VIth CONGRESS of the NLS

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VIth CONGRESS of the NLS
Ghent 15-16 march 2008

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ARGUMENT
The title of our congress, The Body and its Objects in the Psychoanalytic Clinic puts us on the path of the WAP Congress which will take place in Buenos-Aires one month after, on The Objects a in the Analytic Experience .

The choice to broach the question of the object a from the angle of the body leads us to take for the point of departure of our research a particular moment in Lacan s teaching: Seminar X, L angoisse,[1] in which the object a is described as a pure corporeal deduction. [2] However, as J.-A. Miller underlines, the substantial character of the five objects distinguished by Lacan, the breast, faeces, the gaze, the voice and the phallus ought not to blind us to the fact that, fundamentally, these natural objects are a representation of a void structure, a hole. Furthermore, these objects may be easily replaced by separable objects that are artificial, and therefore cultural.

Seminar X is a cut in Lacan s teaching. The object is not conceptualised in Oedipal terms as it was in Seminar IV, La relation d objet. It is introduced as a remainder , escaping from both signifying representation and the specular image. It is a bit of the body , an object lost and separated by a cut that precedes the Other, a cut without the intervention of the symbolic. Preceding desire and law, this object is not what desire aims at, but what causes it. It is only with a second moment that the Other is introduced and the object enters into its dimension of desire, demand and love.

Lacan is thus led to present the relationship between body and object in a completely new way. From the moment he defines the object a as what there is that is most me [ ] in the exterior, not so much because I projected it as because it has been cut off of me. (X, p. 258), the traditional dualism, which opposes body and object as two symmetrical surfaces, makes way for a new topology of the body. The body is no longer a beautiful form, a unity, in the way that the mirror stage produced it. It becomes a libidinal body, the body of the erogenous zones that circumscribe the hole left by the part that is forever separated off. So it was that Lacan would also come to speak of the object a as an object off the body , by which he designates something that at once escapes and remains linked. [3]

In the aftermath of Seminar X, reference to the body would be lessened and the object a would be logified. Nevertheless, in his late teaching, when the body takes on more and more importance, Lacan returns in some way to his intuitions in Seminar X. A man is not his body, he has a body as he remarks when speaking of Joyce and of the sinthome as a body event and with this body, he gets tangled up. The schizophrenic is testament to this in the most burning fashion, the same who, according to Lacan,[4] does not manage to find a function for his organs. By the same token, he turns his body into an enigma.[5] This raises a number of questions: what is required to make a body, to be able to inhabit it, to subjectify it How does a language mark the real of the body, and what are its consequences

We would like to examine this enigma of the body and its objects, through the numerous phenomena of the body that we encounter in clinical practice: conversion and refusal of the body in hysteria, obsessions (seen as libidinal commands), fertility problems, self-harm, hypochondriac complaints, schizophrenic splitting up, inexplicable pains, anorexia, enuresis, addictions of all kinds, etc. It will be a matter of examining these phenomena and their destiny in the treatment case by case. This should allow us to revisit the classic differential clinic on the basis of the object a, and to situate the contemporary symptoms and the said mono-symptoms within subjectivity. We are in the era of the object a s rise to the zenith , and these symptoms are testament to this. Of course, we shall have to take into account the presence of the body in the analysand s discourse, [6] as well as the analyst s role as multifunctional object.

Something new for this Congress is to propose that we start off from the same list of references, so as to form a common basis for the work. This bibliography, consultable on the site www.amp-nls.org , is expressly limited. It gives theoretical and clinical markers to invite each participant to an elaboration, starting off from common axes.

Anne Lysy-Stevens
(Translated from the French by Adrian Price)

[1] J. Lacan, Le S魩naire, Livre X, L angoisse, Paris, Seuil, 2004, fourth part entitled Les cinq formes de’l objet petit a .

[2] J.-A. Miller, Introduction ࠬa lecture du S魩naire de L angoisse de Jacques Lacan , in La cause freudienne, 58, pp. 61-100 and La cause freudienne, 59, pp. 67-103.

[3] J.-A. Miller, L invention psychotique , in Quarto 80/81, p. 8.

[4] J. Lacan, L 鴯urdit , in Autres 飲its, Paris, Seuil, 2001, p. 474.

[5] J.-A. Miller, L invention psychotique , Op. cit., p. 6.

