We topologists

Is the handling of lacanian topology a prerequisite to be a psychoanalyst? Or would this practice be reserved to the more seasoned ones, to those who possess a high level of intelligence -or level of repression- that would allow them to pierce the abstract secrets of surfaces, volumes and other knots?

A few days ago, one of our colleagues, one of the most skillful at the strings, reminded us: because we speak, we are all doing topology without knowing it. And just like that, in one statement, he achieved this articulation, this intersection of theory and practice which we call clinical work. Hats off to his wisdom in that the signifier is indeed a daily topology, which carves out a surface and limits its enjoyment: you are someone’s child, for example, and that frames your relationship. 

Freud’s Wahrnehmungzeichen already took into consideration the real, it was an attempt at writing, a topography. Later, thanks to linguistics and mathematical logic, Lacan allowed us to escape what would have been the drift of an evidence-based psychoanalysis and gave us the tools of topology which led us to consider other dimensions, other edges which vanish from sight.

This same topology is written on the birth certificate of our association: it is not a lotus flower that serves as a logo, it is a Venn diagram which serves to symbolize an empty set which holds the other sets together.

Our June workshop will set all of this in motion and it concerns us all.

Omar Guerrero

Translation: Lorena Strunk