Santa
Monica, Winter 2006
Underconstruction
The following
article was rejected
for publication by
the Buffalo Center
of Psychoanalysis as
being
"incomprehensible"
to the audience of
their journal Umbra (which we
were informed
addresses a type of
understanding
peculiar to students
of critique and
literature). Be
that as it may,
others less hampered
by such strictures
will find below, for
the first time in
the English
language, an
introduction to Lacan's
generalization and
extension of the
psychoanalytic cure.
R.G.
Historical
Background
If Jacques Lacan had
been interrogating
the limits of
Freudian
psychoanalysis from
the beginning, it
was not until 1956
with D’une
question
préliminaire a' tout
traitement possible
de la psychose ( Of
A Preliminary
Question To Any
Possible Treatment
of Psychosis)
that he showed the
necessity of
reformulating the
problem in a
topological
presentation that
went beyond an
"abstract theory of
the faculties of the
subject" 1
.
Although Lacan
continued to purify
what he called the
"ideology of
psychoanalysis"
through a topology
of surfaces, it was
not until February
9th 1972, in his
seminar Ou Pire,
that he changes to a
theory of knots and
announces his
discovery of the
Borromean Rings.
What remains
invariant in this
transformation is
the insistence that
the use of such
topological
structures consists
not in illustrating
the theory of
psychoanalysis, but
of initiating a
practice of
psychoanalysis
itself:
For is not
structuralism what
permits us to pose
our experience as
the field where it
speaks? If yes, "the
distance to
experience" of
structure disappears
since it [the
structure] operates
not as a theoretical
model, but as the
original machine
which puts in scene
the subject. (Remarques
Sur La Rapport De
Daniel Lagache,
Lacan, 1958-60)
By the time of
R.S.I., Lacan
corresponds the
three closed chords
of the Borromean
Lock to the Real,
Symbolic, and
the Imaginary,
while noting this
tertiary grouping of
rings was only a
minimum and required
a fourth ring ∑
(in black) that was
only implicitly
indicated in Freud's
use of the term
psychic reality
2.
Further still, by
explicitly equating
this fourth ring
with the Nom-du-Père
and the Oedipus
complex Lacan
isolates it as what
analysis comes to
operate on: "To be
knotted otherwise,
this is what is
essential to the
Oedipus Complex and
it is precisely on
what analysis
operates." (R.S.I.,
January 14th 1975).
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fig. 1
Four
Ring Borromean Lock
Previously, Lacan had noted that the
ethics of psychoanalysis would depend on
introducing something 'useful' precisely
at the point not only of the failures of
his Ecole, but analysis itself
(Preliminary to the Seminar of R.S.I.,
November 9th 1974). By doing so, Lacan
began not only to render account of the
ideals of psychoanalysis (its
possibilities and psychotherapies) and
its closures (its applications
and techniques in the Heideggerian
sense), but to open up a place for the
treatment of the aporias of its
cure.
Statement of
the Problem:
From Aporia to
Structure
In the
contemporary
scene of
Lacanian
psychoanalysis,
we are faced
with a double
obstacle of a
too contextual
understanding of
psychoanalysis
and a completely
de-contextualized
understanding of
its relation to
topology.
On one hand, we
have the
infinite
psychoanalytic
histories
describing the
nature of its
aporias - the
incomplete
nature of
Freud's analysis
of neurosis, the
impossibility of
analyzing
psychosis and
perversion,
negative
therapeutic
reaction, etc.-
and the
repetitive
epistemological
investigations
into the nature
of its
impostures,
immaturity, and
pseudo-scientificity.
Our introduction
here is less
ambitious in its
scope, yet has
the advantage of
allowing us to
situate what is
crucial: the
structural and
operatory modes
that a
discontinuity of
such natural
themes refer to.
For this reason
our entry is
only
superficially
historical or
epistemological,
for if it were,
our analysis
would remain at
the level of a
succession of
themes natural
to
psychoanalysis.
Our introduction
is different in
so far as it
focuses on the
manner in which
not only Lacan's
topology, but a
theory of
psychoanalysis
resists such
historical and
epistemological
accounts. It is
this resistance
that is
necessary to
listen to and
translate in the
presentation of
a theory and
practice of
analysis.
On the otherhand,
we have become
use to those who
bravely state
that a Borromean
falls apart — or
unlocks — when
anyone of its
three components
is taken away or
cut, while never
explaining why
any of this
should be
significant to
the aims and
goals of the
analytic cure in
the first place.
