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(All parts in English)

I am left with the task of concluding this year, the discourse that I have been led to deliver here due to circumstances which, ultimately, have made present, in the course of my teaching, something that, after all, is accounted for by one of the fundamental notions that I have introduced here: that of δυστυχία [dustuchia] or misfortune, of that something, necessary in every being, to bear the manifestation of the subject, whether it evades or avoids what there is to encounter.

Thus, I had to suspend the step I was about to make those who followed my teaching take regarding the Names-of-the-Father, in order to resume here, before a differently composed audience, what has been at stake from the beginning of this teaching, my teaching, namely: what is it about our praxis? This praxis, judged not by being weighed against an eternal truth, but interrogated at the point of knowing: what kind of order of truth does this praxis generate?

What can assure us—in the very sense of what I have called “certainty”—of what is at stake in our praxis, is precisely what I believe I have given you here as the basic concepts under the four headings: the unconscious, repetition, transference, and the drive, whose outline I have, in a certain sense, integrated into my exploration of transference.

The underlying question is indeed this: to know in what sense, along which trajectory, we are on the path of something generated by our praxis, something that has the right to be guided by necessities, even implicit ones, of the aim of truth. It is this that, in the end, can, if you will, be transposed from this esoteric formula, assuring us that we are not in imposture.

For it is no exaggeration to say that in the questioning of analysis as it remains suspended—not only in public opinion but, even more so, in the intimate life of each psychoanalyst—imposture hovers like a presence that is simultaneously contained, excluded, and ambiguous, against which the psychoanalyst shields themselves, so to speak, through a certain number of ceremonies, forms, and rites, the essential connection of which to the question of imposture is something that must be properly detected.

If I bring forward this term in today’s presentation, it is because, undoubtedly, it is the key, the starting point from which one might approach what I referred to this year, when introducing the question concerning psychoanalysis, in relation to science—a relation I questioned by referring to what I will call a historically significant formula, the one that, in the eighteenth century, when the man of the Enlightenment, who was also a man of pleasure, challenged religion as fundamental imposture.

There is no need to underline or evoke the path we have traveled since then. Who today would think to approach religion from within those simplistic parentheses or quotation marks? It can be said that, throughout the world—even where it is actively contested—religion today enjoys universal respect.

This is precisely because the question of belief is now presented to us in undoubtedly less simplistic terms. The practice we have of the fundamental alienation upon which all belief is sustained, this double subjective term, makes it apparent that belief, at the very moment when its meaning seems to dissolve most profoundly, nonetheless reveals itself in the subject, in the being of the subject, as the very reality that once guaranteed those beliefs.

And it is not enough, as people say, to overcome superstition for its effects on being to be thereby tempered. This undoubtedly constitutes the difficulty we face when trying to comprehend what, at one time—I speak of the sixteenth century—was properly the status of disbelief. [cf. Lucien Febvre: Le Problème de l’incroyance au XVIe siècle : La Religion de Rabelais]

Here, we know full well that we are incomparably, in terms of the presence of the religious function, in our era, incomparably and paradoxically disarmed. Our sole bastion—one that religious figures have admirably perceived—is precisely that indifference which, as Lamennais put it, governs religious matters and derives from the very stance of science.

It is to the extent that science elides, evades, and sections off a defined field within the dialectic of the subject’s alienation, and to the extent that science situates itself precisely at that point I have defined for you within the dialectic of the subject and the Other as one of separation, that science can also sustain a particular mode of existence: that of today’s scientist, the man of science who, if I may say so, embodies a certain style, certain customs, a particular mode of discourse, and who, through a series of defenses and precautions, shelters himself from certain questions that concern the very status of the science he serves—questions that, from a social standpoint, are undoubtedly among the most crucial to address, albeit less crucial than the question of the status to be assigned to the body of scientific knowledge.

The body of scientific knowledge can only be properly grasped if we situate it within the subjective position of the subject. Insofar as the subject, in place of the Other, defends this signifying relation, we can precisely locate this body of science only by recognizing it as the subjective equivalent of what I have here called the object (a).

The reference, the ambiguity that persists regarding the analyst’s position concerning what might resist reduction to science, lies entirely here. And all I can do at this point is to introduce the mode through which this problem might be addressed.