[6] J.-A. Miller, AMP 2008. Les objets a dans l exp鲩ence analytique , Lettre mensuelle de l ECF, 252, November 2006, pp. 8-12.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
J.Lacan, Le S魩naire Livre X, L angoisse, Seuil, Paris, 2004, 4e partie, pp. 247-390. (Not translated)
J.-A.Miller :

AMP 2008. Les objets a dans l exp鲩ence analytique , Lettre mensuelle de l ECF, 252, nov. 2006, pp. 8-12. (English Tr: Lacanian Compass 9, http://www.lacan.com/LacanianCompass9miller.htm )
Introduction ࠬa lecture du S魩naire de L angoisse de Jacques Lacan , Cause freudienne 58, pp. 61-100 et Cause freudienne 59, pp. 67-103. (Lacanian Ink 26)
Biologie lacanienne et 鶩nement de corps , Cause freudienne, 44, pp. 7-59. (Lacanian Ink 18)
L invention psychotique , Quarto, 80/81, pp. 6-13.
Conversation sur les embrouilles du corps (pr飩d饠des cas de la Section clinique de Bordeaux), in Ornicar 50, 2003, pp. 227-291. (Not translated)

E.Laurent, Autisme et psychose : poursuite d un dialogue avec Robert et Rosine Lefort , Cause freudienne, 66, pp. 105-118. (Not translated)

INTERCARTEL Towards Ghent
The members of the NLS and those who participate in the activities of the Societies and of the affiliated and associated Groups, as well as the participants in the work of the Freudian Field in Eastern Europe, are invited to constitute cartels for the preparation of the next congress of the NLS The body and its objects in the psychoanalytic clinic that will take place on March 15 and 16, 2008, in Ghent (Belgium).
The cartels must first be declared to the secretariat of the NLS before September 15, 2007. Then, the first cartel products, in the form of clinical vignettes (3200 signs), must be sent before November 10 to the secretariat, which will distribute them among the different cartels for a first electronic intercartel in December. According to modalities to be determined, and the wishes of the participants, some of this new work will find its place within the framework of the Congress.
The declarations can be sent to the following address: cartels@amp-nls.org .
You can find hereby a specific registration form.


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Association Mondiale de Psychanalyse
www.wapol.org
Nouvelle ɣole de Psychanalyse New Lacanian School
www.amp-nls.org

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VIth CONGRESS of the NLS
Ghent – 15-16 march 2008
ARGUMENT
The title of our congress, ‘The Body and its Objects in the
Psychoanalytic Clinic’ puts us on the path of the WAP Congress which
will take place in Buenos-Aires one month after, on ‘The Objects a
in the Analytic Experience’.

The choice to broach the question of the object a from the angle of
the body leads us to take for the point of departure of our research
a particular moment in Lacan’s teaching: Seminar X, L’angoisse,[1]
in which the object a is described as a ‘pure corporeal
deduction.’[2] However, as J.-A. Miller underlines, the substantial
character of the five objects distinguished by Lacan, the breast,
faeces, the gaze, the voice and the phallus – ought not to blind us
to the fact that, fundamentally, these ‘natural’ objects are a
representation of a void structure, a hole. Furthermore, these
objects may be easily replaced by separable objects that are
artificial, and therefore cultural.

Seminar X is a cut in Lacan’s teaching. The object is not
conceptualised in Oedipal terms as it was in Seminar IV, La relation
d’objet. It is introduced as a ‘remainder’, escaping from both
signifying representation and the specular image. It is a ‘bit of
the body’, an object lost and separated by a cut that precedes the
Other, a cut without the intervention of the symbolic. Preceding
desire and law, this object is not what desire aims at, but what
causes it. It is only with a second moment that the Other is
introduced and the object enters into its dimension of desire, demand
and love.

Lacan is thus led to present the relationship between body and object
in a completely new way. From the moment he defines the object a as
‘what there is that is most me […] in the exterior, not so much
because I projected it as because it has been cut off of me.’ (X, p.
258), the traditional dualism, which opposes body and object as two
symmetrical surfaces, makes way for a new topology of the body. The
body is no longer a beautiful form, a unity, in the way that the
‘mirror stage’ produced it. It becomes a libidinal body, the body
of the ‘erogenous zones’ that circumscribe the hole left by the
part that is forever separated off. So it was that Lacan would also
come to speak of the object a as an object ‘off the body’, by
which he designates something that at once ‘escapes and remains
linked.’[3]

In the aftermath of Seminar X, reference to the body would be
lessened and the object a would be logified. Nevertheless, in his
late teaching, when the body takes on more and more importance, Lacan
returns in some way to his intuitions in Seminar X. A man is not his
body, he has a body – as he remarks when speaking of Joyce and of
the ‘sinthome’ as a ‘body event’ – and with this body, he
gets tangled up. The schizophrenic is testament to this in the most
burning fashion, the same who, according to Lacan,[4] does not
manage to find a function for his organs. By the same token, he turns
his body into an enigma.[5] This raises a number of questions: what
is required to make a body, to be able to inhabit it, to subjectify
it How does a language mark the real of the body, and what are its
consequences

