Hi /lit/,
I've been going to a lacanian analyst for about 6 years now. I understand /lit/ has a strong resistance against Lacan and psychanalysis as a whole, as I also had prior to the analysis, mainly out of ignorance in face of how complicated it can get. I've read things on Lacan and Freud but I'm not an expert or a psychologist . Still, I think I can perhaps help if any of you have any doubts about general notions of psychanalysis, specially when it comes to the clinic.
Ask me anything.
>>8213994
What was the reason you started going?
What were your problems going in?
Did they (begin to) resolve? If so, how did this progress (from your phenomenological perspective)
>>8213994
>mainly out of ignorance in face of how complicated it can get
Says a lot about a field, that this is the only defense ever brought up against it being called bullshit
>>8213994
I was circumcised at an age at which I remember the subsequent days of constant burning abrasive pain on my dick, and it has left me basically unable to approach let alone enter a vagina or even hold my own dick for any length of time without having a shaking anxiety in my chest. intercourse is basically impossible, and masturbation is accomplished as it were "hands free," by humping my own dick between my thighs and my mattress.
can psychoanalysis help me with any of this?
>>8214003
>>8214005
I'll answer you together.
I started analysis because I was going through a very depressed moment in my life. My first complaint was that I felt I was unable to work my own projects. I had a hard time attending classes in college, going out with friends and I couldn't handle a very weird relationship that I had at the time. I saw myself gradually less and less involved with life.
The progress is visible, but it goes through a very different route than what you expect early in analysis. The idea that I had was that I needed motivation or a certain schedule, a technique of sorts that I could use that would make me "get back on track", and better relationships would come up naturally and so on. I didn't get such technique, but what I got was precisely the letting go of this need for such thing, the letting go of these fantasies of how one should work in the world, or what one "ought to do", and a better relationship with my own desire. It takes a long time as it goes constantly refreshing your own phrasing of the world around you, you're faced with the truth about what you're saying. In a very short and loose way I'd say a lot of my own bullshit was cut from my life. It's still an ongoing process.
>>8214018
If that makes you suffer, it can.
>>8214052
How did you find a specifically Lacanian analyst? How's the cost?
>>8214056
Honestly, it was pure coincidence, I didn't look for it. My aunt was going to an analyst in another town and she already told it was being good for her. When I was really feeling the need to talk to someone I asked her to ask her analyst for someone in my town. She got me a number and that was it.
In the first session I talked about myself and so on. In the end I asked how much it was going to be and for my surprise she asked me back for a value. The next session I gave her a value (which was very low compared to what I hear from other people who go to psychologists) and she said that was ok. In these six years there were two other times that she asked me to raise the number and give her a new value, under the same process. I chose how much it costs.
Freud already talked about how important it is the cost of an analysis and Lacan follows that as well. "The cost of analysis" is precisely how much you are "invested" in it, so it is important that it costs you something, that it isn't just some cheap change, because that would mean it doesn't make a difference to you and it would be ineffective. Francoise Dolto, who analyzed children, asked the children themselves to pay for their analysis with a symbolic money, a coin, or a drawing or an object, precisely so that the child understands the analyst is not doing it for free. This has the same effect for adults, one must understand it works both ways. Paying for analysis is part of analysis.
That doesn't mean you have to sell a kidney for it, as some people think, at least not in lacanian analysis. Psychanalysis understands that money has a different value for each person. If I was a millionaire, the price of my analysis would be nothing, if I was homeless, it would be impossible for me to continue. In the history of psychanalysis you'll see a lot of rich people going to the clinic and naturally you'll hear of extremely high prices being paid, but that must not be misunderstood for something that closes the door to certain patients or that analysts are a greedy lot (though I can't speak for all). It varies from the individual.
>>8214097
Forgot to mention. On my first session I asked her what kind of line was it, because I just spoke of a bunch of life things not knowing where I was getting into. She told me it was lacanian and I literally cringed. But I chose to try it out. It took me a while to see its worth.
Might as well get a priest if you want non-scientific feel good talks desu.
At least Jesus is about love rather than perversion.
>>8214118
faggot
>>8214097
if this isn't bait then you are a mug. you are paying for someone to listen to you. whether it is a friend, a prostitute, a psychoanalyst or a bog standard psychologist you get the same thing.
