🦋🤖 Robo-Spun by IBF 🦋🤖

(All parts in English)

To spare me from always having to search for a box of matches, I’ve been given one—as you can see, quite a large one—on which is written the following phrase: “The art of listening is almost equivalent to that of speaking well.” This delineates our tasks. Let’s hope we can live up to them, at least somewhat!

Today, I will discuss transference, meaning I will address its question, hoping to give you an idea of its concept, following the plan I outlined in our second meeting: namely, that the four major concepts which seem to serve as the foundation of psychoanalysis are the unconscious, repetition, transference (which is our focus today), and, finally, the drive, which is reserved for the end.

On the board, you will find a few reference words which, of course, will only become clear as I develop my points. Transference, first of all, in common opinion, is represented as an affect, vaguely qualified as either positive or negative. It is generally assumed, not without some foundation, that positive transference equates to “love.” Nevertheless, it must be said that this term—when employed in relation to transference—is used in a very approximate way, reflecting the fact that this term, at the level of its use, is hardly ever deeply examined.

However, as you know, FREUD very early on raised the question of the authenticity of the love that arises in transference. And to state it plainly, contrary to the general tendency…
…that it is something akin to a form of false love, a shadow of love…
…FREUD was far from tipping the scales in this direction.

One of the most significant aspects of the experience of transference is that it compels us—perhaps further than has ever been possible before—to confront the question of what we call authentic love: eine echte Liebe.

As for negative transference, it is discussed with more caution, more restraint, and we can say that it is never directly identified with hatred. Instead, the term “ambivalence” is often used—a term which, perhaps even more than the use of “hatred,” obscures many things, particularly confused elements whose handling is not always adequate. Why?

To avoid limiting ourselves to the level where these matters are merely outlined…
…to say that, in terms of affect, and in using this term as designating affect…
…we might more precisely say that transference:

• In its positive form: is when the subject, in this case, the analyst, is regarded as someone “well-liked.”
• In its negative form: is when the analyst is regarded as someone to “watch out for.”

Another use of the term transference deserves distinction; it implies, it means, when used in this sense:

• That something called transference—a fundamental, original relationship—structures all particular relations to the other, who is the analyst.
• That the value of all thoughts, not only concerning oneself but revolving around this relationship, must be connoted with a particular sign of reservation.

Hence, the expression often placed in a sort of footnote, like a kind of parenthesis, suspension, or even suspicion, introduced in relation to the subject’s behavior or conduct. This notation is expressed as: “He is in full transference,” or alternatively: “One must take his transference toward… (his current analyst) into account.”

This presupposes that the entire mode of perception of the subject is, in some way, restructured around the prevailing center designated by this notion of transference, at least as employed here without further precision. I will not elaborate further because, for now, it seems sufficient to establish this dual framework, which is, in essence, a semantic framework—one that would be acceptable at the level of a dictionary.

Of course, we cannot be content with merely this semantic delineation of usages, because, as we said, our aim is to approach, at least, what might be called the “concept of transference”:

• This concept is determined by the function it serves in a praxis.
• This concept directs the way patients are treated. Conversely, the manner of treatment informs the concept.

At first glance, this may appear to resolve a particular question: is transference inherently tied to analytic practice? Is it a product of it, or even an artifact?

One author, Ida MACALPINE, among the many who have expressed opinions on transference, went as far as possible in attempting to articulate transference in this sense. We will have to revisit this. Let us say, regardless of her merit—a very obstinate person—that we cannot, in any way, accept this extreme position. In any case, this does not resolve the question; it merely introduces its consideration.

Even if we must regard transference as a product of the analytic situation, we can say that this situation cannot be entirely fabricated and that, for transference to emerge, there must be external potentials to which the analytic setting gives a composition that might be unique.

This, however, I emphasize, remains to be clarified when we propose introducing transference as closely linked to analytic praxis. This does not, in any way, exclude the possibility that outside of any analytic induction—where there is no analyst on the horizon, so to speak—there might still be effects of transference, properly structured in the same way as the play of transference in analysis. Simply put, analysis, by uncovering them, can provide them with an experimental model, derived from analytic experience, which would not necessarily or fundamentally differ from what we might call the “natural” model.

