The Psychoanalytic Journey: Navigating Knowledge, Academia, and the Clinic
"Explore the dynamic interplay between psychoanalysis and university education, focusing on the clinical internship experience and its transformative effects."
The intersection of psychoanalysis and university settings has long been a topic of extensive discussion, reflecting the significant presence of psychoanalytic thought within psychology curricula. This dialogue often highlights the inherent tensions between these two spheres, tensions that, rather than indicating dysfunction, reveal fundamentally different approaches to knowledge.
While reflections on psychoanalysis in the academic world can be traced back to Freud himself, Lacan's articulation of the four discourses—master, hysteric, university, and analyst—provides a valuable framework for understanding the inherent impasses encountered when psychoanalysis meets the university. These impasses become particularly visible in the relationship between psychoanalysis and the university's approach to teaching, research, and, most notably, clinical practice.
This article revisits the debate between the analyst's discourse and the university discourse, specifically examining the clinical internship experience within university-affiliated clinics in psychology programs. We aim to explore certain observable effects stemming from the time-limited nature of these internships.
The Dance of Knowledge: Psychoanalysis, Science, and the University
Lacan (1966) significantly tied the question of the subject in psychoanalysis to the operations of modern science, hegemonic since the 17th century. He emphasized the role of knowledge, especially when distinguishing psychoanalytic theory from other disciplines.
- Freud's Perspective: Freud viewed scientific knowledge as a pursuit of correspondence with external reality, a reality independent of ourselves. He equated this correspondence with 'truth,' suggesting an ideal for psychoanalysis.
- Koyré's Critique: Koyré challenged this view by emphasizing that modern science is grounded in the mathematization of reality. He argued that science advances not by passively accepting a pre-existing mathematical order but by actively constructing a mathematical structure to understand the real world.
- Milner's Synthesis: Milner reconciled empiricism and mathematical precision in science through the concept of contingency. He saw mathematical science as capturing the contingent nature of reality by using letters or symbols that, while fixed, represent elements that could be otherwise.
Navigating the Impasse: The Clinic, the Student, and the Unknowable
The challenge lies in acknowledging the limits of knowledge and embracing the unknowable aspects of the human psyche. It’s about recognizing that in the face of the analyst’s departure, the ‘referral’ cannot erase the break, but rather marks the work. Avoiding the position of the one who abandons means presuming that the analysand can be spared from the question of abandonment. If abandonment and whether the patient feels abandoned were a choice that the analyst had, this would just configure the analyst’s side without the incidence of castration. The task is to find cause for work in the clinic’s inevitable imperfections and failures.