The third in a series of seminars structured around the Schreber case – focusing on the theme of language and the body in psychosis.
Introduction to the Lacanian Clinics of Psychosis
Language and the Body in Schreber
The second year of the London Society’s course ‘Introduction to the Lacanian Clinics of Psychosis’ will be structured around a detailed re-examination of the Schreber case history. Lacan’s reading of Schreber, as pursued in his third seminar and in his Question Preliminary to any Possible Treatment of Psychosis, provided the basis for his elaboration of the concepts of foreclosure, the Name of the Father and the paternal metaphor, foundation of the classical Lacanian clinic of psychosis.
Alongside an examination of these fundamental concepts, this year’s course will pursue the question of language and the body in Schreber, in alignment with the theme of the forthcoming Congress of the NLS ‘Bodily Effects of Language’. In his argument for the Congress, Alexandre Stevens outlines the broad trajectory of Lacan’s work that takes us from the Other of language in the early teaching to an Other of the body as elaborated in Seminar XX: Encore. Associated with this trajectory we can trace modifications in Lacan’s conception of the subject, the body, the symptom, and of the means and goals of psychoanalytic interpretation.
Our examination of the Schreber case, based primarily on material extracted from certain chapters of Schreber’s Memoirs, will detail two possible approaches to the reading of Schreber according to whether we prioritise his relation to an Other of speech and language or to an Other of jouissance. We will propose that many of the key questions of the contemporary Lacanian clinic of psychosis are played out in the space of this articulation.
N.B. YOU WILL BE SENT A LINK FOR THIS EVENT ON THE MORNING OF THE SEMINAR.
Dates
First Meeting: Saturday, 7th November 2020, 14.30-16.00 via Zoom
Subsequent dates: Saturday 12th December 2020, 9th January 2021, 13th February 2021.
Further dates to be confirmed.
Speakers include: Roger Litten, Gabriela van den Hoven, Colin Wright, Susana Huler.
References
- Schreber, D. P., Memoirs of My Nervous Illness, New York Review of Books, 2000.
- Freud, S., (1911) Psychoanalytic Notes on an Autobiographical Account of a Case of Paranoia, Standard Edition, Volume XII.
- Lacan, J., “On a Question Prior to Any Possible Treatment of Psychosis”, Ecrits, Norton, 2006.
- The Seminar Book III, The Psychoses, Norton, 1993.
- The Seminar Book XX, Encore, Norton, 1998
- Miller, J.-A, Lacanian Biology and the Body Event, Lacanian Ink (17/18)
