Lacanian Psychoanalysis from Clinic to Culture

Berjanet Jazani

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000226362
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psicologia
• Subtopic: Psicoanalisi

This accessible and insightful book merges Lacanian theory, psychoanalytic case studies, and the author's personal experiences to illuminate the relevance of Lacanian psychoanalysis in mapping contemporary subjectivity.

Using examples from cinema, artificial intelligence, and clinical and cultural references, the book covers major topics within the field, including dreams, the mirror phase, psychosis, hysteria, the position of the analyst, the drive, supervision and the symptom. Each is set within the context of our technologically oriented, market-based society and complemented with empirical vignettes. The book's final section examines contemporary society and radicalization.

Lacanian Psychoanalysis from Clinic to Culture is important reading for students and academics in Lacanian psychoanalysis, as well as professionals concerned with complex social problems.

Chapter 1

I have a dream …

My story with Freud’s work

Before the invention of search engines, before the creation of new, epic information technologies which made all knowledge accessible at a click away, there was a book called an encyclopaedia: grandfather to Wikipedia. It was a magical moment, to go to it and find there a new detail about Greek mythology, or the name of the capital city of any country in the world. In fact, these two areas were my obsessions, researched and searched for over and over again in that hefty, dusty book on the shelf. It was the book that acted as my means of travelling and excavating; in fact, I would later learn that these were Freud’s two well-known passions.

This book was my agalma; the object of my transference to knowledge. It had it all, and hence became a reliable means of compensating for the answers others failed to give. “Go and check it with the E-so-pe-da!” I used to insist, whenever someone hesitated over answering. I cannot pinpoint the exact date at which the book became the means of compensation, backup or guarantor of the Other’s lack or shortcoming, but it was my buddy, I guess, from the age of four. It was – obviously – read aloud to me in those days, until I was confident – perhaps too much so – to tease my classmates by snubbing them over ridiculously unnecessary, boring and nonsensical information about, for example, the date of birth of a certain inventor in the eighteenth century.

There was, however, one other book of equal significance: The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud. I owe my obsession with this one to my mother. Not for nothing did she spend hours with her head in her copy while keeping an eye on me playing around with my little sister. She had a great respect for that book. It was her favourite, and so I badly wanted it to be read to me. “No!” she said. Now, remembering my earliest memories from those days, it seems, strangely enough, to have been her encyclopaedia. Every single time that my sister had a tantrum (or I had provoked her into throwing one) my mother turned back to that book. At least, that was how I interpreted this parental course of action with regards to the omniscient reference book. I am not sure what she was searching for in those pages discussing dream wish fulfilments, hysterical patients’ symptomology, transference and resistance, the origins of neurosis, etc. – nothing there to be found on parental guidance – but her symptom became my destiny.

Before jumping forward in time to my life events of 23 September 2003, I want to tell you the story of my first, and quite traumatic experience of reading Freud’s book for myself. I read: “… dreaming of a dead mother is a wish for one’s mother to be dead.” Immediately, anguish and guilt haunted me. I had had numerous dreams in which my mother was dead and from which I woke up in a terrible state of anxiety, searching for her.

During the first few years of my childhood, Iran was undergoing radical socio-political changes. My mother, my infant sister and myself were dependent only on each other and, of course, books were, therefore, the primary stimulant to my imagination. It is no wonder, then, that the two aforementioned books were more like people than objects to me. The Freud book was as much of a rival for my mother’s attention and her desire as my infant sister was – I hated them both! (My sister knows, of course, how much I love her.) There was also the occasional call from my father to punctuate our week, his voice coming down the phone from far, far away each Thursday, somehow setting an awareness of the time of week into my head. The actions of psychoanalysts, listening and occasionally talking, remind me of those Thursday scenes. Interestingly enough, the very first words I learned to communicate with were: “forbidden” and “Thursday”. Both were intertwined with each other in different ways: from the aftermath of the 1979 Revolution in my home country, which made the presence of the father into the voice of Thursdays; to the presence of the forbidden book (of Freud) taking up the Other’s desire. Both were associated with the symbolic law of the father operating at the level of my mother’s desire.

