by Derek Hook | Vol 43 (1/2) 2025
Abstract: How might we read and apply Lacan’s under-utilized schema (or ‘graphicization’) from the eight session of Seminar XX? This paper draws on a series of reference-points in Freud’s work as a means of explaining both the three (R – I, I – S, and S – R) vectors in the schema and the three psychical objects (F, S(Ⱥ) and object a) that are produced at the midpoint of these vectors. Each such vector can be said to correspond to a particular type of challenge that occurs within the clinical work, such that what might be required is: 1) the Imaginarization of the Real, 2) the Symbolic reduction (or ‘signifierization’) of the Imaginary, and 3) the ‘Real-ization’ of the Symbolic (or, a missed encounter with the Real).
by Patrick Pender | Vol 42 (3) 2024
Summary: This essay was originally delivered as a presentation at Duquesne University’s Lacan: Clinic and Culture Conference, which took place October 14-16, 2022. The aim of the essay is twofold. First, it clarifies how the capitalist subject – bourgeois or proletarian – is reproduced as constitutively lacking(-in-enjoyment). Second, it elaborates on the relationship between the libidinal economy of Europe, where “no one enjoys,” and the libidinal economy of the plantation, where “everyone is supposed to enjoy.” The essay is Lacanian in style and Hegelian in form, turning in a dialectical circle, or a ‘riverrun,’ beginning and ending with reflections on the nothingness of Man.
by Leo Carre en Corentin Mengual | Vol 41 (4) 2023
Résumé: Cet article propose d’étudier l’actualité du délire de revendication dans la clinique des personnes adhérant à une idéologie radicale et, plus précisément, au discours salafo-jihadiste. S’appuyant sur les éléments biographiques et les fragments de discours d’Amédy Coulibaly, il interroge la logique subjective qui a pu sous-tendre la systématisation de son délire avant la survenue de passages à l’acte. Nous présenterons dans un premier temps comment la psychiatrie classique a dessiné les contours du délire de revendication et quels point ont porté à débat entre les différents auteurs. Puis nous présenterons l’apport de la psychanalyse lacanienne en la matière, dont nous utiliserons les outils pour interroger la clinique de la revendication délirante et la logique de la position paranoïaque. Enfin, nous analyserons le cas d’Amédy Coulibaly pour illustrer l’actualité de cette entité psychopathologique à l’aune de la ‘radicalisation’.
by Ben Muratovic and Elena Petrovska | Vol 40 (4) 2022
Summary: This paper aims to discuss substance use and abuse as falling beyond the pleasure principal and the deficiencies of CBT in the treatment of substance use disorders. As we continue to ponder the beginning and ending of a pandemic, lurking close behind, is the epidemic of overdoses and substance abuse. This epidemic occurred prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, only to be exacerbated by it. Rather than viewing substance use as mere mechanical activity of our bodies in functions, what we can aim to understand better is how our repetitions and behavior express some sort of desire, wish, or fantasy. In the movie Another Round (2020), it is presented that according to Norwegian psychiatrist, Finn Skårderud, human beings are born with a blood alcohol content that is 0.05% too low. This concept would add further nuance to the terms ‘substance use,’ ‘misuse,’ and ‘abuse.’ In the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant explains the thought experiment of the Gallows Man (1998, 5:30), to convey his understanding of people’s prioritization of life over lust. He also explains that a cost-benefit analysis is not enough to prioritize life. Yet, other therapeutic modalities for substance treatment encourage the use of decisional balance worksheets and cost/benefit analyses. A psychoanalytic understanding of substance use and abuse would help unveil the desire and meaning of this activity. It is not just about controlling our brain’s biochemistry or ‘self-medicating,’ but rather, an exploration of what the substance and its use really provides for the individual. In other words, substance use, misuse, or abuse, and the language used to describe the patterns and rituals of the individual are not simply cognitive and behavioral, but more so, fantastical, emotional, and dream-like.
by Gertrudis Van de Vijver | Vol 40 (3) 2022
Samenvatting: Dit artikel beoogt twee vragen op te nemen. Ten eerste: wat zegt Freud in De Droomduiding over de wens? Met andere woorden, wat is zijn definitie van een wens? Ten tweede: wat zegt Freud in De Droomduiding over de wensvervulling? In aansluiting hiermee zal de vraag van de bevrediging, en dan in het bijzonder van de behoeftebevrediging, aan de orde worden gesteld, in connectie met de conceptie van het psychisch apparaat in De Droomduiding. Cruciaal in deze bevraging is of het psychisch apparaat voor Freud, op het moment van De Droomduiding, beantwoordt aan een logica waarbij een bepaald homeostatisch evenwicht in functie van behoeftebevrediging wordt nagestreefd, dan wel aan een logica die net niet dit evenwicht tot maatstaf neemt, maar daarentegen de gedachte open zet dat het psychisch apparaat ultiem niet georganiseerd werd én functioneert vanuit een homeostatisch principe.
