Theoretical report presented to the 11th Congrès des Psychanalystes de langue français, Brussels, mid-May 1948

– Translated by Alan Sheridan as ‘Aggressivity in Psychoanalysis’ : p8 to 29 of Écrits, a selection : 1977 : Tavistock Publications :

Available at www.LacanianWorksExchange.net /Lacan

– Or published bilingual, translated by Alan Sheridan, by www.Freud2Lacan.net /Lacan (99. Écrits: Aggressivity in Psychoanalysis)

– Translated by Bruce Fink as ‘Aggressiveness in Psychoanalysis’ in Écrits, the First Complete Edition in English : 2002 : W W Norton & Co : p82 to 101. Available at www.LacanianWorksExchange.net /Lacan

Published in French

1) Revue Française de Psychanalyse XII, Vol 2, (1948) p366-388

2) At https://ecole-lacanienne.net/en/bibliolacan/pas-tout-lacan-2/, download https://ecole-lacanienne.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/1948-05-00.pdf

Introduction, Conférence prononcée à Bruxelles en mai 1948 au 11ème Congrès des psychanalystes de langue française, publiée dans la Revue Française de Psychanalyse, juillet-septembre 1948, tome XII, n° 2 pp. 367-388.

Internet translation : Conference delivered in Brussels in May 1948 at the 11th Congress of French-speaking psychoanalysts, published in the Revue Française de Psychanalyse, July-September 1948, volume XII, n° 2 pp. 367-388.

3) Écrits : October 1966 : Jacques Lacan. See www.LacanianWorks.org /4 Jacques Lacan (19661001 or Index of Jacques Lacan’s texts)

Commentary

Chapter 2: Aggressivity in Psychoanalysis : From p42 of A Reader’s Guide to Écrits: 1982: John P. Muller and William J. Richardson : See this site /Texts by date (January 1982) or www. LacanianWorksExchange.net /Authors by date (January 1982)

Quotation

-Uses of ‘kakon’ by Jacques Lacan

-Aggressivity in Psychoanalysis : mid-May 1948 (Brussels) : Jacques Lacan.

P90 of Bruce Finks’ translation, p110 of de Seuil (October 1966), This series parallels another, that of imputations of harm, the explanations for which—without mentioning the obscure kakon to which the paranoiac attributes his discordance with all living things—…

Translator’s (Bruce Fink’s) end-note p775, (110.7) Kakon: “bad (object)” in Greek.

P16-17 of Alan Sheridan’s translation, A relation that appears even more profound when – I have shown this in the case of a curable from, self-punishing paranoia – the aggressive act resolves the delusional construction.

Thus the aggressive reaction is seriated in a continuous manner, from the sudden, unmotivated outburst of the act, through the whole gamut of belligerent forms, to the cold war of interpretative demonstrations, paralleled by imputations of noxiousness which, not to mention the obscure kakon to which the paranoid attributes his alienation from all living contact, rising in stages from a motivation based on the register of a highly primitive organicism (poison), to a magical one (evil spells), a telepathic one (influence), a lesional one (physical intrusion), an abusive one (distortion of intention), a dispossessive one (appropriation of secrets), a profanatory one (violation of intimacy), a juridical one (prejudice), a persecutive one (spying and intimidation), one involving prestige (defamation and attacks on one’s honour), and revenge (damage and exploitation).

I have shown that in each case this series, in which we find all the successive envelopes of the biological and social status of the person, retains the original organization of the forms of the ego and of the object, which are also affected by this series in their structure, even to the spatial and temporal categories in which the ego and the object are constituted, experienced as events in a perspective of mirages, as affections with something stereotypical about them that suspends the workings of the ego/object dialectic.

&

P94 of Bruce Fink’s translation, p115 of de Seuil (October 1966), By showing us the primordial nature of the “depressive position,” the extremely archaic subjectivization of a kakon, Melanie Klein pushes back the limits within which we can see the subjective function of identification at work,

P20-21 of Alan Sheridan’s translation, Only Melanie Klein, working on the child at the very limit of the appearance of language, dared to project subjective experience back to that earlier period when observation enables us nevertheless to affirm its dimension, in the simple fact for example that a child who does not speak reacts differently to punishment or brutality.

…

Hence we can understand by what structural means the re-evocation of certain imaginary personae, the reproduction of certain situational inferiorities may disconcert in the most strictly predictable way the adult’s voluntary functions: namely, their fragmenting effect on the imago of the original identification.

By showing us the primordality of the ‘depressive position’, the extreme archaism of the subjectification of a kakon, Melanie Klein pushes back the limits within which we can see the subjective function of identification operate, and in particular enables us to situate as perfectly original the first formation of the superego.

