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OBJET A AND THE PASS IN THE SCHOOL OF LACAN

Summary: In the ‘Proposition of 9 October 1967 on the psychoanalyst of the School’, Lacan first laid out the procedure of the Pass; to be practiced in the School he founded, L’École Française de Psychanalyse. The founding text of Lacan’s School states that the analyst only authorizes themselves, but “this does not rule out the School guaranteeing that an analyst has been formed by it.” (1967) The Pass itself sought to answer a question Lacan himself was preoccupied with in the training and formation of psychoanalysts: has an analysis produced an analyst? An analyst within Lacan’s School(s) may undertake the Pass to answer this question as the analyst of their own case. The passant delivers their testimony of the end or ends of their analysis to two passeurs; who then relate what they heard to what has been called at different times a jury or cartel of the Pass. If their testimony has been heard to have produced an analyst, the passant is nominated an Analyst of the School for a period of two to three years, in which they speak about their testimony and are put to work on the crucial problems of psychoanalysis and the School. A second question could then be asked based on a reading of testimonies of the Pass: what of the object a in the Pass, at the end of analysis? Through a close reading of testimonies of the Pass of the Schools of Lacan which today practice the Pass, this paper will attempt to examine the object a in the procedure of the Pass, and what may remain of it at the end of analysis, of an analyst that is nominated to an Analyst of the School.

An extraordinary observatory

In recent years, there has been a call for qualitative research in addition to quantitative research. When we can observe that a change occured within therapy, it is interesting to understand what this transformation has been and to grasp the cause of this change. The latter is a question that also concerns analysts and for which Lacan has developed a specific research method: the procedure of the pass. We believe that the testimonies of the pass can be an interesting addition to study Lacanian psychoanalysis. The purpose of this article is to review this procedure. What is this procedure and what are the historical and theoretical frameworks. We provide a brief illustration and some critical notes in this procedure.

The Subject’s Responsibility: The Beginning and the End of Analysis

Responsibility is a crucial notion in psychoanalysis. This article begins with a discussion of the preliminary sessions and the installation of the supposed subject of knowledge as the clinical moment in which the analysand takes up responsibility for his suffering. The second part of this article deals with the fate of the subject supposed to know in analysis as illustrated by the author’s testimony of a moment of pass in his own analysis. The analysis of two crucial dreams proves both the intransigence of a religious dimension in transference and the responsibility of the analyst in this matter. The final section of this article discusses the way in which this religious dimension can creep into and undermine psychoanalytical associations.