Thus, introducing the universality of the application of this concept may well involve revealing its emergence in analysis, where it finds its structural foundations. From there, we may only need to sever the cord tethering it to the analytic sphere, even more so from the δόξα (doxa), the opinion attached to it.

After all, this is only a truism. Nonetheless, it was worthwhile to establish this at the outset, this introduction serving precisely to remind you that, if we are approaching the foundations of psychoanalysis, this requires us to establish, among the major concepts that ground it, a certain coherence. This coherence becomes apparent in what we have already seen in how I have approached the concept of the unconscious, of which you might recall, I could not separate it from what we might call the presence of the analyst. “Presence of the analyst” is a beautiful term that we would be wrong to reduce to that sort of tearful preaching, that solemn inflation, that somewhat sticky caress, embodied in a book that appeared under that very title.

The presence of the analyst is itself a manifestation of the unconscious, such that the way it manifests today—as has appeared in certain encounters as a rejection of the unconscious—is a tendency (even an avowed one) in the thinking articulated by some. This must itself be integrated into the concept of the unconscious, and indeed provides the most direct access to what I have emphasized at the forefront in a formulation that is undoubtedly abbreviated, but in this case, the very abbreviation has its significance: namely, to present it first and foremost as essentially: this movement, this something of the subject that opens only to close again in a certain temporal pulsation.

This pulsation, essentially, as I present it to you straight away, so to speak, is a pulsation that I distinctly emphasize as being, in its essence, more radical than even that insertion into the signifier, upon which I have always insisted and which undoubtedly motivates this pulsation. Yet, I indicate that it is not necessarily—does not necessarily constitute—its primary essence, since I have been provoked to speak of essence.

I have here indicated, in a maieutic and eristic manner, that one must see in the unconscious something that can be called the effects—on a certain level—of speech upon the subject, insofar as these effects are so radically primary that they precisely determine the status of the subject as subject. This is a proposition aimed at restoring Freud’s unconscious to its rightful place, and it is this that fundamentally justifies us in not separating ourselves from it at a moment when FREUD introduces it into our experience.

Certainly, the unconscious has always been there, existing and acting before FREUD, but it is sufficiently marked—and it is important to underline—that all interpretations given to the function of the unconscious before FREUD have absolutely nothing to do with FREUD’s unconscious. Whether the unconscious:

• Is viewed as “primordial” or an “archaic function,”
• Or as the veiled presence of a thought that must be raised to the level of being before it is revealed—the metaphysical unconscious of Eduard von HARTMANN (no matter FREUD’s occasional ad hominem reference to it),
• Or especially as an instinct,

…none of this has anything to do with FREUD’s unconscious! And I will go further: none of it—regardless of analytical vocabulary, its inflections or divergences—has anything to do with our experience!

I challenge analysts here: have you ever—even for a moment—had the impression of handling the material of instinct?

What I proposed in my Rome Report was something juridically akin to a novation, a renewed alliance grounded in the sense of Freud’s discovery.

That the unconscious is the only one of the effects of speech upon a subject that eludes, at this level where the subject is constituted by the effects of the signifier, shows clearly that in the term “subject”—and this is why I recalled it at the outset—we do not designate:

• The living substrate, of course, required for the phenomenon of subjectivity,
• Nor any other type of substance,
• Nor any being of knowledge in its secondary or primitive pathos,
• Nor even the logos incarnated somewhere,

…but rather the Cartesian subject, namely, the one who emerges at the moment when doubt is recognized as certainty, with the exception that, through our approach, the foundations of this subject are revealed to be much broader but, at the same time, much more lacking in certainty, much more prone to failure. This is what the unconscious is!

Therefore, there is a link between this field and the moment—the moment of FREUD—when it is revealed. This link is what I express, drawing a parallel with developments in physics, such as those by NEWTON, EINSTEIN, and PLANCK, which I characterize as acosmological—in the sense that all these fields are characterized by cutting a new furrow into the real. I express this metaphorically by designating this furrow as new in relation to the knowledge one might attribute to God for all eternity.

