During the late 1960s and early 70s, Lacan did not hesitate to qualify this transition from analysand to psychoanalyst as a passage à l’acte (Lacan 1967-68; 1981b[1972]), so that working-through may be conceived as the psychic force that clears the path for this very act. Similar to the process of facilitation (Bahnung), which Freud explained in his Project for a Scientific Psychology (Freud 1950a[1895]: 300-302), working-through involves path-breaking—not of the neurones, but of the mental logic of the fantasy, and in view of the crystallisation of an act. The latter point is fully consistent with Freud’s outlook in ‘Remembering, Repeating and Working-Through’, where the effect of working-through is compared to that of an abreaction (Abreagieren) (Freud 1914g: 156). In other words, Freud’s concept of abreaction re-emerged, here, in the guise of a constructive passage-à-l’acte, whose occurrence is tantamount to the precipitation of a psychoanalytic training effect, and the possible transition from analysand to psychoanalyst. Much like in the aforementioned examples of passage-à-l’acte, divided subjectivity $ is thus exchanged for the object a when the analysand comes to adopt the position of the analyst, with the double caveat that this transition is not triggered by the unexpected synergy of embarrassment and emotion, but by a process of working-through, and that the analyst is not supposed to identify with the object a, but only to operate as its semblance, supported by the snippets of knowledge that have been acquired during the process of psychoanalytic training.

 

References 

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Breuer, J. & Freud, S. (1895d). ‘Studies on Hysteria,’ in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 2, Trans. J. Strachey, London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis.

Burgoyne, B. (1997). ‘Interpretation,’ in B. Burgoyne & M. Sullivan (Eds), The Klein-Lacan Dialogues, London: Rebus Press, pp. 45- 58.

Castel, P.-H. (2011). ‘Passage à l’acte,’ in M. Marzano (ed.), Dictionnaire de la violence, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

Descartes, R. (1985[1637]). Discourse on the Method, in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, Vol. 1, Trans. J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff & D. Murdoch, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 111-151.

Fink, B. (2004). ‘Lacan’s Critique of the Ego Psychology Troika: Hartmann, Kris, and Loewenstein,’ in Lacan to the Letter: Reading Écrits Closely, Minneapolis MN-London: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 38-62.

Freud, S. (1901b). The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 6, Trans. J. Strachey, London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis.

Freud, S. (1905e[1901]). ‘Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria,’ in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 7, Trans. J. Strachey, London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, pp. 1-122.

Freud, S. (1912b). ‘The Dynamics of Transference,’ in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 12, Trans. J. Strachey, London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, pp. 97-108.

Freud, S. (1914g). ‘Remembering, Repeating and Working-Through,’ in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 12, Trans. J. Strachey, London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, pp. 145-156.

Freud, S. (1916-17a[1915-17]). Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis, in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 15/16, Trans. J. Strachey, London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis.

Freud, S. (1920a). ‘The Psychogenesis of a Case of Homosexuality in a Woman,’ in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 18, Trans. J. Strachey, London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, pp. 145-172.