>it is important that it cost you something
mein gott
its costed you 6 years of sessions and you still need it.
>>8214132
Freudian analysis is the height of faggotry.
>>8214144
Mate, no "friend" listens to you like a psychoanalyst. That's precisely why a psychoanalyst can sell that.
>>8214118
Nothing as far from lacanian analysis than feel good priest talk. This is one of the most common misconceptions about it. Deleuze and Guattari warned about the dangers of the priest-analyst and I don't think many forms of psychological treatment escapes that criticism as good as lacanian analysis. It's very easy to preach about what one ought to do with life, in one way or another, or even to address the complain of the patient directly as the source of the problem and not to that person's relation to it. Psychanalysis, contrary to other treatments, does not underestimate the importance of putting the feeling of inadequacy in direct relation to how one hears the demands of society. Its goal is not to tame the patient, or to bring the analysand into normality. You do the talking.
>>8214144
It's very very different to be heard by a friend. The analyst is not there to analyze or judge what you say in an ordinary sense, nor is he there to pat you in the back and just make sure you are heard, even if that may happen in the early stages or at most delicate moments. The conditions of analysis makes it for an extraordinary place in which you're able to hear what you're saying with the most attention and develop it in face of the presence of another, who knows very well how to recognize what you're saying, bring back what you've said before, question what you take it as a given, pinch keywords of the way you're thinking and what it says about your suffering.
The first year was the one in which I almost left a bunch of times, because it seems to drain money and give you nothing more than just more trouble for you to think about. The more I stood there, the more I was able to see what I got in return and how much it is worth it. No regrets.
I still need it and perhaps one day I won't need it, but nevertheless, leaving it won't make me not need it, otherwise I would leave it. You know?
>>8214144
>you are paying for someone to listen to you. whether it is a friend, a prostitute, a psychoanalyst or a bog standard psychologist you get the same thing.
Not him, but that's pretty ignorant dude. It might seem like a retarded thing to pay for, but you're far more likely to take something positive away from it if you've given something up in the process. If the analyst was giving their services away for free, it would feel intrinsically worthless and you'd be just as inclined to talk to a friend instead. You're paying so that you can invest in the fiction of analysis, even if you're unsure of the effectiveness of its reality, but that doesn't matter because the payment has already consolidated your investment as a kind of placebo. You pay what you want to get out of it.
>>8214187
>what I got in return
What specifically did you get in return? Be specific.
>>8214187
About the differences between priest and psychoanalyst, did you read Lacan's « The direction of the treatment and the principles of its power » ( « La direction de la cure et les principes de son pouvoir » ) ? If you didn't, that may very much interests you.
>>8214206
I can't be specific because it isn't specific. I've got out of a major crisis in my life, I feel that, if anything, it made me learn how to talk and hear people without desperation, it reminded me of my own position in relation to anything else. In the mean time I've lost my job and got another and lost that one and got another, I've ended a relationship and started another, I've changed places, friends and habits. Am I to say any of those in specific are due to analysis? Or am I to digress onto some fantasy of what could have been if I didn't go there? Maybe I would find another solution, maybe not. I'd bet that I would move to my parents house or be pushed into some pill treatment, quit the job, who knows, even lose more money than all that I've spent on analysis.
The difference is structural and never specific and I can only tell it exists because I know of what I've been through. Psychanalysis includes the subject in such a way that makes it hard to talk of it from the outside and grants a lot of reasons for people to be skeptical about it, because I'd have to tell you the story of my life and reproduce what I've said in analysis for you to see. Freud said that what analysis does is transform a neurotic suffering into an ordinary suffering. That is, I still have problems and suffer, I still make mistakes and will always make them for that's part of life. At some moments I was feeling worse than when I started and if you asked me then I would give you a different answer and you'd think it's ineffective, but it was how worse it ought to have reached in order for me to change it. The transformation occurs precisely in how you deal with the shit that heads your way.
>>8214239
I didn't read that one, will definitely check it, thanks!
I've read little Lacan, more about Lacan than anything.
did it help
>>8214288
You're welcome, hope it'll please you. I guess you speak French as you spoke about Dolto, you can find the text freely (first link on google)
>>8214295
yup
>>8214309
Thanks again. I don't speak French, I speak Portuguese though and I've learned of Dolto from this documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZ6yvXULMKU
And I've seen her being mentioned on secondary sources.