We would like to examine this enigma of the body and its objects,
through the numerous phenomena of the body that we encounter in
clinical practice: conversion and refusal of the body in hysteria,
obsessions (seen as libidinal commands), fertility problems, self-
harm, hypochondriac complaints, schizophrenic splitting up,
inexplicable pains, anorexia, enuresis, addictions of all kinds, etc.
It will be a matter of examining these phenomena and their destiny in
the treatment case by case. This should allow us to revisit the
classic differential clinic on the basis of the object a, and to
situate the contemporary symptoms and the said mono-symptoms within
subjectivity. We are in the era of ‘the object a’s rise to the
zenith’, and these symptoms are testament to this. Of course, we
shall have to take into account the ‘presence of the body in the
analysand’s discourse,’[6] as well as the analyst’s role as
‘multifunctional object.’

Something new for this Congress is to propose that we start off from
the same list of references, so as to form a common basis for the
work. This bibliography, consultable on the site www.amp-nls.org , is
expressly limited. It gives theoretical and clinical markers to
invite each participant to an elaboration, starting off from common
axes.

Anne Lysy-Stevens
(Translated from the French by Adrian Price)

[1] J. Lacan, Le Séminaire, Livre X, L’angoisse, Paris, Seuil,
2004, fourth part entitled ‘Les cinq formes de l’objet petit a’.

[2] J.-A. Miller, ‘Introduction à la lecture du Séminaire de
L’angoisse de Jacques Lacan’, in La cause freudienne, 58, pp.
61-100 and La cause freudienne, 59, pp. 67-103.

[3] J.-A. Miller, ‘L’invention psychotique’, in Quarto 80/81, p.
8.

[4] J. Lacan, ‘L’étourdit’, in Autres écrits, Paris, Seuil,
2001, p. 474.

[5] J.-A. Miller, ‘L’invention psychotique’, Op. cit., p. 6.

[6] J.-A. Miller, ‘AMP 2008. Les objets a dans l’expérience
analytique’, Lettre mensuelle de l’ECF, 252, November 2006, pp.
8-12.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
J.Lacan, Le Séminaire Livre X, L’angoisse, Seuil, Paris, 2004, 4e
partie, pp. 247-390. (Not translated)
J.-A.Miller :
« AMP 2008. Les objets a dans l’expérience analytique », Lettre
mensuelle de l’ECF, 252, nov. 2006, pp. 8-12. (English Tr: Lacanian
Compass 9, http://www.lacan.com/LacanianCompass9miller.htm )
« Introduction à la lecture du Séminaire de L’angoisse de Jacques
Lacan », Cause freudienne 58, pp. 61-100 et Cause freudienne 59, pp.
67-103. (Lacanian Ink 26)
« Biologie lacanienne et événement de corps », Cause freudienne,
44, pp. 7-59. (Lacanian Ink 18)
« L’invention psychotique », Quarto, 80/81, pp. 6-13.
« Conversation sur les embrouilles du corps » (précédée des cas
de la Section clinique de Bordeaux), in Ornicar 50, 2003, pp.
227-291. (Not translated)
E.Laurent, « Autisme et psychose : poursuite d’un dialogue avec
Robert et Rosine Lefort », Cause freudienne, 66, pp. 105-118. (Not
translated)

INTERCARTEL “Towards Ghent”
The members of the NLS and those who participate in the activities of
the Societies and of the affiliated and associated Groups, as well as
the participants in the work of the Freudian Field in Eastern Europe,
are invited to constitute cartels for the preparation of the next
congress of the NLS “ The body and its objects in the psychoanalytic
clinic” that will take place on March 15 and 16, 2008, in Ghent
(Belgium).
The cartels must first be declared to the secretariat of the NLS
before September 15, 2007. Then, the first cartel products, in the
form of clinical vignettes (3200 signs), must be sent before November
10 to the secretariat, which will distribute them among the different
cartels for a first electronic intercartel in December. According to
modalities to be determined, and the wishes of the participants, some
of this new work will find its place within the framework of the
Congress.
The declarations can be sent to the following address: cartels@amp-
nls.org .
You can find hereby a specific registration form.
Association Mondiale de Psychanalyse
www.wapol.org
Nouvelle École de Psychanalyse — New Lacanian School
www.amp-nls.org