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1960-1961 Le séminaire, Livre VIII: Le [[transfert ]] (dans sa disparité [[subjective]]).[[French]]: (texte établi par Jacques-[[Alain ]] [[Miller]]), [[Paris]]: Seuil, 1991.[[English]]: unpublished

In La relation d'[[objet ]] [[Lacan ]] provided a way of [[understanding ]] the paradoxical function of [[transference ]] in the analytical [[cure]]. In its [[symbolic ]] aspect ([[repetition]]) it helps the cure [[progress ]] by revealing the [[signifiers ]] of the [[subject]]'s [[history]]. He argues that in its [[imaginary ]] aspect ([[love ]] and [[hate]]) it [[acts ]] as a [[resistance]]. He uses [[Plato]]'s The [[Symposium ]] to illustrate the rapport between [[analysand ]] and [[analyst]]: [[Alcibiades ]] compares [[Socrates ]] to a box enclosing a precious [[object]], [[agalma]]. Just as Alcibiades attributes a hidden treasure to Socrates, so too the [[patient ]] sees his object of [[desire ]] in the analyst. Lacan articulates the [[objet a ]] with agalma, the [[object of desire ]] we seek in the [[other]].Before, the emphasis was placed on repetition, now it is placed on [[transference love]], [[amour ]] de transfert: both are inseparable, but the perspective changes. To insist on repetition means to refuse to see in the [[analytic ]] [[situation ]] an [[intersubjective ]] rapport to be dealt with here and now. What [[speech ]] constructed in the [[past ]] can be deconstructed in the cure by speech: the cure is "pure symbolic [[experience]]." On the [[individual ]] level, it allows for "the reshaping of [[the imaginary]]," on the theorethical level for an intersubjective [[logic ]] to be constructed. Thus, [[analysis ]] is described as a [[particular ]] experience of [[desire, ]] on the side of [[sexuality]]. Speech has an effect only after transference. For Lacan "it is from the [[position ]] that transference bestows the analyst with that he intervenes in transference itself," and "transference is [[interpreted ]] on the basis of and with the aid of transference itself." In "The direction of the [[treatment ]] and the principles of its [[power]]" ([[Écrits]]: A Selection) Lacan presented [[countertransference ]] as a resistance of the analyst and raised the problem of the analyst's desire. Here, subjective disparity becomes the rule establishing dissymmetry between the two protagonists vis-à-vis desire: what the patient will discover through the disappointment of transference love. Because in the cure one learns to talk instead of making love, in the end desire, which has been purified, is but the empty [[place ]] where the [[barred ]] subject accesses desire. We should note that [[training ]] analysis does not put the analyst beyond [[passion]]; to believe that it does would mean that all passions stem from the [[unconscious]], a [[notion ]] that Lacan rejects. The better analysed the analyst is, the more likely he is to be in love with, or be quite repulsed by, the analysand. In training-analysis there will be a mutation in the [[economy ]] of desire in the analyst-to-be: desire will be restructured, so that it will be stronger than passions. Lacan calls it the desire proper to the analyst.In [[The Symposium ]] the analyst's position is [[identified ]] with Socrates', while Alcibiades occupies the position of the analysand, who after Socrates will discover himself [[desiring]]. "To isolate oneself with [[another ]] so as to teach him what he is [[lacking ]] and, by the [[nature ]] of transference, he will learn what he is lacking insofar as he [[loves]]: I am not here for his [[Good]], but for him to love me, and for me to disappoint him."Alcibiades desires because he presumes Socrates is in possession of the agalma - the [[phallus ]] as desirable. But Socrates refuses the position of loved object to assert himself as desiring. For Lacan desire never occurs between two [[subjects ]] but between a subject and an overvalorized [[being ]] who has fallen to the [[state ]] of an object. The only way to discover the other as subject is "to recognize that he speaks an articulated [[language ]] and responds to ours with his own combinations; the other cannot fit into our calculations as someone who coheres like us." Socrates, by shying away from Alcibiades' declaration, by refusing to mask his [[lack ]] with a [[fetish]], and by showing him [[Agathon ]] as the [[true ]] object of his love, shows the analyst how to behave: such is the other aspect of "subjective disparity" taking place in analysis. There is no rapport between what the one possesses and what the other [[lacks]]. The phallus, from being objet a, the imaginary object, emerges as the [[signifier ]] of signifiers, as "the only signifier that deserves the [[role ]] of [[symbol]]. It designates the [[real ]] [[presence ]] that permits [[identification]], the origin of the [[Ideal]]-of-the-Ego on the side of the Other." There is a [[woman ]] in The Symposium, Diotima, who speaks in the [[form ]] of [[myth]]. In the fable where [[female ]] lack is confronted with [[male ]] resources, the [[feminine ]] first has an [[active ]] role before the desirable [[masculine]]. The [[reversal ]] occurs because in love one only gives what one does not have: the masculine, by shying away from the [[demand]], is revealed as a subject of desire. Later, Lacan would make Socrates the [[model ]] of [[hysterical ]] [[discourse]], but also of [[analytic discourse ]] because he attains the [[knowledge]], the episteme, of love.Having managed to provoke "a mutation in the economy of his desire," the analyst has access both to the unconscious and to the experience of the unconscious because, like Socrates, he has confronted the desire for [[death ]] and achieved the "between-two-deaths" - entre-deux-morts. Having placed the signifier in the position of the absolute, he has abolished "[[fear ]] and trembling." "One puts one's desire aside so as to preserve what is the most precious, the phallus, the symbol of desire." Desire is only its empty place.