Theory and Praxis in Psychoanalysis

Abstract

The relationship between theory and practice is first of all linked by the fact that there is no outside position on this subject, and also by the question of what psychoanalysis can expect from the expansion of analytical theory in the field of the social, i.e. culture and academia. The unconscious is positioned with the discourse and not vice versa, the unconscious “exists only through discourse”. On the other hand, without praxis there is no theory. In his “Italian note”, Lacan emphasizes that without producing knowledge psychoanalysis cannot be sought on the market and that we can justifiably presuppose that there would be no transfer to psychoanalysis without the transmission of the “theoretical” corpus. Freud and Lacan did not simply talk about psychoanalysis; they transmitted the letter, which means that they transferred the psychoanalytical experience of the word into the written record, into the letter, which is outside the transfer. How to think knowledge outside the transfer, knowledge which does not presuppose the Other?