Indeed, when we recognize what it truly implies as something beyond this science—in the modern sense, in the sense of Science, the one whose status I have tried to indicate to you from its Cartesian departure—it becomes apparent that the sole and essential point through which analysis might fall under that classification, which would allow us to associate it with something whose forms and history so often evoke an analogy, is precisely that of a Church, and hence, a religion.

The only way to approach this problem is to realize that what distinguishes religion among all the modes through which humans pose the question of their existence in the world and beyond, is the essential dimension of forgetfulness. In every religion, as it presents itself to us, as a mode of subsistence for the questioning subject, this essential dimension of forgetfulness is present. In every religion worthy of the name, there is this essential operational element, which we call a sacrament.

Ask the faithful, or even the priests: what differentiates confirmation from baptism? For after all, if it is a sacrament, if it operates, it must operate upon something. When it washes away sins or renews—in the case of confirmation compared to baptism—a certain pact, I leave this as a question: is it indeed a pact, or something else? What passes through this dimension?

Of all the answers provided, we will always discern that distinctive mark, pointing to this operational beyond, this, let us say it: magical aspect that lies beyond religion. And yet we cannot evoke this dimension except by becoming aware that, within religion itself, it is marked by the term forgetfulness. This is precisely why analysis, in relation to the foundation of its status, appears similarly marked, struck by a comparable forgetfulness, thereby finding itself characterized by what I would call that same empty face in ceremony. The difference is that analysis…

• because it is not a religion,
• because it proceeds from the same status as our modern science,
• because it engages in that central lack where the subject experiences itself as desire,
• because it shares the same medial status of an adventure within the gap opened at the heart of the dialectic between the subject and the Other…

…analysis, in itself, has nothing to forget, for it does not involve any substantial recognition, nor any domain upon which it claims to operate, not even sexuality.

As for sexuality, on which, in fact, it has scarcely operated: psychoanalysis has taught us nothing new about the mechanisms of sexuality; it has not produced even a minor piece of eroticological technique. There is more on that subject in even the most modest books, which are currently being reprinted in large numbers and stem from ancient Arab, Hindu, or Chinese traditions, or occasionally even our own.

Psychoanalysis touches upon sexuality only insofar as it appears in the form of the drive—and where does it appear? In that passageway of the signifier, where the subject’s dialectic, through the double temporal structure of alienation and separation, is constituted.

Everything bears witness to this, including the field in which it failed to fulfill the promises one might mistakenly have expected from it. Psychoanalysis did not keep these promises simply because it was never obliged to and because sexuality is not its terrain. On its own ground, however, it stands out for this extraordinary power of wandering and confusion, which renders its literature something that, I assure you, will one day easily be classified under what is known as literary madness.

One cannot fail to be struck by this, and I was recently reminded of it when reading a book like The Basic Neurosis by Bergler. This book—appealing in its own way, with its bold, lively manner of gathering and associating numerous observations that are readily identifiable in clinical practice—nonetheless strays far from the correct interpretation of the very facts it presents. For instance, regarding the function of the breast, Bergler becomes lost in a kind of futile contemporary debate about the superiority of men over women or women over men—issues which, though highly capable of arousing passionate responses, are ultimately of the least relevance to the core of the matter at hand.

Today, I must emphasize the movement of psychoanalysis, particularly in relation to the function of the object (a), which I isolate and define here. And it is not without reason that I have mentioned Bergler’s book: lacking a sufficiently precise definition, without an adequate reference point for the specific function of the partial object, and particularly regarding the breast, which he employs extensively, this otherwise interesting work is condemned to wander aimlessly, to the point of rendering its conclusions virtually null.

The object (a) is an object that presents itself to us, in the very experience of psychoanalysis, in the ongoing process supported by transference, as something with a special status. Analysts constantly refer to the notion of “the liquidation of transference,” though often without a clear understanding of what they mean.

What does this actually mean? To what kind of accounting does the term “liquidation” refer? Are we dealing with some sort of alchemical process? Is it a matter of ensuring that something flows away and drains off somewhere? If transference is the activation of the unconscious, does this imply that liquidation refers to eliminating the unconscious? Do we, after analysis, emerge devoid of an unconscious? Or does the phrase refer to the liquidation of the subject supposed to know—to use my own terminology?

It is peculiar to suggest that this subject supposed to know—someone assumed to know something about you, yet who in fact knows nothing—should be considered “liquidated” at the very moment when, by the end of the analysis, they finally begin to grasp something about you. What was initially only supposed has, by then, become an aspect of reality. Paradoxically, it is at the moment when the subject supposed to know gains this substance that it is expected to vanish into thin air.

