by Abe Geldhof | Vol 32 (4) 2014
In his PhD defence the author discusses the theoretical evolution of the Lacanian concepts jouissance and psychosis. He analyses how nuanced shifts in Lacan’s thinking on psychosis influence his theory on jouissance, and vice versa, and how changes in his conceptualization of jouissance force a reconsideration of his theory of psychosis. This is done based on the cases Lacan presents throughout his writings and seminars.
by Piet Vanclooster | Vol 19 (4) 2001
This article reexamines Binswanger’s construction of the manic form of Being-in-the-world as formulated in his Über Ideenflucht (1933). On the one hand, we confront Binswanger’s phenomenological approach of the flight of ideas inspired by Heidegger’s thinking with the classic natural scientific approach of that time. We discuss the way in which both approaches differ radically from one another and we probe deeper into Binswanger’s criticism of Kraepelin, one of the most important representatives of the natural scientifically oriented psychiatry. On the other hand, we connect Binswanger’s analysis of the manic form of Being-in-the-world as a particular way in which the manic subject relates to language, other and time with some propositions from Lacan’s teaching on psychosis.
by Jeroen Donckers | Vol 24 (2) 2006
This article deals with the question of violence within the context of a school. The central idea is that a tension exists between an experience and the language for that experience, an idea which is brought to the fore by both Freud and the Russian psychologist Vygotsky. Violence is considered as the expression of a missed meeting between experience and language. By means of a number of psychoanalytic concepts this idea is developed and illustrated with a clinical fragment.
by Jeroen Donckers | Vol 25 (1) 2007
This article deals with the necessary dynamic between the psyche or movement and the object. The notion of movement serves as a material conception of the psyche, in the same way as the drive, the life-drive and language are material: they exist on the basis of a mutual defining relationship to a support, to an object. This necessity (or thought) is considered from within psychosis. Using the poet Antonin Artaud as the movement is illustrated which is not defined by their grounding encounter with the object. With a neologism psychosis is named as ontrand, both in the sense of approach as well as in the sense of distancing. On the basis of a fragment of a case it is explained that, in a way that is different, it is up to the analyst or therapist to ontrand psychosis. In support of this ontranden the case is made for a sufficient continuing constellation of objects. This translation is offered as what Winnicott meant by transitional objects and phenomena.
by Psychoanalytische Perspectieven | Vol 21 (2) 2003
Based on a chronological reading of Adolf Wölfli, it is demonstrated that his work was a response to a psychological necessity to install the dimension of time. Following a brief sketch of his life, the effect of Wölfli’s encounter with the psychiatrist Morgenthaler is considered. More specifically, the effect this encounter had on stylistic aspects of his work are highlighted. Special attention is given to the “autobiographical” aspect and, in this context, it is argued that the imaginary journey which Wölfli describes can be interpreted as either an attempt to construe himself a past, or, via the paradox of sublation, as an attempt to install the dimensions of time and space. This is related to Wölfli’s capture by the desire of his mother for whom he took the place of a brother who had died earlier. In the face of these two failed attempts, it seemed that signing his work with “St Adolf II” could temporarily guarantee him his place in the family tree and furthermore could guarantee the difference between himself and his brother “St Adolf I”.
