Intersecting heterologies

Abstract

The author proposes that it has largely been underestimated that the therapeutic community is placed within two discourses – that of therapy and that of community – and has almost exclusively focused on the first. In so doing, it has been restricted within a medical or pseudo-medical conceptual framework. In an appeal to re-frame the discussion about the therapeutic community in relation to its forgotten discourse reference is principally made to the work of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan and to two of his sources – Heidegger and Socrates – and more specifically to Lacan’s notion of lack which is contrasted to modernity’s trope of expectation which corresponds to the Imaginary phallus.

El autor propone que el hecho de que la comunidad terapéutica se coloca entre dos discursos -el terapéutico y el de la comunidad- no ha sido suficientemente investigado, y se ha privilegiado el primero de ellos.Al hacer ésto,se ha restringido dentro de un marco de referencia conceptual médico o pseudo-médico. Se hace referencia al trabajo del psiconalista francés Jacques Lacan y a dos de sus fuentes –Heideger y Sócrates- especialmente en la noción de la falta en Lacan, la cual se contrasta con el uso moderno que corresponde al “falo imaginario’’.

L’autore riflette su quanto si sia sottovalutato il fatto che la comunità terapeutica prenda vita dall’incontro tra due discorsi - quello della terapia e quello della comunità – tanto che ci si è concentrati quasi esclusivamente sul primo. In tal modo ci si è chiusi all’interno di un quadro di riferimento medico o pseudo-medico. Nel tentativo di inquadrare la discussione sulla comunità terapeutica rispetto al suo discorso dimenticato, l’autore fa riferimento al lavoro dello psicoanalista francese Jacques Lacan e di due delle sue fonti, Heidegger e Socrate. Più specificamente alla nozione di Lacan di mancanza, che si contrappone all’aspettativa della modernità, corrispondente al fallo immaginario.

L’auteur suggère que jusqu’à aujourd’hui on a grandement sous-estimé le fait que la communauté thérapeutique est prise dans deux discours- celui de la thérapie et celui de la communauté- et que de manière quasiment exclusive, l’accent a été mis sur le premier. Ce faisant, la communauté thérapeutique a été réduite à un cadre conceptuel médical ou pseudo-médical. Dans un désir de recadrer la discussion autour de la communauté thérapeutique et de sa relation avec son discours oublié, référence est faite principalement aux travaux du psychanalyste français Jacques Lacan et à deux de ses sources- Heidegger et Socrate- et plus spécifiquement à la notion lacanienne de manque qui est mis en parallèle avec le trope expectatif de la modernité correspondant au phallus imaginaire.

Keywords:

• therapeutic communities
• Lacan
• discourse
• heterology
• Symbolic
• disavowal

• Palabras clave
• comunidades terapéuticas
• Lacan
• discurso
• heterologís
• desmentido

• Parole chiave
• comunità terapeutiche
• Lacan
• discorso
• eterologia
• simbolico
• ripudio

• Mots-clés
• communautés thérapeutiques
• Lacan
• discours
• hétérology
• symbolique
• désaveu

Notes

1. On the background to this term and its introduction into French psychiatry in 1912 by P. Chaslin see the erudite study by Lantéri-Laura and Gros (1992). The authors show that the origins of the term are to be found in Augustine.

2. Heidegger’s concept of erschliessen (disclosedness) in relation to truth and being always has an echo of its antonym hiddenness with its resonance of aufschliessen (to lay open). Interestingly, Heidegger traces his exegesis back to Heraclitus and his association of being with truth. ‘Und ist es Zufall, daß in einem der Fragmente des Heraklit, den ältesren philosophischen Lehrstücken, die ausdrücklich vom λόγος handeln, das herausgestellte Phänomen der Wahrheit im Sinne der Entdecktheit (Unverborgenheit) durchblickt? Heidegger (2006, p. 219), cf. also SZ Sections 44 (pp. 212–230) and 68 (pp. 335–350). For the text of Heraclitus see Diels (1906).

3. Hinshelwood reminds us that a quieter note was struck by people like Denis Martin, David Clarke and Bertram Mandelbrote who worked with psychotics cf. Hinshelwood (2008). To this one might reasonably add the names of those associated with Chestnut Lodge, Austen Riggs and the Menninger Clinic in the United States.

4. Ricoeur points out that modernity in German is neuen Zeit or Neuzeit, literally ‘new time’ (Ricoeur, 2004, p. 302).

5. Paideia is a term which is hard to translate and it is impossible to give one single equivalent in English, but it includes the concepts of culture and education. Paideia implies a sense of value and refers to an ideal pursued by a community, self-consciously. It is close to what Gadamer calls Bildung. Used since the time of Goethe Bildung has a number of overlapping meanings in German. As with the Greek word paideia, it means equally a culture, an education and a natural formation. Perhaps, for this reason, Rorty (Rorty (2009)) prefers to translate Bildung as edification or self-formation. Both terms come close, in many ways, to what Lacan meant by the Symbolic. Given the link we see here between community and culture, and thus speech, it may not be too fanciful to see in the word edification – at least in the sense that comes from its root in the Latin aedificare (to build) – a resonance with the notion of dwelling (habitare). Heidegger, who examines this term (wohnen) in some detail, does not just refer to being situated within an architecturally organised space – although architecture is, of course, one of the discourses of culture – but also refers to one’s mode of being and relationship, to the world in general and specific locations, including one’s home, in particular cf. Cesarone (2008). This has a particular relevance for the therapeutic community where a shared living environment is understood to be integral to the therapeutic process. As well as Werner Jaeger’s magisterial three-volume study (1939, 1943 and 1944), see Hadot (2005).

6. The word tradition comes from the Latin word traditio, from the verb tradere, to hand something over. It is the word used to translate the Greek paradosis. Reynders’ (1933) thorough investigation suggests that while the verb refers to the act of transmitting, the noun refers to the thing transmitted, see Reynders (1933). Paradosis in antiquity was not only associated with written texts but also with oral forms as both include interpretative elements (Hanson, 1954). Thus, tradition articulates both what is handed over and interpreted, as well as the process of handing over a teaching or interpreting see Lampe (1961). Furthermore, tradition can be intellectual or practical, an idea, an understanding or a way of acting or being in the world. Importantly, all these usages imply the existence of a community which receives the tradition, interprets what is received and hands it on through the generations. We could say quite legitimately therefore, that tradition refers to what is transferred, with all the resonance that word has in Freud.

7. Freud began using the term Verleungnung in relation to castration. Children, he argued, disavow (leugnen) the fact of the absence of the penis in girls and believe they do see a penis. Only gradually do they come to see the absence as a result of castration. Thus, the prototype for any disavowal of reality is castration. This has raised a series of problems about precisely what is being disavowed. Lacan’s interpretation is an attempt to solve these problems through the motif of forclusion. Cf. Laplanche and Pontalis (1980).

8. In his famous lectures at the Collège de France, 1971–1984, Michel Foucault discussed the role of nineteenth-century psychiatry in reinforcing societal self-defence by defining abnormality and normality in relation to deformity, delinquency and sexual deviance. See Foucault (1999).