End of analysis
Lacan conceives of the end of analysis in various ways.
Lacan describes the end of analysis in various ways.
- 1. In the early 1950s, Lacan describes the end of analysis as "the advent of a true speech and the realization by the subject of his history" -- that is, as coming to terms with one's own mortality.[1]
"The subject ... begins the analysis by speaking about himself without speaking to you, or by speaking to you without speaking about himself. When he can speak to you about himself, the analysis will be over."[2]
- 2. In 1960, Lacan describes the end of analysis as a state of anxiety and abandonment -- that is, as a state of helplessness.
- 3. In 1964, Lacan describes the end of analysis as the point when the analysand "traverses the radical fantasy."[3]
- 4. In the final decade of his teaching, Lacan describes the end of analysis as an "identification with the sinthome."
Subjective Destitution
The end of analysis involves two fundamental changes in the respective subjective positions of
- the analysand -- the "subjective destitution" of the analysand, and
- the analyst -- the "loss of being" (Fr. désêtre) of the analyst.
The analyst is reduced -- from the position of the subject-supposed-to-know -- to a mere surplus, a objet petit a, the cause of the analysand's desire.
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p.88
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Écrits. Paris: Seuil, 1966. p.373, n. 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.273
