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Psychoanalysis

Formalization and Logic and the Question of Speaking and Affect

UNIVERSITY OF WEST GEORGIA, kmalone{at}westga.edu

This paper examines the decision within Lacanian psychoanalysis to formalize the theory of psychoanalytic praxis. The intrinsic problematics of analysis, the place of authority, unconscious knowledge, the roles of embodiment and representation, and singularity are addressed as challenges that psychoanalytic theory must address. It is argued that psychoanalysis cannot locate its autonomy from or complicity with hegemonic cultural discourses without a clear sense of the specificity of its practice. This is addressed in detail. Part of Lacan's formulation of the four discourses was in fact to situate just such an interface founded in the structure of speaking and its remains and located between a separation from and enmeshment in social and cultural representations and arrangements. In light of this effort, I question the rather chilly reception of Lacan's formalization by North American and anglophone analysts in terms of the role of affect, the place of norms and knowledge, and issues about theory.

Key Words: Lacan • Lacan's four discourses • psychoanalysis • psychotherapy • structuralism

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