2667, that (acanian practice is
without standards, but that it is or all that not without principles.

.n order to orient oursel%es, let us return to the !undamental concepts o
psychoanalysis", as (acan chose them rom 0reud in /137, to re%i%e them. Seminar 8. is
a %ery particular moment in his teachin&, a rupture and a new departure, the stakes o
which ha%e oten been illuminated by 9acques,+lain :iller. (acan puts a series o our
concepts in order* the unconscious, repetition, transerence and the dri%e, with which he
responds to the question o what ounds psychoanalysis as !pra4is" #7$, by speakin& to an
e4tended audience beyond the psychoanalysts who ollowed his teachin& at that point.

0or the unconscious to speak it needs someone who listens to it, said 9acques,+lain
:iller in (ondon, at the !;ally o the .mpossible Proessions". + psychoanalyst distances
himsel rom the dominant contemporary ideolo&ies who do not belie%e in the
unconscious.#<$ He is interested in the thin&s that are wron&, that ail, that dey mastery,
and o which (acan made the maniestation o the truth o a subject. This unconscious
that !opens and closes", that presents itsel as hindrance and ailure, how is it &otten hold
o = How do we oer the possibility o surprise by proposin& this special mode o
speakin& that is ree association= What is our responsibility in an interpretation=
;epetition, in its insistence, is the missed encounter with the real, with what is
inassimilable in the si&niier, with what 0reud called trauma. How do we bear it=
This real is at play in transerence, in as much as it is deined as !enactment o the reality
o the unconscious", which is se4ual. What place do we occupy in transerence= What
unction do we ha%e in it=
The dri%e circles the lost object, the object a, and yields in this same circuit its
satisaction> this is in no way equi%alent to the &ood o the subject. The analytic
operation allows the subject to detach himsel rom the identiications he was subjected
to, and to reco&nise the jouissance that is his own. ?nder which conditions is this
possible=

These basic concepts, says (acan, are )what makes us certain o our practice.#3$ But
there is somethin& more. The whole seminar is tra%ersed by the initial question* )What
must there be in the analyst"s desire or it to operate in a correct way= 'ontrary to the
discourse o science, where the desire o the physician is not questioned, )the analyst"s
desire can in no way be let outside our question.#@$ This desire is the sprin& o the
operation. (acan will respond in /13@ with the ormalisation o the end o analysis and
his concept o the act o the psychoanalyst. Thus, to the question o what could put
someone in the position to support the analytic act he responded that a psychoanalyst is
the product o his analysis, taken to its end.#A$

This question remains at the horiBon o our ne4t 'on&ress where we will &i%e an
account o the operati%ity o psychoanalysis startin& rom our practice in its multiple,
but each time sin&ular orms.

Anne Lysy

#/$ (acan, 9.> C (e phDnomEne lacanien F, conDrence G Hice #56.//./1@7$, in Cahiers
cliniques de Nice, / 9une /11A, p. /7. #not translatedIpublished in Jn&lish$
#2$ 0reud, S.> The Question of Lay Analysis K/123L, Standard Jdition #SJ$ %ol 26, tr*
Strachey, 9., Ho&arth Press, (ondon, p./A1I/16
#5$ 0reud, S.> On The istory of the !sychoanalytic "o#ement K/1/7L, SJ /7, p./3
#7$ (acan, 9.> The Seminar, Book 8., The $our $undamental Concepts of !sychoanalysis, tr.
Sheridan, +., Pen&uin, (ondon /117, p. 3
#<$ :iller, 9.,+.> !'losin& ;emarks at the ;ally o the .mpossible Proessions, +&ainst
the 0alse Promises o Security", in urly%&urly, issue /, 2661, p. 2//
#3$ Mp.cit, p. 235
#@$ 'bid.> p. 1 N /6
#A$ (acan, 9.> !roposition of ( October )(*+ on the !sychoanalyst of the ,chool #Autres -crits,
Paris, Seuil, 266/, pp. 275,2<1$
published in Jn&lish on the website o the (ondon Society, tr. Ori&&, ;.*
http*IIwww.londonsociety,nls.or&.ukIpdsIPropositiono1Mctober/13@.pd