I'm interested in learning French soon precisely to go after these wonderful texts. Meanwhile I have to settle with translations...
I've found this one from that text: http://www.lacaninireland.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/The-Direction-of-the-Treatment-final-version-1.pdf
>>8214320
I didn't know she was translated, that's great.
It is indeed the text I was talking about, it's really worth it. Good luck if you go on in your project of learning French.
>>8214052
Fromm is a cool bro, breh. I'm fucking around but it seems about right, both fromm and the chick who wrote Knowing Woman say there's a difference between the father and mother voice, they obviously don't simplify it so much but they do say that the masculine is the you-oughta voice and the feminine voice is that of compassion and empathy.
I remember you from years ago and you recommended reading lacans seminars along with the relevant section in ecrits. I still have that conversation saved somewhere because I found it really interesting. I don't have any significant psychological issues that prevent me from living my life, would you recommend seeing an analyst for the sake of getting a different perspective or would I just be wasting everyone's time.
>>8214947
I'm not the person you're speaking of, though my reply would be "no". I think there is no such a thing as "convenience" psychoanalysis, by example just "for the sake of knowledge". It leads to nothing, stays stuck in intellectualisations, because there is no need involved nor demand.
(Though, that doesn't mean anyone who claims not having issue, cannot somehow express a demand. What we claim and what we live are two different things)
Do you have an understanding of the Lacanian/psychoanalytic methodology? If so, does it get in your way during the sessions? e.g., While "on the couch" you try to figure out the way your analyst is operating?
I feel like this is the major obstacle (other than financial) keeping me from seeing an analyst as I would be trying to get inside the analyst's head as he tried to get inside mine.
Do you have any thoughts or explanation of what the difference is between an analyst and a therapist? Methodology, effectiveness, theory, how sessions go, etc. I live in burgerland where psychoanalysis doesn't exist and therapists are everywhere. Your experience as you describe it sounds like something I'd be interested in but I am not sure I could easily find something similar.
Relevant to the discussion but presented without comment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo_bird_verdict
>>8215097
Why not both?
>>8215154
>The Dodo bird debate only took flight in 1975
whoever wrote that wiki entry was being a jokester
(Not OP here, so probably a different opinion)
>>8215045
What do you mean by "operating"? I'm asking, because there are a lot of phantasms about what an analyst "knows" about you.
One raises the analyst as a "subject supposed to know" because that's how transference works, but strictly speaking he or she knows nothing. Nor does he or she "tries to get inside your head". I don't know if that may reassure you, because anyway when one engages in psychoanalysis, this transference will occur.
Anyway, when in good "inclinations", the analyst is on a floating attention side. An issue is to make you responsible for your own speaking act, not to try and judge what you think or who you are (he or she is there to help you to give birth to your own voice, even if it is not always pretty). All in all, when engaging in analysis, you'll quickly realize that you have much more interesting things to say and play, rather than playing matryoshka dolls or meta-reasonings. You're not there to display great theories and good arguments. The analyst doesn't lend the ear to that, but to another realm (by example, a word play you didn't "hear" while saying, etc.). That's another way of speaking. Things will often go out despite yourself. Depending of the strength of this kind of resistances (talking about theories, meta things, intellectualisations, etc.), it may take time or not — but when one takes the effort to go to an analyst, there's already something going that want a change besides old resistances.
>>8215097
I don't know USA's context, it may be very different, though In France until recently everybody could claim to be a therapist (law wasn't/isn't very restrictive about this term). You could find absolutely anything under the label (analyst, cognitivist, new age guru, pizza chef, etc.) : "therapist" is more a way to attract clients than anything else, because that's a well known term in broader public.
Most of analysts here write only "psychologist-psychoanalyst" on the nameplate, cognitivists "psychologist - cognitive therapy". I would personally mistrust someone claiming both "psychoanalyst" and "psychotherapist", because the epistemological base of psychoanalysis in France is quite strong and kind of claims an opposition to this broad term of "therapist". It would be suspect to my eyes.
If you're interested about OP description, go to an analyst. Most of the time, he or she will indicate "psychoanalyst" somehow. The question of finding a good analyst is still another thing, it can be a long quest. My two cents :
- if you hate him or her at first glance, it's not worth it (you'll probably have a phase during the work, when you will hate him or her. That's part of a normal work, but work never properly begins if you hate him or her first sight).