For if it were
not only with a
bit less haste,
surely they
could find the
time to report
why Lacan never
tired of
explaining the
real problem was
to be found in
how the fourth
ring of the
Sinthome
–
Psychic
Reality,
Oedipus
Complex, or
Name of the
Father —
comes to bear in
this problem of
unlocking.
My short
intervention
cannot hope here
to resolve this
two sided figure
of understanding
too much too
quickly. Rather
it suffices that
we isolate the
problem and
decipher the
reasons for such
complacency,
while laying out
a few landmarks
so that the
reader may begin
to orient
themselves
differently.
One should
begin, for
instance, with
the December
16th 1975
seminar of
Lacan's
Sinthome
in which he
had already
formulated a
topological
movement that
would not only
undo a knot, but
also unlock the
four ring
Borromean lock
by allowing the
fourth ring to
slip off 3. In
so doing, Lacan
isolates a
separation from
the
Sinthome
that was only
avoided by the
traditional
attempts to
describe the
aporias of the
psychoanalytic
cure negatively
and not as a
positive moment
of dé-nouement.
For surely the
Gordian problem
is to show that
to un-tie a knot
– or Sinthome
- is not to
non-tie or cut a
knot, but more
positively to
tie one by
adding its
per-verse .
Without these
precautions, the
psychoanalytic
in-curable
looses its
structure and
effectivity,
while
trivializing
into the morbid
consciousness of
the
non-curable.
What is
difficult for
some to admit,
in the way I
have just
spoken, is that
a psychoanalytic
theory would be
able to
disengage itself
from the themes
that have become
so natural and
intuitive to its
practice. It
would be wrong,
however, to
allow oneself to
be intimidated
by such a
separation,
as it can serve
here as a guide
since it bears
witness to a
moment of
psychoanalytic
history that has
become
incomprehensible
to scholars and
psychoanalysts
alike. Far from
being an
obstacle, it is
an indication of
how one can
learn from a
psychoanalytic
theory to read
its history: a
moment when the
Lacanian
introduction of
topology, before
being develloped
in and of
itself, was
conceived as a
certain
'instrument'
that not only
resolved certain
problems of
analytic theory,
but created
others. For
instance,
Lacan's theory
of the mirror
stage, still
embroiled in the
mechanics of
representation,
was at the
origin destined
to rigorously
elaborate what
Freud had only
discursively
isolated as a
problem of
perversion. In
neutralizing
the aporias that
such a case
presentation
signals to the
analyst, Lacan
introduced the
term
perversion
in structural
terms: as a type
of inversion
associated to
the relation
of an object
with its
symmetric image
4. It was
precisely at
this moment that
it became
possible for
Lacan to ask: at
what point would
have Freud
needed his fable
of primordial
masochism and
the infant, if
he had had an
adequate
topology ?
Inversely, it
also becomes
necessary to
ask: at what
point does such
a structural
account itself
pose an obstacle
to an
understanding
that had
previously been
natural to the
practice of
psychoanalytic
theory
(neurosis, the
talking cure,
woody allen,
etc.) ? Or
again, as if it
were a question
of recuperation:
in what respect
does such a
structural
account, in all
its detours and
generality,
still permit the
carrying out of
the 'initial'
practice of
psychoanalysis ?
Are the words
'ego',
'super-ego',
'id' etc. a
literary way for
old
psychoanalysts
to be able to
continue to
think their
relation to a
theory and
practice of
psychoanalysis ?
If today it has
become common
place to narrate
the aporias of
psychoanalysis
- those
historical
moments that
show themselves
in the
construction and
deconstruction
of its natural
themes of
expression - it
is only in the
isolation of a
pure
material
of
psychoanalysis -
its
knot or
structure
- that such
aporias can be
shown to not
only
generalize
its theory, but
extend its
field and
practice.
Topological Presentation of the
Incurable: The Pere-versely Oriented
It is not in the rupture of Symbolic,
Imaginary, and the Real that defines
perversion, it is that they are already
distinct and that it is necessary to
pose a fourth which is the Sinthome in
occasion [...] that perversion is
nothing other than the version ver le
pere, and that, in sum, the father
is a symptom or Sinthome, if you want.
J.Lacan, Le Sinthome, 1975-76
The remarks of our last section,
as brief as they may have been, begin to
justify the diagrams below as they
present a psychoanalytic place not as a
description of what occurs on the
analytic couch, but as an inscription of
what occurs in the structure of an
analytic practice. In such a movement we
are no longer asking the trivial
topological question of whether an
analysand should sit or lie down on a
couch, or where the analyst should be in
the session, rather we are interrogating
the act and topos of psychoanalysis
itself, without trivializing this
encounter to the professional status of
the doctor/patient relation. Here then,
reformulating our questions at the
place of the Subject and the Other,
we must ask: What is the interaction of
two Borromeans: analyst and analysand,
are they one or two ?
