Difference between revisions of "Desire of the analyst"

From No Subject - Encyclopedia of Psychoanalysis
Jump to: navigation, search
Line 4: Line 4:
 
==Jacques Lacan==
 
==Jacques Lacan==
  
The term "[[desire of the analyst]]" has two meanings in [[Lacan]]'s [[Jacques Lacan:Bibliography|work]].
+
The term "[[desire of the analyst]]" is ambiguous, and oscillates between two meanings in [[Lacan]]'s [[Jacques Lacan:Bibliography|work]].
  
 
There are two meanings of the term in [[Lacan]]'s [[{{LB}}|work]].
 
There are two meanings of the term in [[Lacan]]'s [[{{LB}}|work]].

Revision as of 23:41, 4 September 2006

French: désir de l'analyste


Jacques Lacan

The term "desire of the analyst" is ambiguous, and oscillates between two meanings in Lacan's work.

There are two meanings of the term in Lacan's work.




The phrase "desire of the analyst" is an ambiguous one that seems to oscillate in Lacan's work between two meanings:

"Analyst Supposed to Know"

In psychoanalytic treatment, the analyst attributes desire to the analyst (as well as knowledge).

The analyst is therefore a "subject supposed to desire" (as well as a "subject supposed to know").

Thus the phrase "desire of the analyst" refers to the desire that the analysand attributes to the analyst rather to the actual desire in the mind or psyche of the analyst.

Psychoanalytic Treatment

The task of the analyst throughout the treatment is to make it impossible for the analysand to be sure that he knows what the analyst wants from him; the analyst must make sure that his desire "remains an x" for the analysand.[1]

In this way the analyst's supposed desire becomes the driving force of the analytic process, since it keeps the analysand working, trying to discover what the analyst wants from him.

"The desire of the analyst is ultimately that which operates in psychoanalysis."[2]

By presenting the analysand with an enigmatic desire, the analyst occupies the position of the Other, of whom the subject asks "Che vuoi?" ("What do you want from me?"), with the result that the subject's fundamental fantasy emerges in the transference.

Desire Proper to the Analyst

The other sense of the phrase "desire of the analyst" refers to the desire which must animate the analyst in the way he directs the treatment.

Definition

This is easier to define negatively than positively.

It is certainly not a desire for the "impossible".[3]

Nor is it a desire to "do good" or "to cure"; on the contrary, it is "a non-desire to cure."[4]

Identification

It is not a desire that the analysand identify with the analyst:

"The analyst's desire . . . tends in a direction that is the exact opposite of identification."[5]

Rather than identification, the analyst desires that the analysand's own unique truth emerge in the treatment, a truth that is absolutely different to that of the analyst; the analyst's desire is thus "a desire to obtain absolute difference."[6]

Ethics

It is in the sense of a "desire proper to the analyst" that Lacan wishes to locate the question of the analyst's desire at the heart of the ethics of psychoanalysis.

How is it that the analyst comes to be guided by the desire which is proper to his function?

Training

According to Lacan, this can only occur by means of a training analysis.

The essential requirement, the condition sine qua non for becoming an analyst, is to undergo analytic treatment oneself.

In the course of this treatment there will be a mutation in the economy of desire in the analyst-to-be; his desire will be restructured, reorganized.[7]

Only if this happens will he be able to function properly as an analyst.

See Also

References

  1. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book XI. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, 1964. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Hogarth Press and Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1977. p. 274
  2. Lacan, Jacques. Écrits. Paris: Seuil, 1966. p. 854
  3. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book VII. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959-60. Trans. Dennis Porter. London: Routledge, 1992. p. 300
  4. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book VII. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959-60. Trans. Dennis Porter. London: Routledge, 1992. p. 218
  5. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book XI. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, 1964. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Hogarth Press and Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1977. p. 274
  6. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book XI. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, 1964. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Hogarth Press and Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1977. p. 276
  7. Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre VIII. Le transfert, 1960-61. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. p. 221-2