by Mickaël Peoc’h | Vol 43 (1/2) 2025
Abstract: In 1958, Lacan considered that the end of Schreber’s delusion revealed the lines of efficacy of an ‘elegant solution’. Although it is relatively common in Lacanian psychoanalysis to use the term ‘subjective solution’, Lacan’s original proposal has been little developed. Yet it is an interesting approach for the clinical treatment of psychotic subjects, given the contributions of sinthome theory and, more recently, work on ordinary psychosis. Based on the symptoms of ordinary psychosis, Jacques-Alain Miller evokes three clinical signs: bodily, social and subjective externalities, which also correspond to the symptoms of extraordinary psychosis. Taking these hypotheses into account, it is possible to envisage (self-)therapeutic solutions that approach symptomatology from the angle of invention rather than deficit, as Freud did with Schreber’s delusions. In this way, we emphasize the dynamic nature of clinical work with psychotic subjects, insofar as it bears witness to the various subjective elaborations that the psychoanalyst can support in refining the symptom.
by Sophie Marret-Maleval | Vol 43 (1/2) 2025
Abstract: After trying to formalize the clinic of melancholy with Lacan’s latest teaching and showing how it can provide indicators as regards the diagnosis of ordinary psychosis, by pointing to the melancholic ground of all psychoses, I will illustrate, with the case of Alfred de Musset, how the most intimate joint of our sense of life can be affected. This leads us to an interpretation following Lacan’s latest teaching of his famous remark concerning Schreber.
by Glenn Strubbe | Vol 34 (2) 2016
This article is the first part of a twofold contribution in which the case of Sergei Pankejev or Freud’s “Wolf Man” is reread from a topological point of view. In this first part, it is proposed that diagnosis of this case as either a neurotic or a psychotic structure from a Freudian or a classical Lacanian point of view inevitably leads to a dead-end. Instead the author makes use of the notion of “ordinary psychosis” from a topological point of view (knot theory). It is hypothesized that we see a disconnection of the Other in the initial stages of the mental illness followed by a manifest psychosis in the later period. Via this disconnection, the Wolf Man made use of a series of “neurotic”-like symptoms that helped him to avoid the triggering of the psychosis. The question of which symptoms he made use of will be treated in the second part of this case study.
by Jean-Pierre Jacques | Vol 31 (1) 2013
In the language of psychiatry in the English-speaking world the signifiers of “dependence” and “comorbidity” tend to co-occur. Meanwhile, in psychoanalytic jargon we witness the birth of the concept of ordinary psychosis. With reference to clinical cases, we will discuss our work with those dependent subjects who have a structure in which the function of the father is not operating. A distinction will be made between psychiatric or decompensated psychosis on the one hand and ordinary psychosis on the other. Possible diagnostic signs of ordinary psychosis, for example, disconnection (débranchement), will be discussed. We will also articulate our therapeutic point of view with regard to these subjects, for instance the way in which de-intoxication can trigger this disconnection or, alternatively, how reconnection (rebranchement) can be facilitated.