If the term “liquidation” has any meaning, it can only refer to the ongoing process of dissolving the deception through which transference tends to operate in the formation of the unconscious. I have explained the mechanism of this by referring it to the narcissistic relationship, through which the subject turns themselves into a lovable object: by referencing the one who is supposed to love them, the subject tries to induce the Other into this mirage-like relationship, convincing the Other of their lovability. Freud points us toward the natural outcome of this process in what he calls identification.

Identification does not mean— and Freud articulates this with great subtlety, and I invite you to refer back to the two chapters I previously mentioned from Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, one titled “Identification” (chapter VII) and the other “Being in Love and Hypnosis,” both of which are fundamental— this identification at issue is not a direct, mirror-like identification. Rather, it supports this mirror-like identification from a chosen point of view, a perspective selected by the subject within the field of the Other, from which this specular identification can be seen in a gratifying light.

This is what constitutes the point of the ego ideal: that point from which the subject—as the saying goes—”sees themselves as seen by the Other.” It allows the subject to sustain themselves through this reference to the Other, providing a satisfactory dual relationship from the perspective of love. The fundamentally deceptive nature of love, as a specular mirage, operates precisely in this field governed by the pleasure principle, organized around the introduction of that single signifier that establishes a perspective, a centered arrangement anchored in the ideal point [I], somewhere in the Other, from which the Other sees me in the form I wish to be seen.

Now, within this convergence, to which analysis is called by virtue of the very presence of this essential deception inherent in transference, something emerges that is paradoxical and which constitutes the analyst’s discovery— a discovery not immediately recognized in its essential function, but which can only be fully understood at the other level: the level where we first established the relationship of alienation. This paradoxical, singular, and specific object is what we call the object (a).

We will not go over again— that would be repetitive— all its characteristics, but if necessary, I can present it to you more succinctly by saying that the analysand, in essence, says to their partner, the analyst:

“I love you, but because I inexplicably love something in you more than you yourself— that is, this object (a)— I mutilate you.”

And therein lies the meaning of that complex magma, that convoluted dynamic surrounding the breast, where Bergler certainly perceives the connection to oral drive— except that this oral dimension has absolutely nothing to do with nourishment; its entire focus lies in the effect of mutilation.

The patient might further say:
“I give myself to you—but this gift of myself, as the other puts it, this mystery, inexplicably turns into the gift of a piece of shit.”

This term is equally essential to our experience. And when this is achieved, as the result of an interpretive elucidation— a process whose method I can describe to you— it retroactively clarifies, for example, the dizzying anxiety associated with a blank page in a certain individual: a talented subject, yet teetering on the brink of psychosis. For this subject, the blank page becomes the focal point of a symptomatic blockade that obstructs all access to the Other.

That very blank page, which halts their inarticulable intellectual effusions, is one they literally cannot engage with, as they can only perceive it as “toilet paper.” The presence and function of object (a), which we encounter repeatedly and universally— how can I convey to you its temporal impact within the dynamic of transference?

Time is limited today, so I will use a small fable— an apologue, the beginning of which I recently reformulated in a more intimate discussion with some of my listeners. Now, I will extend it further, and while I apologize for the repetition to those present that day, they will find the continuation to be new.

What happens when the subject begins to speak to the analyst— to the analyst, that is, to the subject supposed to know, yet of whom the subject is initially certain knows nothing? It is to this figure— this supposed knower— that the subject offers something, initially and necessarily, in the form of a demand. And who, after all, is unaware that this demand has oriented the entire psychoanalytic discourse toward an understanding of the function of frustration?

But what does the subject actually demand? They know full well that, regardless of their appetites or needs, none will be satisfied here— aside from perhaps the ability to arrange their own “menu.” Like the fable I read as a child in an Épinal picture book, where a poor beggar delights at the door of a rotisserie by inhaling the roast’s aroma, here it is the signifiers— the “menu”— that are on offer, since speech is the sole medium.

But here arises the complication— and this is where my fable begins— that the menu is written in Chinese. The first step, naturally, is to ask the proprietor to translate it. And so she does: “Imperial pâté,” she says, among other dishes. Yet if it is the subject’s first time in a Chinese restaurant, the translated names might provide no more clarity than the originals, prompting the subject to ask:

“Can you recommend something?”