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fig. 2
The Analytic
Situation
In fig. 2 the
structure of the
subject is presented
with two Borromeans
(Bos) that have been
brought together and
embedded in the
plane. The rings of
the Bo are colored
red, green, and blue
with the lock on the
left having a fourth
black ring ∑
interwoven amoung
the three. We have
joined the Bos by
putting them in
correspondence by
bands - double
strands - joining
rings of the same
color. This putting
into correspondence
by bands assures
that the rings
remain closed curves
after joining (a
closed curve joined
to a closed curve by
a band remains a
closed curve). Such
a correspondence
between two Bos was
first proposed in
the literature by
Sourry and Lacan as
a way to 'un-do' a
lock, not by
cutting, but by
adding another
perversely oriented
lock. This act of
dénouement being
nothing other than,
psychoanalytically
speaking, what
occurs in the
interpretation of
the Sinthome.
fig.
3
Dénouement of the
Sinthome
Here, then, in fig.3
we have shown only
the end result of
the process of
interpretation: a
veritable dénouement
where the various
arcs of the rings of
the Bos in the plane
are deformed so that
the Sinthome
falls away (the
dimensions of the
problem permitting
no cutting,
re-drawing, tearing,
etc. of the figure).
To conclude, I hope
the reader will find
the time and
enjoyment to
construct this
clinical problem for
themselves by
actually
transforming figure
[2] into figure [3],
thereby filling in
the missing
diagrams. For it is
by addressing this
separation from the
Sinthome that
contemporary
Lacanian theory
passes from a
practice in
intension to a
practice in extension : that
is to say, operates
an involution from
the place of a
psychoanalytic
practice to a practice of a
psychoanalytic
place.
Robert Groome
Santa Monica,
Winter 2006
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Footnotes
1/ Appearing
initially in la
Psychanalyse, then
republished in his
Ecrits, "Of A
Preliminary
Question..."
p.531-583, Lacan
only adds the
topological
presentation of the
Möbius band and the
corresponding
footnote in 1966.
This much said, the
importance of "Of
a Preliminary..."
becomes apparent,
not only in so far
as this article is
the only Ecrits
(Writings)
with a workable
topological
presentation, but
when the article is
juxtaposed with his
earlier articles and
still illustrative
use of graphs in
such articles as the
Subversion of the
Subject and the
Dialectic of Desire,
p.793-827 Ecrits,
(1960).
2/ The over and
under weaving is
indicated in the
following way: over
= solid line, under
= broken line.
3/ The
Borromean is neither
properly speaking a
knot nor a chain,
but a lock. Or at
least, the necessity
for this triadic
classification of
spatial connection
was first put
forward in P.G.
Tait's On Knots
(1876) Later,
with the work of
Milnor - Link
Groups (1954) -
this triadic
classification would
trivialize into a
binary relation
between knots and homotopy chains.
4/ There are
two delicate
questions here that
have been presented
in the seminars and
will be presented in
future articles:
firstly, the case
where the image is
an inversion
of its object, must
be distinguished
from the case where
it is a perversion. The
use of this language
goes back at least
as far as Listing's
Vorstudien zur
Topologie (1847)
and is today
standard in the
traditional
textbooks of optics.
Secondly, the
question of at what
point the relation of the
image to the object
must be problematized as a
certain nonrelation - as
not a 1-1
correspondance - is
most often brought
out by
distinguishing two
different theories
in which the figure
is posed: the image
as a mathematical entity and the image
as a psychological entity (the figure
'seen'). The former being a 1-1
correspondance, the latter not, thus,
introducing considerations of what
became known after Locke as 'secondary
qualities': color, error, luminosity,
orientation, etc. This difference goes
back at least as far as Kepler's
distinction between 'pictures' and
'images of things'; the former being
what allows the formation of a science
of optics, the latter being what would
open up to, at first, a theory of
psycho-physiological vision: from
Bouguer's Essai d'optique sur la
graduation de la lumiere (1729) to
Weber's (1831) and Fechner's study of
differential perception and the
formulation of a constant: the logarithm
of the psycho-physical relation. If
modern research has critiqued their
results by showing that this constant is
only the case in what concerns a
statistical average of a zone of
excitation conforming to the law of
Gauss, there is still an open
question on the structural problem of
continuity presupposed, but not
explicity brought out in the natural
themes of psycho-physiology. See
Poncaire's topological critique of the
Weber/Fechner conjectures.
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