Will we have a good enough year? Following Donald’s notion… Winnicott, of course. The latter knew what « enough » meant.

Psychoanalysis was under attack at the end of last year. Again. As at the beginning, Psychoanalysis unsettles. And today, there is talk of banning it from the very healthcare settings it helped to establish and structure. It would be condemned to a kind of exile.

Charles Melman had observed that evolution of our social link would give rise to a different way to relate to each other: and clearly enough we no longer deal with a neighbor but with an equal; as such there is no longer any debate or learning during an encounter, but rather exclusion, the elimination of an interlocutor who has become an adversary.

Psychoanalysis is receiving the same treatment.

The unbearable, which we identify thanks to Lacan’s formalization of psychoanalytic discourse. The psychoanalyst is invited to become the support of a place that should remain empty, for this Other who does not respond refers us back to our own form of jouissance. This strange response is unprecedented, rare, and sometimes uncomfortable. Because the discourse that organizes society today is neither the Greek master nor Hegel’s master, but rather a spoiled, voracious child, never satisfied, anxious and disoriented by its drives (particularly the scopic drive) that must be gratified.

In this frenzy of consumerism, the psychoanalyst is not just another merchant, no offense to AI, he allows a subject to hear how they are being spoken to and to perceive the fate they are reserving for their desire; he even points out to the contemporary subject that, spoiled as they are, they want to remain so, seeking the presence of the object of their desire. Ultimately, the analysand learns to deal with the real and adjusts their navigation skills accordingly.

Not exactly a winning sales pitch these days…

Happy new year[1], should it be? With a mischievous grin and narrowed eyes, Melman, in good Lacanian, had already indicated that it was more a bon heurt –good clash with the real. What more could the Other want?

Omar Guerrero

Translated by Lorena Strunk