Which is, in essence, to say:

“What is it I desire here? It is up to you to know that.”

Is this paradoxical situation truly where the process is supposed to lead? Does the subject, at this juncture, merely hand over the task to the supposed clairvoyance of the proprietor— a figure whose importance has grown disproportionately in their eyes? Might it not be more fitting— assuming the mood is right and circumstances are favorable— to reach out and fondle the breasts of the proprietor?

For that is precisely what is at stake: if you go to a Chinese restaurant, it is not merely to eat; it is to eat within the dimensions of exotism. In other words, if my fable is to have any meaning, it lies in the fact that alimentary desire here acquires another meaning: it serves as both the support and the symbol of the dimension— the only dimension in the psyche that is rejected— namely, the sexual. The dimension of the drive in its relationship to the partial object is thus implicitly present.

And however paradoxical or even flippant this little apologue might seem to you, it is nonetheless exactly what is at play in the reality of analysis. It is not enough for the analyst to embody the function of Tiresias; as Apollinaire says, they must still have their breasts. By this, I mean that the analyst, the operation, and the maneuver of transference must be regulated, mastered, and instituted in such a way as to maintain the distance between the point from which the subject sees themselves as lovable and that other point where the subject perceives themselves as caused by lack through (a), where (a) effectively seals the gap constituted by the subject’s inaugural division. This (a) never crosses that gap.

Look— and this is the essential point I wished to convey this year, and I urge you to refer back to it— at what is, perhaps, the most characteristic term for grasping the proper function of this (a): the gaze. This (a) manifests itself within the field of the narcissistic mirage of desire as the object that is, so to speak, “unconsumable,” the object that remains lodged in the throat of the signifier. It marks that point of lack where the subject must recognize themselves as constituted.

It is for this reason that the function of transference can be topologically represented in the form I have used elsewhere— in earlier and more developed stages of my seminar— specifically the seminar on Identification. I referred to this form at that time as “the interior eight,” that is, the figure of the double curve that you see here on the right folding back upon itself. It is not simply a loop; its essential property, as you can see, lies in how each of these halves, as they follow one another, comes to align itself at every point with the preceding half.

For if you imagine this section of the curve unfolding, you would see it cover the other section here. But that is not all. This is a plane defined by a cut: you need only take a sheet of paper and, with a few folds and connections, you will get a clear sense of how this can be conceptualized. It is quite easy to imagine how the lobe formed by the surface, at the moment of its return, overlaps with another lobe— the two continuing along a shared border. This entails no contradiction whatsoever, even within the most ordinary spatial conception, provided one abstracts from the notion of space and recognizes that what is at stake here is strictly a topological reality, one that concerns only the function of a surface.

Clearly, this is only conceivable within a three-dimensional space, as it is there that one part of the plane, upon returning along its boundary, intersects with the other. Yet this intersection holds meaning beyond our spatial frame. Structurally, it can be defined through a specific relationship by which the surface, folding back upon itself, traverses itself at a point yet to be precisely determined. This crossing, this traversing line, symbolizes for us the function of identification.

Through this very process, by which the subject— in articulating themselves within analysis— orients their discourse:

• in the direction of transference resistance,
• in the direction of deception, be it deception in love or in aggression,

… something occurs whose closing effect is inscribed in the very form of a spiral converging toward a center.

This spiral, which I have here represented as a border, eventually returns to the plane constituting the site of the Other— that place where the subject, as they realize themselves through speech, establishes themselves within the domain of the subject supposed to know. And any analytic conception that seeks to define the end or termination of analysis as resulting in some form of identification— be it identification with the analyst or otherwise— thereby reveals its limitations. Any analysis that is doctrinally structured around the idea that it must culminate in identification with the analyst simultaneously discloses the fact that its true driving force has been elided.

For there exists a beyond to this identification, and that beyond is defined by the relationship and the distance between the object (a) and the I, the idealizing element of identification.

Of course, I cannot, at this point— and it would even be untimely— delve into the detailed technical and structural implications of such a statement for practice. However, I refer you to something you can consult for yourselves: the chapter by Freud titled “Being in Love and Hypnosis,” which I mentioned earlier. In this chapter, Freud clearly distinguishes the difference between the state of being in love, even in its most extreme forms, which he designates as Verliebtheit, and hypnosis. He provides what is perhaps the most doctrinally pronounced articulation of a concept that can be discerned elsewhere—if one knows how to read it—regarding the essential difference between the object defined as narcissistic, the i(a), and the function of (a).