Paradoxically, what assures the greatest, most secure subsistence of Freud’s field is precisely that it is a field which, by its nature, is lost. It is here that the presence of the psychoanalyst becomes irreducible as the witness to this loss. At this level, there is nothing further to draw from it because, so to speak, every time it occurs, it is a “pure loss,” leaving no gain—except in the function, as a pulsation, of that loss.

Far from yielding a gain, one observes that, from the perspective of what might be called “knowledge of man,” each time in the zone—a zone of shadow, necessary shadow—where this loss occurs, designated by the oblique line dividing the formulas that unfold linearly in front of the terms “unconscious,” “repetition,” “transference,” the shadowy zone marked by this oblique line and placing the necessary shadow to its left, the zone of loss involves—can we say, in terms of analytic practice itself—a certain reinforcement of what might be called obscurantism. This obscurantism is highly characteristic of the human condition in our time of supposed information and is a phenomenon we attribute to the future as something unprecedented, without fully understanding why.

The entire function that psychoanalysis may have played in propagating a certain style of human condition—one that calls itself, and not by my designation, the American way of life—is precisely what I describe under the term “obscurantism,” insofar as it is marked by the resurgence and revalorization of concepts long refuted within psychoanalysis itself, such as the predominance of the ego functions.

In this respect, the presence of the psychoanalyst, even in the very vanity of his discourse, must be included in the concept of the unconscious. Psychoanalysts of today, we must account for it as the caput mortuum of the discovery of the unconscious—this residue, certainly, we must account for in the balance of operations. In this respect, perhaps essential to our calculations, it justifies and simultaneously urges us to maintain a conflictual position within analysis as a necessity of the very existence of analysis.

If it is true that psychoanalysis is based on a consideration of conflict, as foundational to drama, as generative, as initial and radical concerning all that can be placed under the heading of the psychic, then the novation I referred to—called Recall of the Field and the Function of Speech and Language in Psychoanalytic Experience—does not pretend to be an exhaustive position regarding the unconscious, since it is itself an intervention within the conflict.

And this reminder, which might seem somewhat lengthy to you, has its immediate significance in that what I want to convey is that this reminder itself has a transferential dimension. I emphasize this, since it is acknowledged that my seminar has, in fact, been criticized for playing a role that, in relation to my audience, has been considered, by the orthodoxy of the Psychoanalytic Association, as perilous: namely, intervening in the transference.

Far from denying it, this effect strikes me as fundamental, constitutive even, in any invocation of what I have called this novation, this renewal of the alliance with FREUD’s discovery.

This indicates that the cause of the unconscious—and here, you can see that the word “cause” is to be taken in its ambiguity: a cause to be upheld, but also the function of cause at the level of the unconscious—this cause to be upheld must be fundamentally conceived as a “lost cause,” and it is the only chance we have of winning it.

That is why, in the second step of my conceptual explanation, marking the connection that is both necessary and distinguishing, I emphasize the concept of repetition in its overlooked dimension. It is essential to highlight the mechanism of the encounter always avoided, the missed opportunity, as the aim that gives its meaning to the term repetition: that the function of failure—of missing the mark—which is always present in analytical repetition, can only be sustained by marking, at a point X, the locus of the encounter, the locus of τύχη (tyché).

This—though I cannot dwell on it at length—represents the shadowy part that persists at the level of the second concept, which I have called here, in relation to chance, the vanity of repetition, a constitutive obscuration of sorts. Yet here, as its scope narrows and reduces, it suggests that there is progress in the accessibility of the conceptual function, allowing us, in sum, to glimpse something else, something accessible in the third step—that of transference—which we are arriving at today.

This second step confronts us with a dilemma:

• Either we fully and simply embrace our implication, as analysts, in the contentious nature of any account of our experience;
• Or we refine the concept at the level of something that would be impossible to objectify except through a transcendental analysis of the cause.

If you will, this could be formulated using the classical expression, the cliché: “ablata causa tollitur effectus” (remove the cause, and the effect ceases). We would only need to make a small modification, emphasizing the singularity of the protasis: “ablata causa”, while putting the terms of the apodosis into the plural: not “tollitur”, but “tolluntur effectus”. This would mean:
“The effects only thrive in the absence of the cause.”

