| Lutecium a non-school of Lacanian/Freudian Psychoanalysis San Francisco, California |
| Spoken, unspoken, and unspeakable: On listening and hearing in psychoanalysis Workshop by Kristopher Lichtanski, Ph.D. |
“Something that is said does not go without saying” (J. Lacan)
For Lacan, the subject comes into being through language, specifically through the act of signifying articulation. However, the basic
property of linguistic utterance is to evoke a reality by means of symbolic substitute that inescapably causes the split between
experienced reality and that which comes to signify it. As Lacan puts it: "The thing must be lost in order to be represented."
Consequently, the relationship of the subject to its own discourse is based on the same division. The subject is split; it can be made
present in its discourse only when it is absent from it in its essence. Language thus conceals the truth of the subject's desire; that
which speaks of the subject's desire is posited as the subject of the unconscious. Lacan thus makes an important distinction between
the subject of the statement (utterance) and the subject of the enunciated; the difference between "said" and "saying," between empty
and full speech.
Lacan further explains that it is always in the relations between the subject’s ego and the “I” of the subject’s discourse that one must
understand the meaning of the discourse in order to achieve the de-alienation of the subject. Because the ego is an alienated reflection
of the subject, the subject itself is realized to the extent that it achieves its truth in full speech which does not merely reverberates the
narcissistic concerns of the imaginary. What Lacan calls full speech requires, then, the relinquishing of the desire for mastery and an
acknowledgment of the difference of the other. In this sense, the goal of psychoanalysis is an advent of true speech. As Lacan states
it: “The effect of full speech is to reorder past contingencies by conferring on them the sense of necessities to come.” It is the truth
rather than the reality that is at stake: “for the function of language is not to inform, but to evoke. What I seek in speech is the
response of the other. What constitutes me as a subject is my question. In order to be recognized by the other, I utter what was only in
view of what will be. In order to find him, I call him by a name that he must assume or refuse in order to reply to me.” The analytic
intervention, therefore, is a linguistic operation that serves as a signifying cut in what is said in order to liberate the (primary) language
of the unconscious desire that is articulated in the act of saying.
It is important to note, however, that the subject also encounters lack in the discourse of the Other, presenting him/her with an enigma
to which an answer must be produced. As an answer to the riddle of the desire of the Other, the subject presents itself and thus
disappears: “does the Other desire me, can he/she afford to lose me?” It is in this double lack - concerning impossibility (level of
desire) and impotence (level of jouissance) - with which the subject must contend and for which the four discourses serve as a way of
coping. Hence, as elaborated by Paul Verhaeghe, in addition to the gap between the signifiers (Freud’s repressed), the process of
remembering also succeeds only to a certain point where the signification chain stalls and shows a gap (Freud’s primal repressed). “It is
at this point that the real ex-sists, the real in the sense of what can not be assimilated by the chain of signifiers.” While the lack in the
chain of signifiers represents the law of predictability (the law of linguistic determinism), the lack concerning the real beyond any
signifier (the fundamental lack), represents the level of cause and unpredictability. It is, thus, in the unspeakable, unsayable, in “what
does not stop NOT writing itself” that the fundamental indeterminateness of the subject is found.
Lacan hence rejects the idea that psychoanalysis ought to end in the analysand’s identification with the analyst; such process simply
installs alienation where there is no gap whatsoever between the signifiers of the (m)Other. To the contrary, separation requires a
different form of identification. “Through the function of object a, the subject separates himself off, ceases to be linked to the vacillation
of being, in the sense that it forms the essence of alienation.” As Paul Verhaeghe states, “separation does not take place through the
intervention of the Other and the symbolic” (the Other of the Other does not exist)… “If the Other is inconsistent, the same goes for the
subject, and both of them tumble down from their positions” (the process of traversing the phantasm), leading to identification of the
subject with the cause of its own advent (loss, an absolute difference). Through this process, the subject is no longer considered an
“answer to/from the Other, but an “answer to/from the real.” The subject has to become a sinthome.
Levi Bryant recently remarked on the greatness of Lacanian practice; he said: "Rather than subsuming analysand under the technology
of a category – categories too are technologies even if they seem to contain no machines – the clinic attends to the rustle of the
analysand in the analysand’s singularity. If there is any word to characterize this experience, whether from the side of the analyst or the
analysand, it is that of surprise."
Inspired by this statement, this workshop is devoted to the conditions necessary for the advent of the subject who comes upon us
unawares during the course of psychoanalysis.