The forbidden book of my childhood is the book of Freudian psychoanalysis. It was the culmination of the last decade of the nineteenth century. Fifteen years after the “Caesar of Salpêtrière” (Charcot’s) Tuesday lectures in Paris, the outcome of ten years of observation and experimentation with patients and five years after Freud’s famous dream of Irma, The Interpretation of Dreams was published.

This book, which was written in the very last year of the nineteenth century, but was dated to the first year of the twentieth in order to be the book of the century, is Freud’s most ground-breaking work, as he himself referred to it later in life. It is the result of all that formed Freud as a psychoanalyst; Freud’s sinthome. He invented methods of listening, talking and (hopefully) curing which go beyond hypnotherapy or any other cathartic method. He had devised his own method of therapy. The full account of Freudian psychoanalysis is found in this book. Later works of Freud were focused on developing and modifying what he had discussed there, but The Interpretation of Dreams is what Freud is known for, as the founder of psychoanalysis.

23 September in the mid-1980s

On the first day of autumn, 23 September, sometime in the mid-1980s, we were to start school. This was the most celebrated day of the year for me, for many years to come. Unlike many who find the start of school in autumn a real disaster after summer life, I was over the moon and could not wait to see “the world”. Admittedly, going to school – back then, in the context of post-revolutionary Iran – meant checking in to a prison of radical religio-ideologisms. However, for those of us who were hungry to learn, even this atmosphere had little effect. It was unfortunate to learn later in life that this date on which we started school actually coincides with the anniversary date of Freud’s death.

I had decided to pursue a medical career even before starting the school. My maternal grandmother had predicted a bright future for me in which I was apparently supposed to “wear white”. My unconscious had interpreted her equivocal suggestion as a reference to a doctor’s white coat: therefore, to becoming a medical doctor. Later I learned that, in fact, my mother also wished the same profession for me; and furthermore, I was aware that my father never got the chance to finish his medical degree. I knew of his wish to become a practitioner of the “talking cure”; however, he also had a high admiration for surgeons. Therefore, my early wish was to become a surgeon. The result of an unfinished task of a parent, further to an understanding I had taken from an ambiguous prediction, decided my symptom formation: to be a medical practitioner, particularly, a surgeon.

I was raised by two women for the first five years of my life: my mother, with strict rules and discipline; and my grandmother, with supportive love and the language of poetry. Looking back to those early years, starting at the school did not only represent liberation from maternal jouissance; education was also absolutely necessary to me in order to accomplish my mission in life. Becoming a doctor meant studying at school. Learning at school became an enjoyment parallel to my fantasising about a different world outside our household. In the autumn of the mid-1980s, my curiosity about my mother’s private time with Freud’s book eventually found relief. A super-religious teacher, whose mission in life was the inquisition and brainwashing of my generation, disclosed to us that Freud was a deviant thinker whose immoral, perverted thoughts paved the way for sexual freedoms all over the world. We were advised to avoid any contamination from his ways, and report anyone from our family who advocated Freud’s so-called cult. I did not report my mother’s preoccupation with Freud’s work to our teacher. Was the forbidden book of my childhood also forbidden for the rest of the world? I wondered.

Only a few weeks into my first year at primary school, Tehran suffered under heavy bombardment during attacks in the Iran–Iraq war. Schools were closed down and we were home-schooled by educational TV programmes. In my eyes, this was a disastrous event: forced back home again! I remember the nasty war from this perspective at the level of two drives: a restriction on seeing the world (scopic drive), and intimidating noises coming from a grey sky (invocatory drive). I found the new situation of being home-schooled more tolerable with the help of my school uniform. By the time each TV lesson began, I had my full school uniform on, and never failed to pretend to have my classmates around me. I occasionally talked to my imaginary teacher and schoolfriends. My mother later told me that she became really concerned when, on one occasion, I had apparently pretended to have a fight over a lost pencil with my imaginary friend sitting next to me. This also shows how badly I wanted to leave the maternal nest.