All effects are subjected to the pressure of a trans-factual order that demands, in sum, to enter their dance of effects. However, if these effects “held hands,” as in the famous song (*cf. Paul Fort: Si tous les gars du monde…), they would obstruct the cause from inserting itself into their circle!

At this point, we must define the unconscious cause as neither an οὐχ ὂν (ouk on, non-being), nor a non-existent entity—contrary to what some, Henri EY for instance, have posited as a “non-being of possibility,” or being in the sense of depth. It is none of these. It is a μή ὂν (mé on, prohibition), a prohibition that imposes on being an existent despite its non-emergence—a function of the impossible, upon which certainty is founded. But this leads us directly to the function of transference.

For this indeterminate pure being, which has no access to determination, this primary position of the unconscious, articulated as constituted by the indeterminacy of the subject, is precisely what transference enigmatically grants us access to. This enigma is what we will now explore, and its essence, as I have marked in the third column, corresponds to the stages of the subject: indeterminacy, the impossible encounter, and the Gordian knot that grants us access to the goal of the subject’s pursuit—namely, its certainty.

This means that, concerning transference, the position of the psychoanalyst, his presence, the way he conceives it—what, in sum, constitutes a normal moment (if we can call the moment we are living “normal”)—is essentially the analyst’s own certainty regarding the unconscious. The way he conceives of this certainty cannot be extracted from the concept of transference that we might construct or attempt to perfect.

It is striking, then, to note the multiplicity, the plurality—even the polyvalence—of the conceptions of transference formulated within psychoanalysis. I will not claim to offer you an exhaustive review, as this alone would suffice to occupy very long periods of teaching. Instead, I will attempt to guide you along selected paths of exploration.

The first thing to mark is the initial outlines through which FREUD himself approached the concept. At its emergence in FREUD’s texts and teachings, there is a risk of slipping into a reading that reduces transference to nothing other than the concept of repetition.

Let us not forget that when FREUD introduces transference, he tells us: “What cannot be remembered is repeated in behavior.” This behavior, to reveal what it repeats, is left to the reconstruction of the analyst. In a sense, one might think that the opacity of trauma—maintained in its inaugural function by FREUD’s thinking, that is to say, for us, the resistance of meaning—is held directly responsible for the limit of recollection.

And, after all, we might find ourselves comfortable in our own theorization, recognizing that this moment is highly significant. It represents what could be called the transfer of power from the subject to the Other—the Other whom we call the big Other, the locus of speech, and, virtually, the locus of truth.

Is this the fertile moment, the point of the concept of transference’s emergence? This is what it seems to be, and often this is where one stops.

But let us look more closely: this moment in FREUD is not simply the limit moment corresponding to what I have called—and this is why I had to remind you of it at the beginning of this lecture—the moment of the unconscious’s closure, the temporal pulsation that causes it to disappear at a certain point in its articulation. FREUD, when he introduces the function of transference, takes care to mark it as the cause of what we call transference. The Other is already present, latent or not, in the subjective revelation: it is already there when something begins to emerge from the unconscious.

What the subject has begun to articulate, in a form far from being limited to recollection, takes place in a form where the analyst’s interpretation ultimately only covers up the fact that the unconscious, with its knots in their constitution—wherever they might lead, whether to dreams, slips of the tongue, witticisms, or symptoms—the unconscious itself, if it is what I claim it to be, namely the play of the signifier, has already operated through interpretation in its formations. The Other, the great Other, is already present in every opening of the unconscious, no matter how fleeting.

What FREUD indicates to us, from the very outset of his discussion of transference, is:

• That transference is essentially resistant (Übertragungswiderstand),
• That transference is the means by which communication of the unconscious is interrupted,
• That the unconscious closes itself through transference,
• That transference is, far from being what I earlier called “the transfer of power,” precisely the closure that opposes such transfer.

It is essential to highlight this paradox, commonly expressed and explicitly found in FREUD’s text itself, where transference, for the analyst, is something to be expected before interpretation can begin. I want to emphasize this key point because it represents the dividing line between what we might call the “right” and “wrong” ways of conceiving transference. As I’ve said, there are multiple approaches to transference in analytic practice. They are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

They can be defined at different levels. For instance, the frequent emphasis on the relationship between the subject and one or another of the instances FREUD defined in the second phase of his topography, such as the ego ideal or the superego, offers only a partial, lateral view of what is essentially the relationship with the great Other.

