Summary: This paper explores an array of errant language experiences in relation to psychoanalysis and the unconscious, such as word play with signifiers at the end of analysis, an accident in printmaking as a source of new writing, and, with respect to the psychotic structure, visual and literary examples of the sinthome. The paper, constructed as a poetics of the human, follows the associative logics and ethics of psychoanalysis itself.
This article focuses both on Lacan’s elaborations of the etiology of symptoms and the related question of the end of analysis. Starting in the 70’s, Lacan concentrates on a further elaboration concerning Freud’s notion of the fixation of the partial drives as the “causa” of symptoms and the end of analysis. In doing so, he supplements his earlier concept of the object a, that formalizes the four partial objects, with the notions of the “letter” and the “sinthome”. The end of the analysis and the definite disappearance of symptoms are situated by Lacan in the relation of the analysand with respect to his object. This relation is singular, hence only possible if it is no longer encumbered by the Other. After all, the sinthome is a knotting of the real, the symbolic and the imaginary that, following the example of Joyce, – operates entirely without the Other.
Different approaches to literature in literary theory can often be reduced to Lacan’s four fundamental discourses. However, in his later work, Roland Barthes investi¬gates the possibility of another, alternative discourse, namely that of the lover. In this discourse, the Imaginary plays a key role. The Barthesian Imaginary functions as an active (in the Nietzschean sense of the word) and creative hermeneutic tool. Important here is the Phrase, a literary sentence supplied by the discourse of the Other, that almost “magically” helps us to name something of our desire. Barthes also closely links this Phrase to his interpretation of the fantasy as the moving force behind our reading. In this way, literature forces us, as subjects of desire, into confrontation with the deconstructed, but indestructible, sinthome of our love, our desire: our ego.
The article treats of the double etiology of psychopathology. From the beginning Freud and Lacan stressed that repression is not the only cause. The article mainly considers the topic of the fixation of the drive (Freud) or the real jouissance (Lacan) as being the ultimate cause of psychopathological symptoms. Finally, it discusses Lacan’s final developments on the end of the analytical treatment. According to Lacan, the end of the analytical treatment or the removal of symptoms in a permannent way has to do with the relation from the subject to his jouissance.
This article investigates the theoretical issue of whether the concept of repetition is applicable to psychosis. In the neurotic subject, repetition is a reaction to the lack in the Other. The subject is confronted with a lack, a chance event, a question to which he has no answer. As a consequence, the neurotic is passively subjected to the Other. A case study makes it clear that the psychotic reacts differently to the lack in the Other. On the one hand, the psychotic can find an answer in the jouissance of the father and this jouissance will repeat itself during the course of his or her life. This “repetition” can be traced back to the sinthome which is not the case in neurosis. On the other hand, some psychotics may be unable to find an answer to the lack in the Other and they will experience a return in the Real. In these patients, a repetition is traceable, but this time to the concept of le retour dans le réel. Therefore, it is concluded that the application of the concept of repetition is inadequate in terms of the psychotic structure.