Psychoanalysis is...

Psychoanalysis is one of the most influential and enduring intellectual traditions of the past century. Many diverse tendencies have emerged from the clinical and theoretical work of visionaries such as Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. Adherents and critics of these movements have helped shape the development of psychology, art, philosophy, business, politics and many other fields. This course will introduce and explore (a few of) the many sides of psychoanalysis as it is thought, spoken and practiced today. 1) If psychoanalysis emerged from practices of 19th century psychiatry, one of its absolutely crucial innovations was to show how psychopathology is integrally bound to language and cultural phenomena. Under the broad headings of parasitism and prosthetics, this talk will discuss some of the ways in which psychoanalysis gives us a unique perspective upon human action. 2) Since its inception psychoanalysis has broken ground and ruffled feathers by making public the most private matters. For Jacques Lacan, ultimately psychoanalysis is “when we allow ourselves a kind of irruption of the private into the public” in which a kind of clinical “knotting” must take place so as to prevent us from slipping endlessly away. Psychoanalyst Grace Tarpey will discuss how knotting actually works, in the context of psychoanalysis as an “ethics of love”. 3) David will discuss Lacan's contention that the psychoanalytic clinic is the real as impossible to bear, by developing 3 propositions: 1)Psychoanalysis is not a therapy; 2)Psychoanalysis is a form of torture; 3)Psychoanalysis responds to an impossible demand with an impossible offer. 4) For Freud, psychoanalysis was the ‘talking cure’, but what does it treat, and how? This presentation will examine these questions in the light of Lacan’s discussions on ethics and philosophy, and with an eye on contemporary problems and paradigms of treatment. 5) “There is no sexual relation” — “Il n’ y a pas de rapport sexuel” — is a, if not the, foundational statement of Lacanian psychoanalysis. It stands against the current push of individuals, groups and nations to reconstitute themselves as One, an impulse that leads ineluctably to the jouissance of sacrifice to “the dark God” Lacan spoke of towards the end of The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. This talk will elaborate and attempt to de-mystify this controversial statement of Lacan’s, and open up for discussion the question of its value. 6) Psychoanalysis is a practice and a social bond that offers an alternative to the dominant discourses of our time, namely those of capital, science and technology. Such mainstream discourses reduce the human subject to an object, and degrade knowledge to a series of units of information. In contrast, psychoanalysis brings the subject into being, and posits a truth beyond knowledge.