But it is of particular importance to define the orbit within which, as far as our theoretical reflexion is concerned, are ordered the relations – by no means all elucidated – of guilt tension, oral noxiousness, hypochondriacal fixation, even that primordial masochism that we exclude from our field of study, in order to isolate the notion of an aggressivity linked to the narcissistic relation and to the structures of systematic méconnaissance and objectification that characterize the formation of the ego.

***

Further use of ‘kakon’ by Jacques Lacan

in Presentation on Psychical Causality : 28th September 1946 (Bonneval Hospital, Paris ) : Jacques Lacan. See this site /4 Jacques Lacan (19460928). Also in Écrits : 1966 : Jacques Lacan.

P143 of Bruce Fink’s translation, p176 of de Seuil (October 1966), … when he attempts to show that it is precisely the kakon of his own being that the madman tries to get at in the object he strikes.

Further information at The Root of Segregation : 27th March 2019 (LRO 138) : Jorge Assef, this site /5 Other Authors A-Z (Assef)

References to Freud:

Note : Many of Sigmund Freud’s texts are now available bilingual at www.Freud2Lacan.com, or some links are given at ‘Sigmund Freud’s texts available electronically’ in this site /3 Sigmund Freud (Index of Sigmund Freud’s texts)

– ‘Freud expressed in the term death instinct [drive]’ : Beyond the Pleasure Principle : 1920g : Sigmund Freud, SE XVIII p1-64. Published bilingual at www.Freud2Lacan.com /homepage (BEYOND THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE)

– ‘and sometimes discursive enough to enter the ‘negative therapeutic reaction’ that interested Freud so much’ : The Ego & the Id (‘Das Ich und das Es’) : 1920 [1923] : Sigmund Freud, SE XIX p12-63, Published bilingual at www.Freud2Lacan.com / Freud/Philosophy (28. THE EGO AND THE ID (Das Ich und das Es))

– p21 When speaking of the problem of repression Freud asks himself where the ego obtains the energy it puts at the service of the ‘reality principle’ : Probably Repression : 1915d : Sigmund Freud, SE XIV p141-158. Published. bilingual, at www.Freud2Lacan.com / Freud: The Metapsychological Papers, Papers on Technique and others (7. Repression)

– p23 Totem and Taboo: 1912-1913 : Sigmund Freud, SE XIII p 1-162, Published bilingual at www.Freud2Lacan.com / Freud: The Metapsychological Papers, Papers on Technique and others (2. TOTEM AND TABOO (Totem und Tabu))

– p25 Civilization and its Discontents : 1929 : Sigmund Freud, SE XXI p58-145. Download bilingual at www.Freud2Lacan.com /Freud/Philosophy (31. CIVILIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS (Das Unbehagen in der Kultur)

An historical reflection

From Le Congrès des Psychanalystes des pays romans: quelques éléments d’histoire : 1991 : Alain de Mijolla. See this site /5 Other Authors A-Z (de Mijolla) or www.LacanianWorksExchange.net /Other Authors A-Z (Mijolla)

– Rudolph Loewenstein was both Sacha Nacht’s and Jacques Lacan’s analyst. Nacht opposes Loewenstein in the 1938 session

– This eleventh conference, (Congrès des Psychanalystes) held in Brussels between May 14 and 17, 1948, was organized around Sacha Nacht’s paper “Les manifestations cliniques de l’agressivité et leur rôle dans le traitement psychanalytique” (Clinical manifestations of aggression and their role in psycho-analytic treatment; 1948) and Jacques Lacan’s paper “L’agressivité en psychanalyse” (Aggressivity in psychoanalysis; 1948). [Information in this post]

– This conference (1948) was distinguished most of all by the presence of Melanie Klein, who, however, failed to make converts among French psychoanalysts.

– on October 16, 1951, the conference changed its name to the Conference of Romance-Language Psychoanalysts, an extension attributed to Jacques Lacan.

– In 1953 a sixteenth special conference was held in Rome. The division of the Société psychanalytique de Paris (Paris Psychoanalytic Society) (SPP) in June divided the conference into two parts. In one, the members of the society listened to Emilio Servadio, Francis Pasche, René Spitz (who came from New York), Serge Lebovici, and René Diatkine. They then departed, and members of the new Société française de psychanalyse (French Society of Psychoanalysis) entered to listen to Jacques Lacan’s paper “Fonction et champ de la parole et du langage en psychanalyse” (The function and field of language in psychoanalysis). [Information The Function and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis (Rome) : 26th September 1953 : Jacques Lacan. See this site /4 Jacques Lacan (19530926) ]

– Jealously simmering in the Paris Psychoanalytic Society tore the two rival societies apart for more than a decade, and the following conferences of French-speaking psychoanalysts fit into the general strategy of the two societies’ struggle for influence.

