"I very quickly realized what to talk about dad and mom is unthinkable"

A fragment of the essay on what it is like to pass psychoanalysis in Jacques Lacan

Legends go about the extravagance of psychoanalytic practice of Jacques Lacan. We publish an excerpt from the text of Estella Solano-Suaroresis, which helps to see the techniques of the famous psychoanalyst more than just a provocation. The full text of the essay “Three Seconds with Lacan” can be read in the new issue of the International Psychoanalytic Journal - the first Lakanovsky orientation magazine in Russian, which was founded by Jell Miller, the daughter of Lacan.

On this day, like every day at exactly 18 o’clock, I come to the address: Lill Street, 5, to a psychoanalysis session. A few minutes of waiting - and Lacan leads me to his office. I say: “I dreamed of a certain woman who came to Paris ...”, to which he immediately replies: “That's how it is,” then he opens the door and leaves.

Once again, I could not tell my dream. I managed to pronounce only one short phrase containing the theme of sleep. However, the dream had a sequel - and, despite this, the analyst once again makes a sharp stop, depriving the dream of his fabric, shoulder scenes, displacements and condenses. Once again I uttered only the beginning of the phrase, and the session has already ended. My dream came down to one torn phrase. If I could tell the dream completely, I would share a series of incidents that had happened to this woman in Paris, undoubtedly finding something that characterizes her personal difficulties. But no, nothing like that. I was in despair. How long did this session last? Less than three seconds, "exactly so much to pronounce one ."

<...>

First of all, I found myself at Lacan because I asked him to accept me in a situation where my previous analysis came to a dead end. <...> I called the lacan to agree on a meeting. Its secretary replied that at the moment Lacan is not available, as she conducts a series of lectures in the United States. I was offered to call back next week.

I called - and Gloria [Lacan Secretary - approx. Ed. ] again asked to call back next week. I don’t know how many calls I made so, a week after a week. And finally, I manage to talk to him: I present and ask about the meeting. He says: "Meeting for what?" I answer that I want to analyze him. Lacan asks me if there is urgency, I say that no, it can wait, and he replies: "Come immediately!"

I prepared for endless expectation, and he immediately pushed me to urgency, created a rush. This was the first clinical lesson that I received from him. He immediately accepts me on the same day. Sitting in a small chair, I turn to him, while he is turning away. Lacan sits opposite her table, manipulating with knots, ropes and circles. He asks me why I want to undergo an analysis. I immediately answer that I want to become an analyst. I explain to him that the analysis was already underway, that I began to practice and that I do not know if the analysis was real, and my practice was analytical. His answer was: “And what is your symptom? Do you know what is a symptom? In other words, what makes you suffer? "

My tongue begins to be braided; I never thought about it, I did not know what my symptom was. With his question, Lacan showed me that the analysis is not in order to become an analyst, but in order to treat a symptom. This was the second important lesson that I was presented that day.

And he continues: "What did you give you the analysis that you took place with B.?" I blur: "Certain knowledge of my unconscious." Turning his back to me and absorbed in his knots, he asks: “And why did you ask for analysis to B. at the age of 19?” And then I tell him about the circumstances that brought me into analysis, about what could become an irreversible act, but remained an event at the level of calling for help. Then he got up and moved his chair to mine, putting his hand over mine. He asked me in a soft voice why I want to undergo an analysis with him, it was with him, and not with someone else. I muttered something. He asked this question several times ... three, four, five times? - I don't know. I know that I finally said that I came to him, "to cope with this story with death, and that only he could help me." Thanks to his questions, he forced him to break out the meaning of m'ople [play between signifiant maître (dominant) and m '(on) ê (my being). - approx. per. ] This story, which also turned out to be one of the lessons that I made from this first meeting.

Then he tells me the same insinuating voice: “Analysis is a serious story. Before you start the analysis itself, I will spend, as is customary in my school, preliminary meetings. ” On this he puts me on, setting me the next session. Already on the threshold he asks: "Will you give me something for this meeting?" I reply that I have nothing, I am very poor and has not yet found a job in Paris. He replies: "Give me what you want."

I was amazed. He gave me a chance, the lot was thrown.

But it was still necessary to make efforts to become an analyzer. Day after day, my request was constant to check. Payment of sessions subsequently doubled or three times in order to gradually lead to me to pay the opportunity to pay a real price for them. I very quickly realized that in work I would be subjected to speech practice, radically different from the one to which I am used to. Such where it was inconceivable to talk about dad and mom, about my dreams, about the partner, the memories of childhood, the difficulties of everyday life in France - in a word, about my stupid existence. If from time to time I had a meaningless hope that this or that dream or fantasy could attract his attention, I was immediately disappointed in it. And each time, leaving, I annoyedly crossed the courtyard of his house.

Once, being no longer able to restrain myself, I throw him: “Monsieur, I absolutely do not understand the meaning of your practice!”, And he answers me: “My dear, this is a test.” It was unbearable. Was he really not enough evidence of my subordination, goodwill, diligent fit in the desire to be a good analyzant? An exemplary analyzer is who I was. Strictly observing the discipline of the schedule of sessions and free associations, I easily discovered, “what I wanted to say” my unconscious, which was also so orderly and worked so well in the analytical disposit, which constantly presented answers to all the questions raised in sessions.

But with Lacan, my whole chatter fell apart. He met all my fabrications with a refusal to accept them, so I no longer understood what to go through the analysis, or, as he told me, "to begin the analysis itself."

<...>

So the day came that I spoke about at the very beginning. I represent Lakan one of my dreams, saying: "We are talking about a woman who came to Paris." And now, passing in the yard to the exit from the building, alarmed and bewildered, I finally heard that I said: "A woman who wants (VEUT) is born in Paris." Eureka! I burst into a laughter. A new dimension has opened for me. From this day, I could get to the symptom with my ears, because they were not more clogged, closed by compact values ​​of a single suitable form. The semantic buffer suddenly exfoliated like a husk, freeing Yazyk (Lalangue) from a vise of tongue.

Lacan's lightning speed with a lacan contained a reduction to the space of a compressed time period (l'esp d'Un laps) to the reservation space (Lapsus). His method of action, which consists in the work of an acute surgical section, perforating the statement, allowed me to finally catch the transition from speech to writing. Flying out with ambiguity, the analyst forced to sound in the expressed something different from what they intended to say. This implies a different way to write down what was heard and turns the analytical operation into a reading exercise, giving the statements material consistency, painstaking work on which allows you to distinguish one thing (un Tout Seal), which does not carry any sense in itself. This is the price of the opportunity to touch the real one.

The translation of Inga Metreveli