Things have reached the point where the mere sight of the diagram Freud presents at the end of this chapter— a diagram that simultaneously illustrates the collective fascination, a phenomenon on the rise at the time he wrote this piece— reveals to us precisely the formula for hypnosis. In that diagram, which you will find in the chapter I mentioned, Freud presents it exactly as I show it here:

• here, he indicates what he calls the object, which you must recognize as what I call (a),
• here, the ego,
• here, the ego ideal.

These curves serve to illustrate the convergence of (a) with the ego ideal. The core of Freud’s explanation of hypnosis is found in his demonstration of the overlap— the superimposition, at the same locus— of the object (a) and the signifying marker we call the ego ideal. To illustrate: if the object (a) can, as I have extensively discussed in relation to the gaze, become identical with that gaze— who, indeed, is unaware of the role Freud highlights here as the crucial point of the affair, namely what he terms the mysterious nature of the hypnotist’s gaze?

But in light of what I have said about the function of the gaze and its fundamental relationship to the stain— to the notion that something in the world is already looking before there is any eye to see it; to the understanding that the mimicry of the eyespot cannot be explained as an adaptive response to the fact that a subject might see and be captivated; that the fascination with the stain precedes the eye that perceives it— if you remember this reference and grasp its implications regarding the primordial function of the stain and the hypnotic power of anything that gleams, you will immediately understand the hypnotic role that can be played by almost anything: a crystal stopper, or indeed, anything with a reflective surface.

The foundation of hypnosis lies precisely in this confusion, in the conflation of the point where the subject is anchored to their ideal signifier with the object (a) itself. This is the structurally most robust account we have of hypnosis.

Now, who does not know that psychoanalysis distinguished itself— indeed, was established— precisely by differentiating itself from hypnosis? And that the fundamental mechanism of the analytic operation is defined by the maintenance of distance and differentiation between I and a?

To provide you with two guiding formulas that are as structurally significant as possible, I would say:

• transference is that which diverts demand from the drive,
• the analyst’s desire is what brings it back, thereby isolating and maximizing the distance between (a) and I— the (a) which the subject calls upon the analyst to embody.

It is to the extent that the analyst must, if I may put it this way, relinquish their idealized status to become the support for this separating object (a)— to the extent that the analyst’s desire enables them to endure, through a kind of inverted hypnosis, the experience of becoming the hypnotized figure— that this traversal of the plane of identification becomes possible. And anyone who has accompanied me through the entire didactic and analytic experience knows that what I say here is true.

Beyond the function of (a), the curve finally closes upon itself— closing precisely where it is never explicitly named in discussions of the outcome of analysis. This occurs when, after the subject has located themselves relative to (a), the experience of the fundamental fantasy transitions into the domain of the drive. For beyond that point, it is indeed the drive that is at stake.

What becomes of the subject who has undergone this experience— this experience of a relationship to the drive, originally marked by radical opacity? How does one live the drive after having traversed the radical fantasy?

This question— what lies beyond analysis— has never been addressed. It remains accessible only from the analyst’s standpoint, insofar as the analyst is required to have completed the full cycle of the analytic experience. There is only one psychoanalysis: didactic psychoanalysis, which is to say, psychoanalysis that has completed this cycle to its very end.

At this juncture, I must elide certain aspects— not because I wish to conceal them, but because I cannot cover everything here, given that we are concerned with the Foundations of Psychoanalysis. The point I am leaving aside is this: that the loop must be traversed multiple times. The necessity of this repetition— of what Freud called Durcharbeiten, or working-through— cannot be accounted for by anything other than the need to make multiple passes through the loop.

This introduces additional complexities— complexities which I cannot, today, address, nor do I have the time to do so.

So here you have this diagram that I leave you with, serving both as a guide for the experience itself and for the reading of the analytic process. It shows, with great precision, that transference operates as a force that draws demand back toward identification.

Yet, it is precisely because something else— an unknown factor that we will call x, the analyst’s desire— exerts an opposing influence on the tendency toward identification, that the subject is able to traverse this space, through the separation they experience. And in this process— the process occurring within the domain of the Other— the analyst, insofar as they align themselves with the object (a), finds themselves positioned at the threshold where the reality of the unconscious is rendered present. At this essential threshold, it is the drive that emerges.