However, there are other divergences that are irreducible. The conception that is both articulated—though often inadequately applied—and, wherever articulated, inevitably contaminates the practice is this:

• That “the analysis of transference must proceed on the foundation of an alliance with the healthy part of the subject’s ego,”
• That the analysis of transference involves appealing to the subject’s common sense to point out the illusory nature of certain behaviors within the relationship with the analyst.

This fundamentally undermines the essence of the matter, which is, indeed, the presentification of the subject’s division, realized here in the presence itself.

To appeal to that part of the subject that would supposedly, in reality, be capable of judging alongside the analyst from the perspective of their combined healthy parts—what happens within the transference—is to overlook:

• That it is precisely this part of the subject that is implicated in the transference,
• That it is this part that closes the door, or the window, or the shutters—however you’d like to phrase it,
• And that the figure with whom dialogue is possible is behind those shutters, waiting only to reopen them.

This is precisely why interpretation becomes decisive at this moment, because it must address her, the figure behind the shutters.

Here, I will only sketch what this schema implies in terms of reversing the commonly imagined model—the one often held in mind.

If I say that “the unconscious is the discourse of the Other,” it is precisely in this way that we must conceive the decisive moment in which the meaning of interpretation arises. The discourse of the Other—the discourse of the unconscious—is not beyond the closure; it is outside. And it is this discourse, through the voice of the analyst, that calls for the shutters to reopen.

Nevertheless, there remains a paradox: that in this movement of closure, one must recognize the initial moment when interpretation can take effect. This also reveals what we might call the permanent conceptual crisis in analysis regarding how the function of transference should be conceived. The antinomy, the contradiction in its function, lies in the fact that transference is grasped as the point of impact for interpretative efficacy while simultaneously being, in relation to the unconscious, the moment of its closure. This is why we must treat it as what it is—a knot.

Whether we treat it as a Gordian knot or otherwise remains to be seen. That it is a knot and compels us to account for it—this is what I have spent several years addressing through considerations of topology. I hope that those who heard these discussions will not find it redundant to recall them here. This is the path we are now committed to in speaking about transference.

There is a crisis in psychoanalysis. And, after all, I am justified—because there is nothing partial about this—to choose as an example the latest article in which this crisis is most strikingly manifest. The article, by no mediocre mind, is by Thomas SZASZ, writing from Syracuse. Unfortunately, this does not make him any closer in spirit to ARCHIMEDES, as this Syracuse is in the state of New York.

This article, which appeared in the most recent issue of the International Journal of Psycho-analysis—and I choose it arbitrarily because of its timing—reflects an idea consistent with the author’s previous works, which are animated by a genuinely moving search for authenticity in the analytic path.

It is striking that, while this position is undoubtedly extreme, it is pursued with extraordinary coherence. It is remarkable that such an esteemed author within his circle, which belongs to what can only be described as American psychoanalysis, would write an article reexamining and questioning the concept of transference as nothing more than a defense mechanism of the analyst. The article concludes—though it leaves us suspended regarding the future—with the following terminal observation, derived from an examination that must surely strike us as highly problematic:

“Transference is the pivot on which the entire structure of psychoanalytic treatment rests.”

It is a concept he calls “inspired”—and I am always wary of false friends in the English vocabulary, so I have weighed this term carefully. This “inspired” does not seem to mean inspired in the usual sense but something more akin to unofficial. It is a concept as unofficial as it is indispensable.

“Moreover,” he says, “it harbors, gives refuge, not only to the seeds of its own destruction but also to the destruction of psychoanalysis itself.”

Why? Because it tends to place the person of the analyst beyond the test of reality, as it might be borne by their patients, their colleagues, or even themselves. This risk—this hazard—must be squarely, frankly, acknowledged. And he adds:

“Neither professionalization, nor the raising of standards, nor coercive training analysis can protect us from this danger.”

And here lies the confusion—one must say we can hardly see where it leads:

“Only the integrity of the analyst and the analytic situation can save us from the extinction of the unique dialogue, the singular dialogue between the analyst and the analysand.”

