Nonsense[1]

The psychoanalyst is rather disarmed in the face of the contemporary promotion of meaning and demands. How to respond to this grip of the One, since that is what constitutes our most common psychopathy.

The psychoanalyst doesn’t have but nonsense[2] to arm himself against this grip, and his practice is devoted to it. Nonsense is what commits the subject to situate the One in tension between:

– the at-least-one, or the logical function of the exception, without which we could not speak; and

– the one among others, where imaginary rivalry commonly finds a place.

The modus operandi of his practice is called transference. Passing through it is necessary to lessen our relationship to the One: an effect of signification for example, very different from a fixed meaning, and one which Lacan plays constantly in his seminar.

But it’s precisely this transference that’s causing a scandal today: well, it’s indecent, isn’t it?

Even more reason to revisit it soon at the association.

Have a great summer!

Stéphane Thibierge

President of ALI

[1] Translator’s note: Dé-sense is translated as nonsense.

[2] Translator’s note: The author plays with the homophony of the signifier dé-sense, which he uses it here with the feminine article: la de-sense, which would be translated by decency.