- first session is free, then price must be negotiated to be enough to engage you in a serious work, but not so much that it kills you or cut all your leisures. By example, OP's analyst has a perfect attitude.
>>8214947
I think that wasn't me... But it's not my first thread about it. Maybe some other anon recommended that in that thread. Anyway, I agree with >>8215027 and Lacan himself said no one goes to analysis to "know oneself better" or something like that. It begins with a complaint, a form of suffering of some kind. Of course, we all have problems, but if they are not weighting on you, the analyst would just shrug. There is no check up exam, because there is no sense of a normal or correct way of living for them to check like you would check your stomach. The only checking that happends is precisely how do you feel about what is going on to you. If it's alright, job's done.
If I came with a practical problem, like "I have no money", the logical solution would be just as practical "save money, get a job, etc". Analysis does not concern that. However, if you feel to say something like "well, but I can't get a job" or "I don't want to save money", etc. and here comes how you relate to it and where there may be a problem for you to solve in analysis, "why not?", and it begins. That's why I said that psychanalysis helped me cut my own bullshit, and not because my analyst said it was bullshit, but because the process makes what I say very evident, the nonsense, the full of sense, the fantasies, obstacles, etc.
>>8215045
I stand by everything >>8215267 said. It's a misconception to think the analyst is trying to get inside your head in any way, he will never just take what you say and derive a bunch of explanations and theories, he won't say anything that you are not saying it yourself. You're just not hearing it. And that's also why you can't get in his head either even if you try, because he is not saying anything that is his. The analyst only asks for you to speak. You'll reveal yourself there and you'll try to hide yourself at times too, but it's you with you.
If you mean if what I know about Lacan and psychanalysis outside the clinics gets in the way of analysis, then I'd say yes and no. You don't have to know anything of any of this to go to analysis and speak. Sometimes I drew conclusions from what I've read that were used by myself, without I knowing at the time, to disguise what I was actually living. On the other hand, reading about it also made me get over what I thought analysis should be like. So it worked both ways. I wouldn't recommend reading on Lacan or Freud to someone who is suffering, just to go to analysis.
>>8215097
I also agree on the other anon on this one.
From the little that I understand of it, the difference between analysis and therapy is that therapy, besides being that umbrella term that suits everything, also points to a method of soothing and neutralizing whatever you bring, while analysis is about lending your ears to yourself and so it also questions whether what you bring of a problem is indeed a problem at all, the issues unfold themselves like an onion, briging solutions within... or even more problems if that's the case. Therapy does not appear to try to go there, but to "pat you on the back" and offer you the solution, though maybe this is my prejudice talking. The analyst does not offer you more than his ears as a tool for you to develop your own solution, as well as the understanding that there is no absolute solution, nor everlasting, nor universal...
I also don't know about how it is in the US and I've heard it's hard to find psychanalysts of this sort, but you can always just look for them and ask, check how they present themselves and so on...
(I'll come back to thread only later tonight)
Bump for OP return
>>8213994
if you had gone to a real psychologist/psychiatrist, you wouldn't spend all this time evangelizing for a disgraced fringe profession
>>8214052
You could have just read Stirner and spent 6 years shitposting instead.
>>8213994
How much do they charge you and what percentage of your salary is it?
>>8217793
I don't know about "they". Of course every psychanalyst is different and even within the scope of lacanians, they have various different approaches. On top of that, as said before, it depends on the analysand. Further more, it depends on the moment in this person's life. It started out very cheap for me, at a certain point I also asked to go only twice a month due to my financial situation. Now I'm doing alright with money and I'm going through a crucial point, so I spend about 1/5th of my salary on it and go two times a week. I know of people who go once a month to psychologist (don't know of which kind), others that go up to 5 times a week if that's necessary. When it comes to lacanian analysis, as far as I'm concerned, everything is negotiable.
ITT: People who only know about psychoanalysis in terms of repression and Oedipus, ignoring its most vital concept, the transference.
>>8217793
Once per week here, 30€. Roughly less than 10% of the monthly income.
>>8218323
Well to be fair OP didn't speak of these one single time, friend
>>8218297
>I spend about 1/5th of my salary on it
>>8218552
Too much for me, but not that much to be quite honest. Some spends 200€ per month in restaurants, clothes, etc. To each its own I guess.
