Staging the unconscious: the Présentation de malades as a means of transmission

ABSTRACT

Présentation de malades is an interview of a psychiatric hospital inpatient by a psychoanalyst before an audience of experienced and trainee psychoanalysts. Although they have consented to come, this interview is always a puzzling experience for the patients. The audience take notes. The narrative allows something psychically telling of the patient’s history with a coherence that could lead to psychoanalytic work. This paper brings a brief presentation of two patients – inpatients of a French psychiatric hospital – with reflections and anxieties about what has been witnessed. In the second part of the paper, the authors discuss the staging of this interview, the audience’s role and its place within the psychoanalytic transmission and training in the Lacanian tradition.

Keywords:

• Présentation de malades – patient’s consent
• Lacanian clinic
• psychoanalytic transmission

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Diana Caine is Consultant Neuropsychologist at the National Hospital for Neurology & Neurosurgery, London, and Psychoanalyst in private practice. She has published on topics ranging from disorders of memory and language to work on psychosis and psychotic-like phenomena in neurology patients, and most recently edited the book Perversion Now! published by Palgrave Macmillan.

Denis Echard is a Psychoanalyst in private practice.