Published in International Journal of Psychoanalysis, IJPA, 1962, v44, p432-443
Available www.LacanianWorksExchange.net /Other Authors A-Z (Szasz)
Cited by Jacques Lacan
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15th April 1964, p131-133 of Alan Sheridan’s translation of Seminar XI
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There is a crisis in analysis and, to show that there is nothing biased in this, I would support my view by citing a recent article that demonstrates this in the most striking way-and it is the work of no mediocre mind. It is a closely argued, very engaging article by Thomas S. Szasz—who hails from Syracuse, which fact, unfortunately, does not make him any more closely related to Archimedes, for this Syracuse is in New York State—which appeared in the latest number of The International Journal of Psychoanalysis.
The author was inspired to write this article by an idea in keeping with the line of investigation that inspired his earlier articles, a truly moving search for the authenticity of the analytic way.
It is quite striking that an author, who is indeed one of the most highly regarded in his circle, which is specifically that of American psycho-analysis, should regard the transference as nothing more than a defence on the part of the psycho-analyst, and should arrive at the following conclusion—the transference is the pivot on which the entire structure of psycho-analytic treatment rests. This is a concept that he calls inspired—I am always suspicious of faux amie in English vocabulary, so I have tried to tread warily when translating it. This inspired, it seemed to me, did not mean inspiré, but something like officieux. It is an inspired and indispensable concept—I quote—yet it harbours the seeds, not only of its own destruction, but of the destruction of psycho-analysis itself. Why? Because it tends to place the person of the analyst beyond the reality testing of patients, colleagues, and self. This hazard must be frankly recognized. Neither professionalization, nor the ‘raising of standards’, nor coerced training analyses can protect us from this danger. And here the confusion arises—only the integrity of the analyst and of the analytic situation can safeguard from extinction the unique dialogue between analysand and analyst.
This blind alley that Szasz has created for himself is, for him, necessitated by the very fact that he can conceive of the analysis of the transference only in terms of an assent obtained from the healthy part of the ego, that part which is capable of judging reality and of separating it from illusion.
His article begins thus, quite logically— Transference is similar to such concepts as delusion, illusion, and phantasy. Once the presence of the transference has been established, it is a question of agreement between the analysand and the analyst, except that here the analyst is a judge against whom there is neither appeal nor recourse, we are led to call any analysis of the transference a field of pure, uncontrolled hazard.
I have taken this article only as an extreme case, but a very revealing one, so as to encourage us to restore here a determination that should bring into play another order—that of truth. Truth is based only on the fact that speech, even when it consists of lies, appeals to it and gives rise to it. This dimension is always absent from the logical positivism that happens to dominate Szasz’s analysis of the concept of transference.
My own conception of the dynamics of the unconscious has been called an intellectualization—on the grounds that I based the function of the signifier in the forefront. Is it not apparent that it is in this operational mode—in which everything makes light of the confrontation between a reality and a connotation of illusion attributed to the phenomenon of the transference—that this supposed intellectualization really resides?
Far from us having to consider two subjects, in a dual position, to discuss an objectivity that appears to have been posited there as the gravitational effect of a compression in behaviour, we must bring out the domain of possible deception. …
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22nd April 1964 Seminar XI, p136-137 of Alan Sheridan’s translation,
Last time, I introduced the concept of the transference. I did so in a rather problematic way, from the standpoint of the difficulties it presented to the analyst. I took the opportunity offered me by an article published in a recent number of the most official organ of psycho-analysis, The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, which went so far as to question the use in analysis of the notion of transference. I now intend to return to this article.
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According to the author, the analyst is supposed to point out to the patient the effects of more or less manifest discordances that occur with regard to the reality of the analytic situation, namely, the two real subjects who are present in it.
First, there are the cases in which the effect of discordance is very obvious. It is illustrated, in a humourous way, by Spitz, one of the old guard, and no fool, by way of amusing his public. He takes as an example one of his patients, who, in a dream that is called a transference dream—that is to say, a dream involving the realization of erotic desires with one’s analyst, with Spitz himself; as it happens—sees him sporting a head of luxuriant blond hair—which, for anyone who has seen the bald pate of the character in question, and it is well enough known to be regarded as famous, would seem to be a case in which the analyst could quite easily show the subject just how far the effects of the unconscious can give rise to distortion.
But when it is a question of qualifying a patient’s behaviour as uncomplimentary to the analyst, You have the choice of two things, says Szasz—the analyst’s view is correct and is considered ‘reality’; the patient’s view is incorrect, and is considered ‘transference’. This brings us back to that at once mythical and idealizing pole that Szasz calls the integrity of the analyst. What can this mean, if it is not a recall to the dimension of truth?
I can only situate this article, then, in the perspective in which its author himself places it, considering him as operating not in a heuristic, but in an eristic way, manifesting, in the impasse into which his reflection has led him, the presence of a true crisis of conscience in the function of the analyst. This crisis of conscience concerns us only in an incidental way, since I have shown that a certain one-sided way of theorizing the practice of the analysis of the transference would necessarily lead to it. It is a slippery slope that I myself have been denouncing for a long time.
To bring us back to the almost phenomenological data that enable us to resituate the problem where it actually is, I showed you last time that in the relation of the one with the other that is set up in analysis, one dimension is eluded.
It is clear that this relation is established on a plane that is not reciprocal, not symmetrical. This much Szasz observes, only, quite wrongly, to deplore it—in this relation of the one with the other, there is established a search for truth in which the one is supposed to know, or at least to know more than the other. From the latter, the thought immediately arises that not only must he not make a mistake (se trompe) , but also that he can be misled (on pent le tromper). The making a mistake (se tromper) is, by the same token, thrown back upon the subject. It is not simply that the subject is, in a static way, lacking, in error. It is that, in a moving way, in his discourse, he is essentially situated in the dimension of the making a mistake (se tromper).
I have found a description of this from yet another analyst. …
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See Seminar XI The Four Fundamental Concepts (1963-1964) : from 15th January 1964 : Jacques Lacan, at this site /4 Jacques Lacan (19640115, 19640415, 19640422, or Index of Jacques Lacan’s texts.
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