In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Chapter 7 The Symptom WILLY APOLLON The premise of the present chapter is that Freudian clinical practice reveals the symptom to be the writing of a jouissance, a writing which is inscribed in rebellion against the action of the signifier, and whose only solution is to be found in the construction of the fantasy and its traversal. Let us begin, therefore, with the question of the precise jouissance at stake in the writing of the symptom.Within the writing of the symptom, we find, there is a jouissance which resists complete inscription in such a way as to become the central element of the fantasy and regulate the future of desire. The structure of this jouissance determines both the ethical axis of an analysis and the logic that organizes the unfolding of its specific term. The importance of understanding this particular jouissance , then, cannot be overstated. According to Lacan, in his seminar on ethics, it is this jouissance that traces the paths that lead most surely to one’s death.1 Moreover, we recall from chapter 2 that jouissance in its very constitution presents an obstacle to the satisfaction of needs, in so far as it is introduced by the Other.This chapter shall proceed from these two remarks to allow us to form generalizations on the basis of particular cases, and to move, for example , from child to adult and from woman to man while still underscoring the singularities of each of their relations to the general logic of a clinical praxis.The singularities of any given case can not be used as the sole reference by analysts, who must establish for their clinical praxis the basis of generalization upon which those singularities can be seen as clinical references in the first place. 117 This piece was first presented in an earlier version in February 1995 for a workshop on “Lacanian Psychoanalysis: Jouissance: A Concept at the Core of Lacanian Clinical Practice ” at the Center for Psychoanalytic Study, Chicago, Ill. Jouissance, the Object, and the Problem of Satisfaction The problem of the satisfaction of individual needs will help us enter into this logic of clinical praxis, which is determined on the one hand by the subject’s relation to the Other, as the framework for the introduction of jouissance and, on the other hand, by the subject’s relation to jouissance , as the primary obstacle to the satisfaction of need. An animal is equipped with instincts for the satisfaction of its own needs and for the needs of its species in reproduction. But these instincts , as physiological automatisms, must be triggered and directed toward their aims by specific environmental stimuli, and in spite of individual variants, the satisfaction of an instinct cannot be considered a matter of autonomous individual decision. However, for the human, as subject of speech, things go rather differently. Humans depend upon a social companion for satisfaction, to such an extent that the malfunctioning of this dependence could jeopardize the survival of the social group, as well as the individual life. So, for the human subject, the satisfaction of need passes through the demand addressed to the Other. Right from the outset, language is at the heart of the problem of satisfaction for the human being, but so, too, is the politics concerning the Other’s jouissance. The demand addressed to the Other gives to the Other a power of refusal, in which the subject sees the principle of its jouissance.This is precisely what causes the obsessional to stop short in the face of any demand. The obsessional fears that the Other is using him to get jouissance. Jouissance is not only imputed to the Other in the structure of the demand, it is also deduced and legitimately presupposed .The obsessional is not wrong when he despairs of being able to escape this jouissance that the power to refuse signifies.The fact is that the Other has its own demands and will not respond to the individual’s demand for satisfaction unless certain rules are first observed, certain conditions fulfilled. The nature of these rules and conditions, however, is not the concern of the present chapter.We have, in any case, already indicated that Freud categorized them in terms of three basic concepts: the Superego, from which the subject deduces the Other’s jouissance on the basis of its power to set conditions, and thus to refuse; the Ideal Ego, which gathers together the cultural and sociohistorical imperatives that overdetermine the response to the demand...

Share