For Lacan, the subject comes into being through language, specifically through the act of signifying articulation. However, the basic
property of linguistic utterance is to evoke a reality by means of symbolic substitute that inescapably causes the split between
experienced reality and that which comes to signify it. As Lacan puts it: "The thing must be lost in order to be represented."
Consequently, the relationship of the subject to its own discourse is based on the same division. The subject is split; it can be made
present in its discourse only when it is absent from it in its essence. Language thus conceals the truth of the subject's desire; that
which speaks of the subject's desire is posited as the subject of the unconscious. Lacan thus makes an important distinction between
the subject of the statement (utterance) and the subject of the enunciated; the difference between "said" and "saying," between empty
and full speech.
Lacan further explains that it is always in the relations between the subject’s ego and the “I” of the subject’s discourse that one must
understand the meaning of the discourse in order to achieve the de-alienation of the subject. Because the ego is an alienated reflection
of the subject, the subject itself is realized to the extent that it achieves its truth in full speech which does not merely reverberates the
narcissistic concerns of the imaginary. What Lacan calls full speech requires, then, the relinquishing of the desire for mastery and an
acknowledgment of the difference of the other. In this sense, the goal of psychoanalysis is an advent of true speech. As Lacan states
it: “The effect of full speech is to reorder past contingencies by conferring on them the sense of necessities to come.” It is the truth
rather than the reality that is at stake: “for the function of language is not to inform, but to evoke. What I seek in speech is the
response of the other. What constitutes me as a subject is my question. In order to be recognized by the other, I utter what was only in
view of what will be. In order to find him, I call him by a name that he must assume or refuse in order to reply to me.” The analytic
intervention, therefore, is a linguistic operation that serves as a signifying cut in what is said in order to liberate the (primary) language
of the unconscious desire that is articulated in the act of saying.
It is important to note, however, that the subject also encounters lack in the discourse of the Other, presenting him/her with an enigma
to which an answer must be produced. As an answer to the riddle of the desire of the Other, the subject presents itself and thus
disappears: “does the Other desire me, can he/she afford to lose me?” It is in this double lack - concerning impossibility (level of
desire) and impotence (level of jouissance) - with which the subject must contend and for which the four discourses serve as a way of
coping. Hence, as elaborated by Paul Verhaeghe, in addition to the gap between the signifiers (Freud’s repressed), the process of
remembering also succeeds only to a certain point where the signification chain stalls and shows a gap (Freud’s primal repressed). “It is
at this point that the real ex-sists, the real in the sense of what can not be assimilated by the chain of signifiers.” While the lack in the
chain of signifiers represents the law of predictability (the law of linguistic determinism), the lack concerning the real beyond any
signifier (the fundamental lack), represents the level of cause and unpredictability. It is, thus, in the unspeakable, unsayable, in “what
does not stop NOT writing itself” that the fundamental indeterminateness of the subject is found.
Lacan hence rejects the idea that psychoanalysis ought to end in the analysand’s identification with the analyst; such process simply
installs alienation where there is no gap whatsoever between the signifiers of the (m)Other. To the contrary, separation requires a
different form of identification. “Through the function of object a, the subject separates himself off, ceases to be linked to the vacillation
of being, in the sense that it forms the essence of alienation.” As Paul Verhaeghe states, “separation does not take place through the
intervention of the Other and the symbolic” (the Other of the Other does not exist)… “If the Other is inconsistent, the same goes for the
subject, and both of them tumble down from their positions” (the process of traversing the phantasm), leading to identification of the
subject with the cause of its own advent (loss, an absolute difference). Through this process, the subject is no longer considered an
“answer to/from the Other, but an “answer to/from the real.” The subject has to become a sinthome.
Levi Bryant recently remarked on the greatness of Lacanian practice; he said: "Rather than subsuming analysand under the technology
of a category – categories too are technologies even if they seem to contain no machines – the clinic attends to the rustle of the
analysand in the analysand’s singularity. If there is any word to characterize this experience, whether from the side of the analyst or the
analysand, it is that of surprise."
Inspired by this statement, this workshop is devoted to the conditions necessary for the advent of the subject who comes upon us
unawares during the course of psychoanalysis.
| This Workshop is offered Sunday, September 20, 2009, 10am - 2pm Flood Building, 870 Market Street, San Francisco Room - 838 |
Fee: $80 professionals / $60 interns / $40 students