What Is it That Insists? Polaroids of a Night in Tunisia with Adrienne Harris

ABSTRACT

Adrienne Harris´ “You Must Remember This” is a propeller to re-encounter the notion of “aprés coup,” a concept that continues to defy analysand’s and analyst’s archetypical constructions. Taking Harris’ invitation to stroll between Tangiers and Casablanca, this piece offers a voyage from the landscape of personal stories to the possibilities within relational clinic, using the savvy of music, film, literature, and philosophy, coalesced in a couple of psychic polaroids. The first polaroid frames the enigmatic presence and movement of memory, the issue of what is it that insists in session. The second, snapshots the bending movements of time and space in liminal experiences at inter-subjective spaces (session-treatment), which demands the analyst to go beyond its own “I” to maintain liminal spaces open for radical alterity to manifest. Finally, the author focuses on the notion of emptiness to create new paths, which may demand the analyst to disown its omnipotence.

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Après Coup of “You Must Remember This”

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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Notes on contributors

Victor Doñas

Victor Doñas is a Medical Doctor and psychiatrist, and a trained psychoanalyst whose practice is based in Santiago, Chile. He is co-founder of the IARPP Collective, founding member of the Ibero-Latin American Relational Group of Psychotherapy and Relational Psychoanalysis (GRILPP), member of the Association of Psychoanalysis and Relational Psychotherapy of Chile (APPR Chile) and the Santiago Psychoanalytical Association (APSAN), as well as former member of the Latin American Institute of Mental Health and Human Rights (ILAS). Doñas has authored several articles in the interfield of Psychoanalysis and Social Theory, has served as editor of Routledge Book Series, and attached editor of the Psychoanalytic Dialogues journal. Dr Doñas is also a dilettante musician and father of 15-year-old Pedro.