This positioning of Knowledge also allows for the installation of the ‘Sujet Supposé Savoir’ (SsS) – a function which may be ascribed to the analyst by the analysand by the attribution of a certain sort of subjectivity possessing a certain sort of knowledge. It should be emphasised that the knowledge in question is presumed by the analysand, rather than actually possessed by the analyst – and the analyst maintains an awareness of lacking that very knowledge which establishes the transference. In fact the Sujet Supposé Savoir can be translated more usefully, as the ‘Supposed Subject of Knowledge’, emphasising that it is the subject, not just the knowledge, which is supposed (Schneiderman 1980: vii). At the same time, for the analyst, it is the analysand who is the SsS – hence the value of free association to discover what the analysand knows (without knowing it). The SsS provides a more compelling explanation for the analysand’s motivation to pursue an analysis than Freud’s partitioned-off and docile ‘unobjectionable positive transference’ and provides an answer to Greenberg’s question as to why anyone would pursue an analysis. Based as it is in supposition and transference, the analyst’s position in terms of the SsS is not quite as vulnerable as the unobjectionable positive transference to the attacks on knowledge and prestige described by Greenberg (368). However, as Fink has describes (1999(a): 29), the SsS is by no means immune to the effects of such changes.
The knowledge this supposed subject is assumed to possess is the hidden meaning of the analysand’s words – hidden even to the analysand. The place of the SsS in the analysand’s discourse can causes otherwise insignificant details (chance gestures, ambiguous remarks) to acquire retroactively a special meaning for the analysand. Further, the analyst may well be cast by the analysand as responsible for, as the cause of, these newly meaningful phenomena. Thus the analyst acquiesces in becoming associated with the analysand’s unconscious and the emergence of the knowledge that is the concern of analysis – the hidden truth of the analysand’s unconscious. As Fink describes:
Thus it is that, in a roundabout way, the analyst becomes associated with the analysand’s unconscious, with its incomprehensible manifestations, with the unknown or x, that appears in the analysand’s speech. The subject supposed to know, that is, the unconscious ‘within’ the analysand, is rejected by the analysand and projected onto the analyst. The analyst must agree to occupy the space of or stand in (or sit in) for the unconscious: to make the unconscious present through his or her presence (1999(a): 31).
At the same time, the analyst assumes a stance of not knowing in terms of his/her discursive position vis-à-vis the analysand. The analyst’s not knowing makes space in the analytic work for the analysand to approach that which determines his or her subjectivity. The analyst thus holds a position of (supposedly) knowing, and not knowing at the same time.
To summarise, in the Discourse of the Analyst – the analyst as Agent positions themself as identified with their Desire, the Desire of the analyst, whilst their analytic Knowledge is positioned on the side of the analyst’s unconscious Truth. The Desire of the analyst, addressed to the analysand/Other, as a Divided Subject, leads to a new signification of the analysand’s desire – the Product S1. The analyst as Agent speaks from a position of desire – desire as curiosity and speculation, desire for the elaboration of the conflictual subject of the Other – as revealed in symptoms, dreams and errors. The desire of the analyst is for the analysand to engage in the analysis and elaborate the roots of their desire. As Bernstein (1999(a)) describes,
In psychoanalytic terms, the analyst/detective proceeds by gradually tracing the path left behind by the patient’s errors, slips of the tongue, puns, dreams, and symptoms in an effort to reconstruct what symbols were purloined from the subject in the service of the neurosis. The analyst is to discover the words, phrases, and ideas that were robbed from the subject and lodged beyond recognition in the unconscious. Once they are found in the maze of distortions, displacements, and condensations, the analyst’s task is to help the subject recapture and reconnect with the symbols that were repressed in the unconscious and held captive by the neurosis (p282).
The analyst as cause of desire of the other eliminates himself as a subject – therefore it is impossible to be an analyst. Instead, the analyst assumes that function for a period of time, obliging the analysand to address the divided nature of their being – S. The analyst brings the S to that point by the analyst’s non-functioning as a subject and being reduced to the position of object. The Master Signifier is the oedipal determinant particular to that subject. As Bracher (1994: 123) describes, the Discourse of the Analyst,
…puts the receivers of its message in the position of assuming and enacting the S – that is, their own alienation, anxiety, shame, desire, symptom – and of responding to this S by producing new master signifiers (S1), ultimate values, formulations of their identity or being.
In being ‘hystericised’ the analysand is brought to noticing that they are not the master of their own discourse. The subject produces its own S1. The emergent S1, more permissive, contextual and open is then dialectised with S2.