This “unique” clearly refers to the fact that everything in analysis—though we will see to what extent it is legitimate to consider this fact—currently seems to converge on the analysis of transference.

But the reading of this article…
And, after all, I believe that this journal is sufficiently accessible, even if it does not arrive in bulk here in France, for at least a significant number of my audience to be encouraged to familiarize themselves with it by the next session…
This deadlock that is indicated here—entirely fabricated and completely erroneous—remains, for the author, necessitated by his inability to conceive of the analysis of transference in terms other than those I mentioned earlier, namely: as a form of assent or agreement obtained, or not, from the analyst by what is commonly called—though he does not use the term, it is implied in the text—”the healthy part of the ego,” that part which is capable of judging reality and distinguishing it from illusion. His article begins logically as follows:

“Transference is akin to concepts such as error, illusion, or fantasy.”

And it is from this premise that the cases are examined, divided into these terms: once transference is present, it becomes a matter of agreement between the analysand and the analyst, except that the analyst is here the sole and unappealable judge, with no recourse even for themselves. We are thus clearly led to describe the entire field of transference analysis as one of pure risk, a field without oversight or control.

I have taken this article as an extreme, and ultimately exemplary, case—demonstrative and operational, on occasion, for inciting us to reinstate here a determination that introduces another order. This order is, strictly speaking, that of truth. Understand that the dialectic by which truth is founded arises from this: that speech—even deceitful speech—calls upon it and provokes it.

This dimension is something that is always absent from what I would call logical positivism, which here effectively dominates SZASZ’s analysis of the concept of transference.

It is curious that, under the pretext that I place the function of the signifier at the forefront, some have spoken of my conception of unconscious dynamics as intellectualization. Surely, do we not see, appearing here in this unexpected facet of the development of psychoanalytic thought in American psychoanalysis, that in this operational mode—where everything hinges on the confrontation between a supposed reality and an illusory connotation projected onto the phenomenon of transference—it is precisely there that the alleged intellectualization is dominant.

Certainly, to any reader who disengages from the allure of the text—admittedly dense and even gripping—something becomes clear: far from dealing with two subjects in a dual position, discussing something deposited there like the fallout from a compression in the patient’s behavior, isolated as paradoxical within analysis, what occurs between the two subjects is something far beyond this. Specifically, and entirely outside the field where agreement on an objectivity is reached or not, we must evoke the domain of potential deception.

When I introduced the term “Cartesian subject of certainty” as the necessary starting point for all our speculations about what the unconscious reveals, I emphasized the pivotal role of the Other in DESCARTES, as something that—so to speak—must not, under any circumstances, deceive. But assuredly, in analysis, the danger is that the Other might be a deceived Other. However, this is not all that is at stake, I must stress, when it comes to apprehending the dimension of transference.

Certainly, this is not the only direction in which the issue should be framed—something I merely hint at here, as I will explore it further next time. Nor is this the sole dimension of what I describe as deception, in the sense of what the subject seeks. And this deception—if it has any chance of succeeding in providing a false access to what the subject lacks—surely finds its model in love.

What better way to ensure and convince oneself of the truth of one’s own error than by persuading the other of the truth of what one asserts? Is this not a fundamental structure—one that transference allows us to visualize—of the dimension of love? It consists of persuading the other that they possess what could complete us. And, equally, it is precisely this structure that, at the right moment, necessarily and occasionally gives rise to the dimension of love.

This will serve as an exemplary gateway for demonstrating its workings next time.

I indicate clearly enough that this allows us to entirely refute such an extreme critique—one that, incidentally, leads nowhere—as the one directed here at the handling of the concept of transference. It also allows us to completely reject any reference to the so-called “alliance with the healthy part of the ego” as constitutive of the operation of transference. This—and I point it out so there is no misunderstanding—is not all I have to show you.

For while this is the means by which the subject brings forth certain effects designated by the term “transference,” it is not what fundamentally motivates or causes the closure it entails. What motivates and causes it—which will form the other side of our examination of the concepts of transference—relates to what I designated with the question mark in the left-hand, shadowed area reserved for the concept of transference, which I depicted with the object (a).