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Mouth at rest: notes on silence as psychoanalytic technique

Psychoanalysis is a process that works with discourse, language, and speech. “Nothing takes place in psychoanalysis,” wrote Freud in his introductory lectures, “but an interchange of words between the patient and the analyst” (1916, p.17). Of course, Lacan also conveys that “psychoanalysis has but one medium: the patient’s speech” and emphasizes that “[t]he obviousness of this fact is no excuse for ignoring it” (1953/2006, p.206). Speech is the object of the analysand’s elaboration and this “ribbon of sound,” as Saussure called it, is the production of whatever comes to mind within the presence of the analyst as Other in the transference (1986, p.102). But what about when the ribbon of sound ceases? I raise this question since it seems the obviousness of speech has perhaps detracted somewhat from the obviousness of its opposite: nonspeech or silence. If the analysand’s unconscious is structured like a language, then the manifestation of this language must be supported through and necessarily implies the silence of the analyst.

Reflections on the structure and finality of psychoanalytic interpretations

This article differentiates between two forms of interpretation: symbolic and imaginary. It is argued that an analytic interpretation always revisits a symbolic interpretation made by the subject, resulting in the subject also making an imaginary interpretation.. Furthermore, a psychoanalytic interpretation can only be of service to the analytic cure if the analyst makes a cut between the (revisiting of the symbolic) interpretation made by the analyst and the imaginary interpretation made by the analysand.

Erik: “I can’t play with all your questions!”. Clinical reflections concerning play and creativity in the work of D.W. Winnicott as a result of a play therapy with a five year old boy.

By means of some clinical fragments from the play therapy of a five year old boy, we explore the concept of interpretation, using the visions of various authors to instruct us. We consider the determination and the passion in Klein’s interpretative work. Dolto teaches us to interpret by asking questions. Both principles guide us in our work with Erik until he says: “Leave me alone!” and expresses that our questions are obstructing his play. He doesn’t want to talk, only to play but Dolto asserts that children do not come to analysis to play but to work. Suddenly, we have lost our framework for interpretation. What should we do? Winnicott helps by pointing out that play can facilitate in-depth psychoanalytic work without interpretation. We explore this principle throughout the case study of Erik. In particular, we wish to highlight the dangers associated with interpretations inspired by a preconceived idea.

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About the power of metaphor in poetry and psychoanalysis

This article investigates the relationship between the poetic use of language and analytic interpretation. Poetry and psychoanalysis are strongly formalised practices which, by transgressing the laws of discourse, lay bare the intimate relation one has with jouissance, and in doing so, demonstrate many similarities. Both analytic interpretation and poetic scripture are born out of a violence against language, out of an attempt to create sense out of non-sense, and out of the suggestion that meaning and sound would have a natural connection. Above all, they share the same ethical aspiration, not to retreat before the impossible real. Each stumbles in its particular way at the attempt of the signifier to signify itself, but in such a way that the object a, rolling out of its narcissistic envelope, reveals itself. It allows the poet to illuminate the gap within the metaphor; to the analysand it offers the opportunity to change his position towards the jouissance.

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