Psychoanalysis in extension: Conceptual framework

What is the psychoanalyst's position when working outside of the consulting room? 

In individual treatment, one can think of the analyst’s role as pointing to the 'navel of the dream,' that is, pointing to what is both unknown and yet in circulation. For the analyst, this entails a particular orientation to knowledge, in that the analyst intervenes in ways that mark the limits of knowledge and the play of lack in service of supporting the analysand’s speech. Yet even this brief and admittedly reductive formulation of the (Lacan-oriented) analyst’s position within the psychoanalytic consulting room implies a specific relation between theory and practice: here, theory functions less as a body of knowledge but rather as a set of conceptualizations that help analysts to position themselves within the analytic encounter. 

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However, outside of the consulting room, the demands increase on the analyst to function as holder of a body of knowledge in ways that stand at odds with the analytic position. Given that groups often structure themselves around (supposed) knowledge—for reasons ranging from the need for practical action to a symptomatic insistence on identity, ideology, and an aversion to a confrontation with castration and lack—how might the analyst working in extension find a different orientation to knowledge and its deployment in service of analysis? This event will engage and explore this question in relation to the various contexts under investigation.

 

Format/structure

In clinical psychoanalysis, new articulations emerge through real-time engagement: not via already-formulated concepts, but through the moments when such ready-made conceptualizations fail. This potentiality emerges through speaking in the face of nonlinearity, contradiction, and lacunae. 

 

This event is designed to foster this kind of real-time work within group process. Unlike many other conferences, including psychoanalytic ones, no pre-written papers will be read. Participants may bring clinical material/vignettes or catalyzing ‘props,’ e.g., brief audio-visual presentations, text quotations, etc. But these will function as starting rather than ending points. Invited participants will be asked to prepare in ways that will support them, at the time of the event, in speaking spontaneously, at least to some degree, in response to what emerges. We encourage participants to use their expertise as a position from which they can extend themselves into the group process—wagering to speak about ideas, questions, and insights as they come to mind.