CSD6: Argument and Call for Papers

Clinical Study Days

presented by Lacanian Compass

CSD6: The Psychoanalytic Act in the 21st Century

February 24-26, 2012

New York, New York

with our guest

Fabián Naparstek

Member of the School and former Analyst of the School

Escuela de la Orientación Lacaniana

and with the participation of

Pierre-Gilles Gueguen

Analyst Member of the School and former Analyst of the School

École de la Cause freudienne and New Lacanian School

Special Delegate of the World Association of Psychoanalysis for the United States

ARGUMENT:

"An act," Jacques Lacan declared on January 10, 1968, in reference to the Psychoanalytic Act, "is linked in the determination of the beginning, and very especially where there is need to make one . . ." We believe we can find two inflections of this: one being the beginning of analysis, the entry of the subject into the analytic discourse, taken from the point of view of the analysant, and the other as the beginning of analysis, the entry of the subject into the analytic discourse, taken from the point of view of the analyst. This beginning is a beginning for both the analysant and the analyst. For the analysant, as we explored in Paris during the 2010 Paris-USA Lacan Seminar on "Entering Analysis," this beginning is absolutely specific for each subject, and for each analysis, and, even, for each session, and the beginning is marked by a specific transference, which can be identified from the point of the analysant and the analyst in testimonies and case presentations. For the analyst, especially at that first moment of being used in the position of analyst, we can find the absolute radical discontinuity between the Lacanian orientation and other approaches to psychoanalysis and clinical practice in Lacan's work: in the formulation of Discourse of the Analyst, in his definition of the transference as the subject supposed to know, and, in the elaboration of the Pass and the institutional structures relating to formation and training elaborated by Lacan and carried forward by Jacques-Alain Miller in the establishment of the Schools of the World Association of Psychoanalysis.

For our next Clinical Study Days, we will explore the status of the Psychoanalytic Act in the 21st Century. The Symbolic Order has changed today, even from the moment of the Seminar of Lacan on the Psychoanalytic Act in 1968. The transference that appeared to Freud closely linked to parental, even paternal, imagos, in part because the Symbolic Order at that moment was closely structured by the Signifier of the Name-of-the-Father, is seen less and less today. At this moment today, where the Symbolic Order is no longer what it used to be, to take the title of our upcoming Congress of the WAP, the signifier of the Name-of-the-Father no longer functions in the same way, which has implications for the possible paths in the establishment of the transference. If, as Lacan spoke on November 29, 1967, "this psychoanalytic act is something that is quite essentially linked to the functioning of the transference," what precisely has changed about the transference, or the paths to the establishment of the transference, in today's world? How do analsants today reach the point of the beginning of an analysis? And, taken from the perspective of the analyst: in what ways has this new Symbolic Order created a situation that requires a different Direction of the Treatment? Is it necessary for the psychoanalyst to create new strategies with regard to the transference in the face of this new Symbolic Order? What is the place of interpretation today in light of this? And what, for our psychoanalytic institutions, is necessary to sustain a place for psychoanalytic discourse in today's world? In order for our Schools to facilitate the very passage of an analysant to an analyst, what consequences are there with regard to formation that we are facing in the 21st Century? These are some of the questions that we raise for our consideration of "The Psychoanalytic Act in the 21st Century."

CALL FOR PAPERS:

The Scientific Committee of the CSD6 is issuing this Call for Papers for the meeting. We are soliciting two types of papers.

The first is clinical case presentations, where the theme of the Study Days “The Psychoanalytic Act in the 21st Century” should be addressed. Papers should be both at most 20 minutes long when read aloud and at most 15,000 characters with spaces in length.

The second is papers that address this theme from a cultural or societal perspective, or treat the theme from a theoretical perspective. They will be part a round table. Papers in this category should be both at most 10 minutes long when read aloud and at most 7,500 characters with spaces in length.

Please send your texts to the CSD6 Scientific Committee at mcrisaguirre@yahoo.com

Papers should be submitted not later than December 31, 2011.

We appreciate your interest and collaboration on the Clinical Study Days, and we are looking forward to receiving your papers and to seeing you in New York City.

Scientific Committee

Maria Cristina Aguirre

Juan Felipe Arango

Alicia Arenas

Thomas Svolos

Karina Tenenbaum