During my teenage years, the loud background noise of the war was replaced by the sound of hard rock and metal music, while the fantasy of travelling the world had given up its place in my heart to motor sports – I still cannot express how much I enjoy my time around car engines and learning about the restoration of classic cars. I finished secondary school and sat for the university entrance exam two years earlier than the usual time of graduation, at the age of 16. I simply could not wait to start studying medicine. I gave up on all my leisure activities: on literature and history books, rock music and sport cars. I had actually learned to drive early on, but as an inexperienced driver I was in a couple of bad car accidents and, lesson learned, sophisticated medical school was all that I needed to tame my passion for fast-paced adventure. Before medical school, my boyish hobbies used to surprise my friends. I did try to change myself a bit – by learning about classical music and ballet, poetry and meditation. However, despite appreciating these new sources of enjoyment, deep down I remained always more interested by those of my teenage years. However, for the most part, medicine consumed all of my time, to the extent that having a quick lunch during anatomy class was not unusual. The early years of medical school passed quickly. I preferred studying the French approach to medicine, rather than the American medical training that has been taught in Iranian medical school for many years. Why I preferred the French approach to medicine was not down to any reason in particular other than that it carried the significance of being “French”. This association with the “French” signifier, similarly to my rather “boyish” interests and hobbies (“boyish” according to stereotypes at the time) seemed to be relevant to my first name. My father had gifted me with a name that sounded French to native speakers of Persian and his inspiration had its origin in a similar name for boys. Well, I may have studied American medicine but later I went on to study the theories of the French Lacan. Of course, it was more than just an Imaginary identification to my first name that led me to become a psychoanalyst. Later in this book, I will explain more about my journey of becoming an analyst.

My years in medical school were divided between theoretical courses and the internship in training hospitals. The first moment I really found myself suffering during my medical training was in the dissection room during the anatomy course when I was 17. I admit that such an encounter with a human corpse can be a shocking moment for many who study medicine. Later, in my personal analysis, I realised I had made an association between the man’s lifeless body that lay on a metal bed before me and the loss of the grandfather to whom I was so close. Both the loss of him and watching the illness from which he eventually died left a mark on my unconscious. For many years, even after finishing my medical degree, the nightmare of that dissection room still haunted me. The marks left by some events in the early years of my life – both at the level of language and the body – were later revealed and elaborated upon during my analysis. My unconscious fantasy of curing an illness or helping someone who suffers from a malaise had its root in the loss of my beloved grandfather. Furthermore, some of the bodily symptoms and illnesses I have suffered from seem to be related to my grandfather’s type of illness. Not much longer after this in my childhood, my other grandfather suffered a paralysing stroke and was suddenly bedridden for the rest of his life. I was truly in agony during my training rotation from the neurological wards to the Intensive Care Unit. This other grandfather was rather more of a playmate to me, possessed with a great passion and knowledge about cars. His affliction made my childhood years prior to primary school go suddenly silent but his passion spoke out not only through my interests in motor sports and car engines but also in the formation of my symptom of moving from place to place.

The second time I found myself once again feeling alienated from the practice of medicine was during my internship in hospitals and Accident & Emergency. I felt unreasonably anxious delivering my duties on shift and on more than one occasion my supervisors had to remind me that my role was that of medical practitioner, not social worker. It was sometimes impossible for me to separate the two positions, which was eventually explored in analysis. On one occasion, I was assisting our professor while conducting surgery on a terminally ill patient with a malignant melanoma. While receiving anaesthetic, the patient said in tears that she feared for her two children’s future after she was gone. I was the worst assistant that my professor could have had for that long operation that lasted seven to eight hours. I was so preoccupied with what she had just articulated that my hands had a terrible tremor. This moment in my medical training made me question for the first time whether I should become a surgeon. Later, the effect of her words – both on my mind and on my Real body, such as the tremors in my hands – was explored in detail in the analytical space. It decided my current position as a clinical practitioner: as a psychoanalyst rather than a surgeon.