I believe I have already indicated—indeed, I made a point of doing so at the outset of this session—the importance of comparing and situating, at the level of the subjective status we can determine as that of the object (a), what humanity has created, defined, and situated within science over the past three centuries.

Perhaps the phenomena that appear today with such striking intensity under what we more or less accurately call “mass media”—and why not also the relationship to science itself, which increasingly invades and develops within our field—perhaps these phenomena can be better understood by referring to the two objects I previously presented to you as part of a fundamental tetrad: these two objects being the voice—now almost planetary, even stratospheric, through our technological devices—and the gaze, whose invasive nature is no less suggestive. For it is not necessarily the case that our vision is constantly being solicited; rather, it might be that these countless spectacles, these myriad fantasies, are positioned as so many incitements of the gaze upon us.

May I, while leaving aside many of these aspects—which, in themselves, illustrate the vicissitudes of theoretical discourse within the analytic community, when the fundamental function of analysis is posed as we have done—may I emphasize something I consider absolutely essential?

There is something profoundly concealed in the critical understanding of our history, the history we have lived through. It is a kind of drama that, in its own way, re-presents the most monstrous forms of holocaust that we like to imagine as past or surpassed—forms that became all too real in the history of Nazism.

I maintain that no historical framework grounded in the premises of Hegelian or Marxist thought can adequately account for this resurgence, this return, whereby the offering of a sacrificial object to dark gods proves to be something few subjects can resist, caught as they are in a monstrous form of captivity.

There are those whose ignorance, indifference, or willful turning away from the spectacle explains the veil that continues to obscure this mystery. But for anyone capable of directing a courageous gaze toward this phenomenon—and such individuals are indeed rare—there remains the overwhelming danger of succumbing to the fascination exerted by sacrifice itself: a sacrifice wherein, through the object of our desires, we attempt to secure evidence of the presence of the desire of that Other, whom I here call the “dark god.”

This sacrifice expresses an eternal meaning, one that, I dare say, no one can resist without being animated by a faith that is, in the end, so difficult to sustain—a faith that perhaps only one man managed to articulate in a truly enduring manner, through his identification of the Other with a deity mistakenly regarded as pantheistic. I refer here to Spinoza and his Amor intellectualis Dei.

Spinoza’s formulation amounts to nothing less than a reduction of the divine field to the universal realm of the signifier, and to the serene and exceptional detachment from human desire that this reduction made possible within himself. For when Spinoza asserts that “desire is the essence of man,” when he situates this desire as radically dependent on the universal attributes of the divine—attributes that can only be conceived through the function of the signifier—it is within this framework, and only this framework, that he offers us this singular position: the position by which the philosopher— and it is not without significance that this philosopher was a Jew estranged from his tradition—can, for once, become indistinguishable from a transcendent love.

Yet this position is not sustainable for us, because our experience shows that Kant was closer to the truth. As I have demonstrated, Kant’s theory of consciousness—as articulated in his Critique of Practical Reason—rests upon a conception of moral law that, upon closer examination, turns out to be nothing other than desire in its pure state. This pure desire ultimately leads to the sacrifice—indeed, the murder—of everything that constitutes the tender object of human love, not merely through the rejection of the pathological object, but through its active sacrifice.

This is why I wrote Kant with Sade, a text I urge you to revisit, for it is a serious and fundamental piece of work. It illustrates the disillusionment that psychoanalysis enables us to bring to bear on even the noblest efforts of traditional ethics.

It is here that we encounter the boundary enabling us to grasp how man can neither situate nor even sketch his position within a field of recovered knowledge without first confronting the limit where he is bound by his desire.

That this love—which some believe we have denigrated—can only establish and define itself by first renouncing its object, is precisely what allows us to understand why every viable framework for relations between the sexes has required the intervention of a certain mediating element. And here, too, we find a crucial lesson of psychoanalysis: this mediating element is none other than the paternal metaphor— the very concept I was unable to address or even introduce in this seminar. The paternal metaphor allows us to discern what I have called “the shelter,” that shelter around which a relationship is instituted— one that approximates what we might imagine as the tempered form of the sexual relation.

The analyst’s desire is not a pure desire.

It is a desire to obtain the absolute difference— that difference that arises when, confronted with the primordial signifier, the subject comes, for the first time, to appropriate it as their own.

Only here can emerge the meaning of a love without limits— a love that exists beyond the confines of the law, and only here can it truly live.

End of the seminar.