Yet the conferences were also the scene of original theoretical elaborations marking the evolution and deepening of the psychoanalytic thinking of members of the Paris Psychoanalytic Society. This can be seen from a sample of papers presented at the conferences:

-Sacha Nacht and Serge Lebovici, “Indications et contre-indications de la psychanalyse chez l’adulte” (Indications and contraindications for psychoanalysis for adults; 1954); – Revue Française de la Psychanalyse, Vol XIX Nos 1-2, Janvier-Juin 1955, p137-288. Given on 11th November 1954.

& p1-40 of La Psychanalyse d’Aujourd’hui, ouvrage publiée sous la direction du S. Nacht, avec la collaboration de : M. Bouvet, R. Diatkine, A. Doumic, J. Favreau, M. Held, S. Lebovici, P. Luquet, J. Luquet-Parat, P. Male, J. Mallet, F. Pasche, M. Renard, Preface de E. Jones, Tome Premier (This contains the programme for the first day.)

& Indications & Counterindications for Psychoanalysis of Adults, Edited & translated by Ruth Emma Ronan, p1-18 of Psychoanalysis Today, Grune & Stratton 1959. This is heavily edited.

See this site /5 Other Authors A-Z (Nacht or Lebovici)

-René Diatkine and Jean Favreau, “Le caractère névrotique” (The neurotic character) Given on 12th November 1954, at St Anne’s Hospital in Paris Read at the XVIIe Conférence des Psychanalystes de Langues Romanes, on 11-12-13 November 1954, at the Centre Psychiatrique Sainte-Anne, Paris

Published, Revue française de psychanalyse n°1-2, tome 20 janvier-juin 1956, – XVIIIe congrès des psychanalystes de langues romanes – le congrès – psychanalyse et connaissance discussion par Michel Gressot – le caractère névrotique par René Diatkine et Jean-A.Favreau, Presses universitaires de France, 1956

See this site /5 Other Authors A-Z (Diatkine or Favreau)

Citation

Presentation of theme ‘“All the world is mad” : 30th May 2023 : Jacques-Alain Miller. Quoted by Jacques-Alain Miller in the presentation of the theme, towards the XIV Congress of the World Association of Psychoanalysts, 22-25 February 2024 (Zoom), 30th May 2023, “All the world is mad”, see https://congresamp2024.world/tout-le-monde-est-fou/

A Society of Norms and its Criminals : 25th May 2017 : Jonathan Leroy. See this site /5 Other Authors A-Z (Leroy) or www.LacanianWorksExchange.net

Some relations between Jacques Lacan and Søren Kierkegaard: Seminars II, VII, X, XVII, XX & two Écrits : 16th December 2011 : Julia Evans. See this site/5 Other Authors A-Z (Evans Julia/ Index of Julia Evans’ texts)

On the Right Use of Supervision : May 2002 : Éric Laurent. See this site /5 Other Authors A-Z or www.LacanianWorksExchange.net /Laurent Éric

Le Congrès des Psychanalystes des pays romans: quelques éléments d’histoire : 1991 : Alain de Mijolla. See this site /5 Other Authors A-Z or www.LacanianWorksExchange.net /Texts by date (1991)

The Ordinary Topology of Jacques Lacan : 1986 : Jeanne Lafont. See this site /5 Other Authors A-Z or www.LacanianWorksExchange.net /Other Authors A-Z (Lafont)

A Reader’s Guide to Écrits : 1982 : John P. Muller and William J. Richardson. See this site /5 Other Authors A-Z or www.LacanianWorksExchange.net /Other Authors A-Z (Muller or Richardson)

Lacan and the Discourse of the Other : 1968 : Anthony Wilden. See this site /5 Other Authors A-Z or www.LacanianWorksExchange.net /Other Authors A-Z (Wilden)

Écrits : October 1966 : Jacques Lacan. See this site /4 Jacques Lacan (19661001) or www.LacanianWorksExchange.net /Lacan

Translator’s note, Bibliography Note : 1977 : Alan Sheridan & Classified index of the major concepts & Commentary on the graphs : 1966 : Jacques-Alain Miller : from ‘Écrits: a selection-Jacques Lacan’. See this site /5 Other Authors A-Z or www.LacanianWorksExchange.net /Other Authors A-Z (Sheridan)

See p248 of Troisième Rapport – Contribution à l’étude des phobies : probably September 1955 (Paris) : Jean Mallet. See this site /5 Other Authors A-Z or www.LacanianWorksExchange.net /Other Authors A-Z (Mallet)