My “symptom” of becoming a doctor during the course of analysis eventually gave way to the formation of a “sinthome”, which was writing. A symptom that once caused me a great deal of malaise underwent a sea change. I shall elaborate on my experience of writing on a later occasion as I am just at the start of this journey. But the status of my symptom changed absolutely into something that involved the constant, creative actions of researching, challenging and analysing thoughts and ideas. I had a dream (of becoming an assistant doctor) which went through a kind of dissection itself. The dissection of the Real symptom – which ex-sisted the Symbolic – provided the material with which to construct my sinthome of “writing”.

23 September 2003

The forbidden Freud does not only concern the laws of certain states; psychoanalysis as a method of research and treatment has been a target of ignorance and misinterpretation in so-called “mental health”. From “pop” psychoanalysis to “exclusive” psychoanalysis at the level of theory and practice, whatever it is that is referred to as psychoanalysis is often quite different from Freud’s hard and lifelong work.

I started my private practice on 23 September 2003, receiving my first patient in the early days of autumn in that year. He was tormented by obsessional thoughts of his wife’s unfaithfulness. My very first supervisor was a psychiatrist with no knowledge of any talking cure: a highly-recommended doctor, with a lengthy list of patients in a training hospital: “He has OCD and needs a kick-start of a moderate to high dose of Clomipramine.” My experimental mind wanted to listen to my patient’s narrative about his symptomology. I privately appointed another supervisor, who was faithful to Melanie Klein. She suggested a type of listening and interpretation for treating that case, which I then combined with my knowledge from Freud’s book. While the above aids helped reduce my anxiety, they did not seem to have a particular effect on the patient’s prognosis. After a couple of months of treatment, having compared my patient with the many others in the hospital clinic with the same diagnosis, I was struck by the clear differences between each case of supposed OCD. The limitation that faced me was the start of my formation as an analyst in later years. Becoming the clinician I wanted to be was an aim that could not possibly be achieved through any knowledge transferred from an academic form or through a handbook. Although I studied Freud’s book on the excavations and discoveries of the 1890s, it certainly did not shape me to become what I am now. It would perhaps be best if Freud’s work was treated as something to learn on the way to fuller knowledge, as well as being a kind of “work in progress” itself – an investigation of a method which continues to be investigated beyond Freud’s own time.

If the contemporarysocio-political circumstances in Iran had not been quite so imposing and restrictive (particularly to women), I am not sure if I would have chosen a self-imposed exile in London. I am sure I would certainly have searched outside Iran for further training; my personal story testifies to it. However, it is more likely that I might have returned to somehow conclude my journey there.

When I visited No. 19 Berggasse in Vienna for the first time, strangely I did not have the feeling of being in the master’s home. Rather, I wondered what I would have become as a subject – a subject after undergoing analysis – if Freud had not moved there, to then break up with Joseph Breuer. It seems to have been a move to a new city which was carried out with great hope, passion and the ambition to create and found something. A family home in harmony with the culture he grew up in, the school of psychoanalysis was to be formed within the circle of family members, connected by friendships. It is also heartbreaking to think of Freud leaving that safe corner after 47 years to go into exile, and yet, on to a productive last year of life. Although it is rather stra...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• The journey begins
• 1. I have a dream …
• 2. A black swan in the mirror
• 3. Memento: “I have this condition …”
• 4. Inside out?
• 5. Founder and inventor: Hysteria and obsessional neurosis
• 6. Is singularity near? Reclaiming the subject of the drive in the era of singularity
• 7. Unlocking a door
• 8. Having a breakdown on the motorway
• 9. A resident of the world
• 10. From fury road to the awakening of the primal father
• Index