Object and Symptom in Sergei Pankejev. Part 1: A Special Case of “Obsessional Neurosis”. Prelude to a Topological Reading

by | 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.

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