 The Centre for Lacanian Analysis Aotearoa New Zealand warmly invites you to Lacan to the Letter -July 2019, a reading with Dr Kaye Cederman.
The reading for this seminar is “Note on the Child” (Lacan, 1969), which is regarded by Lacanian psychoanalysts as highly relevant to our analytic work with all subjects, children, adolescents and adults alike. Lacan’s theorising that the child’s symptom reflects what is symptomatic in the family structure is however especially important as a guiding principle in our work with children. He wrote that “the child’s symptom ... can represent the truth of the parental couple” ( 1969, p.373). This reading is basic to our clinical work, for example the importance of finding out about the parents as individuals, determining the fantasy of each parent, that of the child and the links between them. Further reading if you have an interest- “The mirror stage as formative of the I function as revealed in psychoanalytic experience” (Ecrits, 2006/1966, translator Bruce Fink, pp 75-82) A copy of the reading is available online but please message us if you're unable to find it. The event will be held at Kinder House, 2 Ayr Street, Auckland, New Zealand 1052. The seminar is open to all but registration is essential. Please do so by sending us a message on Facebook or emailing jenny@jennywoods.co.nz Fees are $75 waged, $30 unwaged and free for CLAANZ members. We look forward to seeing you.
0 Comments
  Anna Fishzon Lacanian Affects
The Function of Affect in Lacan's Work, trans. Bruce Fink Routledge 2016 New Books in Critical TheoryNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books in PsychoanalysisNew Books in PsychologyNew Books in Science & TechnologyNew Books Network March 14, 2016 Anna Fishzon Affect is a weighty and consequential problem in psychoanalysis. People enter treatment hoping for relief from symptoms and their attendant unbearable affects. While various theorists and schools offer differing approaches to “feeling states,” emotions, and affects, Lacan, despite devoting an entire seminar to anxiety, often is charged with completely ignoring affect. This misperception stems in part from a caricatured understanding of Lacanian technique – a suspicion that it consists mainly of punning and interminable wordplay. And there is another, more sound reason for the accusation: the tendency of relational, interpersonal, and Kleinian models to locate truth in affects and regard emotions as inherently revelatory – as the most direct communications by and about the subject. By contrast, the question, “How did that make you feel?” is heard infrequently in the Lacanian clinic. Following Freud, Lacan believed that affects are effects. He shared Freud’s skepticism toward manifest emotional states, doubting not their importance but rather their transparency. The royal road to the unconscious is the deciphering of dreams and not the affects they produce. Nevertheless, Lacan’s views on affect increasingly diverged from those of Freud, offering much that was new. Colette Soler’s pioneering Lacanian Affects: The Function of Affect in Lacan’s Work, translated by Bruce Fink (Routledge, 2016) is the first book to examine Lacan’s theory of affect and its clinical significance. While Lacan focused more on the structural causes of affect in his earlier theoretical elaborations, an initial reversal came in his seminar Anxiety (1962-63), where he deemed anxiety the only affect that “does not lie” because it refers to and partakes of the real rather than the signifier. Another reversal, Soler explains, culminated in Encore (1972-73), where Lacan declared that certain “enigmatic affects,” though puzzling to the subject, are carriers of knowledge residing in the real unconscious – a knowledge that is not on the side of meaning but of jouissance. Soler’s book is wide-ranging, covering affects such as shame and sadness, as well as many others we did not have time to discuss in our interview: hatred, ignorance, the pain of existence, mourning, “joyful knowledge,” boredom, moroseness, anger, and enthusiasm. Perhaps most fascinating is Soler’s chapter on Lacan’s enigmatic affects: anxiety (translated in the book as “anguish”), love, and the satisfaction derived from the end of an analysis. Annie Muir kindly translated during the interview. Audio Podcast: Download (Duration: 56:23 — 25.8MB)   Michael Mungiello Cambridge University Press 2015 New Books in Arts & LettersNew Books in Literary StudiesNew Books in PsychoanalysisNew Books in Science & TechnologyNew Books Network March 18, 2016 Michael Mungiello Calling into question common assumptions regarding the supposedly antagonist relationship between literary criticism and psychoanalytic reading, Jean-Michel Rabaté paints a picture of reconciliation rather than rift. Drawing from a vast store of cultural incident–from Sophie Calle’s modern art to the novels of Henry James–The Cambridge Introduction to Literature and Psychoanalysis (Cambridge University Press, 2014) argues that psychoanalysis and active literary reading are both implicated in the same process, one which engages the unconscious and makes one an "ambassador" thereto.In our interview, Rabaté holds court on various issues, including the similarities between Jacques Lacan and Carl Jung, as well as the status of James Joyce as sinthome of literature. Moving beyond the textual, he also captivatingly considers not only the relationship between trauma and perversion but also the ways in which Lacan and Derrida differed in their interpretation of the "public intellectual" role and its responsibilities. A startling intellectual himself, Rabaté illuminates and enthralls in his conversation as much as in his writing. Michael Mungiello is interested in the implications psychoanalysis has on broader cultural studies, ranging from literature to politics to television and film. He lives in Washington, DC and is originally from New Jersey.
Audio Podcast: Download (Duration: 57:24 — 26.3MB) |