Lacan’s analytic goal: Le sinthome or the feminine way

by | Vol 34 (4) 2016

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.

Related articles

  • Subject and Collectivity: An Interpretation of Lacan's "Le temps logique"

    The rarely discussed text by Jacques Lacan, Logical Time and the Assertion of Anticipated Certitude, is subjected to a detailed analysis. After explaining the argument, the importance of the "sophism" is shown for Lacan's ideas about the subject and collectivity. Finally, the text is compared to Lacan's theory of the mirror stage. In this comparison it is shown, among other things, how "Le temps logique" anticipates an aspect of Lacan's theory that becomes an issue only later in his work.

  • Introducing Lacan into Moral Philosophy via Antigone

    According to Lacan, moral sensibility revolves around the tension between the social necessity to symbolize and resistance against this necessity. This article introduces Lacan's moral view via Goethe's understanding of a perplexing passage in Antigone. In a remarkable passage, Antigone explains to Creon why she would not have acted in the same way for a husband or for a child or even for another brother, if she had one. Her actions depends on the significance of her blood tie with…

  • Isabelle Le Gouic's Play on Words

    For several years, Isabelle Le Gouic has been developing a multifaceted work combining poetry, drawing and music. The relationship to space, conceived as a psychic space as well as a game, is fundamental in her creations. Her literary work is based on sets of skilful puns addressing complex issues. Isabelle Le Gouic's unique trajectory, involving psychiatric hospital and art therapy, brought her from the hospital to the art space, resulting in the full accomplishment of her identity as an author.…