This article was first published as Charraud 1987, in the special issue of Ornicar? 40 p136-142, devoted to interpretation.

It, and some two dozen other articles, appeared together under the general title: A Calculus of Interpretation.

Published as ch 10 p218-226 of ‘Drawing the Soul: Schemas and Models in Psychoanalysis’ : Edited by Bernard Burgoyne: Rebus Press: 2000 Download, with footnotes & translated by Bernard Burgoyne, www.LacanianWorksExchange.net

References & notes

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Charraud : In his abstract of his Ethics Seminar, Lacan provides us with some sound benchmarks regarding what he calls ‘reasoned interpretation’, as opposed to ‘wild interpretation’, or the ‘spontaneous interpretation’ made by the dream in the dream-work.a (Lacan 1984). His commentary was produced in relation to dreaming, but it seems to me equally true applied to interpretation in general. ‘Reasoned interpretation can do no better than to have appear the weakness that the phrase denotes’. Deciphering ‘shows a defect of signification, and it’s in no other way that it achieves the connotation of a desire’. ‘Anxiety [Anguish – l’angoisse] breaks up sleep when the dream is about to lead onto the real of what is desired.

Lacan J. (1984) ‘Compte rendu avec interpolations du Séminaire de l’Éthique’, Ornicar? 28: 7-18 See this site /4 Jacques Lacan (19600101)

See Compte rendu avec interpolations du Séminaire de l’Éthique : early 1960s : Jacques Lacan on this site /4 Jacques Lacan (19600101) for the quotation.

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Charraud, The matheme which guided me in these developments, and which inspired the expression ‘convergence’ in the title of this paper, is the schema of the flattening out of the Borromean knot, as Lacan presented it at the time of his growing interest in knots.[6] [6] Bernard Burgoyne writes, The matheme is the field of the mathematical relations that exist between formalisations of aspects of human activity and passion. Mathemes allow the analyst a mode of intervention. and interpretation which is supplementary to the classical Freudian mode of interpretation within the context of a family romance. Differing styles of clinical practice exist within the field of psychoanalysis. In particular, some Lacanian psychoanalysts make extensive use of the structure of mathemes, some less so. Some focus more upon algebraic forms of matheme, some more upon topological forms. The Lacan Seminar to which Nathalie Charraud refers in the text is his Seminar XXI-in particular, the session of 15th January,1974.

See Seminar XXI Les non-dupes errant (1973-1974) : from 13th November 1973 : Jacques Lacan at this site /4 Jacques Lacan (19731113 or Index of Jacques Lacan’s texts)

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