Psychoanalysis has One Medium

By Ruqayya Qadir

In Function and Field of Speech and Language, Lacan described the context of the founding of a psychoanalytic institute: "it would prevent the person who, along with others, had tried to introduce a different conception of analysis." Then, as we move a bit further in the text, he mentioned the deprivation of students and their lack of autonomy as subjects. He questions modes of training psychoanalysts that were resulting in "perpetual minimization," those "that can only perpetuate itself by remaining at the level of a complete experience." In my view, our current situation is not very different from the one Lacan described in his text. I would even say that it is worse. Scientific discourse, which insists on generalization and standardization, is ever more prominent. There are barriers to participation or questions of students in certain psychoanalytic and psychology institutes where authority is mistaken for knowledge. Lacan further discusses a return to the imaginary, to problems of countertransference, and others, resulting from "a growing aversion regarding the functions of speech and the field of language," and "temptations [...] to abandon the foundations of speech." He mentioned that several effects of increasing scientific activity could be solved by a "return to the study of the functions of speech." At the time that Freud was producing psychoanalytic texts, Pakistan didn't even exist. It was a part of what was called the "Indian Subcontinent," and it was under the rule of colonizers. It was not until 1947 that Pakistan gained its independence, after the death of Freud. At the time, psychoanalytic literature was generated and studied in Pakistan, western ideologies had deeply infected us, and we were in awe of them. This led us to adopt the methods of our masters who resided very far away.

Scientific knowledge is on the rise in Pakistan, where Lacanian psychoanalysis has not much been discovered. It is from the last year that it started to spread a bit, and currently a course has been introduced at a university which focuses on the Lacanian perspective. There is a question: will psychoanalysis persist?

There is an emphasis on therapies, which structures plans and aims to get rid of the symptoms of patients. This moves away from the truth specific to each person, toward a generalization and categorization of what is normal and what is not. A practice of psychoanalysis values the speech of patients and goes beyond fantasy to return to symbolization: "whether it wishes to be an agent of healing, training, or sounding of the depths, psychoanalysis has one medium: patients' speech."