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Biology, Science and Analytic Truth

MONOGRAM is a publication of the Lacan Society in Hong Kong, a professional group to promote the study and training in psychoanalysis. Issue 1, 2010

C Y So In the beginning, psychoanalysis was not regarded as an independent discipline of inquiry; the patients symptom and psychic phenomena that Freud tried to cover were believed to be caused by either physical illness or sometimes mythic experience. To cater the patients symptom, Freud made uses of the research findings from 19th Century French Psychiatrists such as Jean-Martin Charcot. Similar to Charcot, Freud learnt from modern psychiatry and neurology the observation techniques and scientific method of inquiry. However, Freuds interest lay beyond the conscious life and he rejected adopting hypnosis and suggestion in clinical setting. What he created was a new therapeutic format that uncovers the hidden world of the patient by using a new technique: talking cure and free association. The early history of psychoanalysis is a mixing up of experience from research on mythic experience, hysteria, psychoses contributed by some experts in psychology, psychiatry, biology and medical disciplines. Freud put together various phenomena into a scheme of unconscious system; as he was so eager to create a grand theory in humanities, he has to develop a unique metapsychological thinking out of research findings from different disciplines to support his project. Freud did not present psychoanalysis merely as a therapeutic format; he had also extended its theoretical coverage to painting, literature, religion and mythology. In some of his well known analysis of literary works and art works, Freud was able to present some famous interpretations of Shakespeares Hamlet, Leonardo da Vinci and Moses. Freud was right to put those material into analysis for those writings not only extend our knowledge about those works, it provides the best available resources to illustrate the theory of unconsicous and how it works on art pieces and literary works. Both arts and literature are representations of human subjectivity. To interpret those content as psychic material in clinical setting, we immediately access to the validity of psychoanalytic techniques to a broader spectrum in our knowledge to humanity. Also, it was after Freud that psychoanalytic research on literature and arts has facilitated a generation of literary theorists and art historians for a totally new prespective on those disciplines. The adoptation of literature and arts into psychoanalysis is helpful to create immediate popularity and attention; however it has also disrupt the theoretical establishment of psychoanalysis. By the earlier stage in Freud career, he has strong inclination for clinical research. From the discovery of the unconscious sytem to the working of the transference, he was able to establish a strong theoretical foundation for clinicans. But since he the psychoanalytic study of literary works and art pieces has put forward a discussion about the metapsychological presupposition of psychoanalysis. Is psychoanalysis a therapeutic format or a theory in critical practise? Have Freud even elaborated any theoretical difference between psychoanalysis as a clinical practice or critical theory? The aim of psychoanalysis is to make the unconscious conscious. That is the ultimate concerns in Freuds formulation. If clinical psychoanalysis and theoretical psychoanalysis are different, what is the common presupposition that is shared by them. In this article, I would discuss the metapsychological presupposition of psychoanalysis as being an empirical science and its limitation. This judgement will base on a rereading of Freuds biologism and mechanism initiated by some Post Freudian theorists including Lacan. I would also like to discuss psychoanalytic truth as different from philosophical truth. This will definitely be a good starting point to discuss the metapsychological presupposition of psychoanalysis as a unique experience only possible within the clinical setting. In so doing, this understanding would be an important support for clinical psychoanalysis which is the only valid scientific format available. Psychoanalysis was created out of a vast pool of knowledge including neurology, biology psychiatry and related medical practices. If neurology, biology and other medical knowledge are normally regarded as empirical science, Freud was looking for a new kind of knowledge, which can go beyond the mere empirical, sensual world of humanity. If one thinks why scientists do not regard Psychoanalysis as a scientific discipline, it is neither because it does not have a unique method of inquiry nor because it lacks a fixed theoretical foundation. Psychoanalysis has a strong intention to study the phenomena of non-empirical world. Depression was not regarded as sickness in pre-psychiatry age. Psychotic patient is sometime put into the category of supernatural possession. Psychical problem has long time been regarded not as empirical problem for there is no fixed phenomena (on the symptomatic level) or not even a stable reason (cause) behind the symptom (effect). Cause and effect is a focal point of discussion in Psychoanalysis from Freud to Lacan that has aroused different viewpoints even in the circle of psychoanalyst. The cause and effect polemics has long been a discussion related to the scientificity of Psychoanalysis. To Freud, one of his visions is to bring psychoanalysis up to the level of scientific knowledge. In The Project for a Scientific Psychology, one of Freuds earliest contributions that shows his vision to make psychoanalysis the psychology for neurologist, Freud has tried to work out the association between the cause and its effect. It is believed that a stable relations between cause and effect is a foundation of psychoanalysis as a science. The Project was written in his pre-psychoanalytic period, which has long been a work that attracted attention both from the psychoanalysts or natural scientists. In this work, what Freud proposed was very different from the psychoanalytic theory he initiated shortly several years later. Some historical researches point out that Freud, shortly after finishing this text, has given up the whole ideas of this article and did not even intend to publish it until 1950s. On November 8 in one of his letter with Fliess, he wrote that the manuscripts has been thrown into a drawer where they must sleep until 1896. (quoted from SE 1, 285) From Freuds letter to Fliess, he expressed that he felt overworked,

irritated, confused, and incapable of mastering the stuff, so he had put it aside. The final revision of the text was done on January 1, 1896 with major revision on a letter Fliess and after that the text was then stored unpublished until 1950s. Many researches has tried to trace the connection between The Project and Freuds subsequent involvement in the theory of Id which seems to have replaced a lot of notions in The Project. The Project has proposed an intention to create a psychological theory based on the findings of the psychopathology hoping that the knowledge about the nervous system can provide the cause for working of the psychical process. Based on the findings, Freud hoped that he could find out why the problem of psychical process caused psychopathological diversion. The intention is to furnish a psychology that shall be a natural science: that is to represent psychical processes as quantitatively determinate states of specifiable material particles.. (SE 1 295) Freuds intention is not only science (i.e. social science or human science) but natural science, which in his mind is best manifested as biology. He introduced the theory of quantitative conception which

by a pathway that linked up with stimulation through neurons. Since each of us experienced different occurrences and had a different background, then each person has his unique individual pattern of brain connectivity organization. Theodore Meynert called such individual and unique brain organization, Ego. (Peled) Meynert argues that egos can present various level of strength and organizing power. An adults ego is more developed and their brainpower is stronger than a childs. And in case when a person is in the state of sleep, his brain will have a weaker power to link the neurons. Meynert even goes further to suggest that in some conditions of insanity, the brain weakening may be more or less permanent. And mental disorder is believed to be a problem in the brain operation. (Fancher) Today, it is known that two types of neurons are present in the nervous system - excitatory and inhibitory. Both types of neurons communicate through transmission of electrical signals. The neurons can either do so spontaneously or by receiving excitatory signals from other neurons.The difference is that excitatory neurons transmit signals, which cause increased activity in other neurons, while inhibitory neurons send signals, which decrease or inhibit the activity of other neurons. During Freuds time, only process of excitation has been discovered while the process of inhibition was not even hypothesized. Freuds Early researches on Neurology Commentator points out that Freuds biologism roots in his training and was correspondent to the intellectual climate in his time. As the biologist of the mind, he tried to establish a discipline grounded on biology that he claimed as truly a land of unlimited possibility. (Freud, 18: 60) What is the possibility? Freud has developed groundbreaking researches on neurology and neuropathology. David Galbis-Reig M.D. in his article Sigmund Freud, MD: Forgotten Contributions to Neurology, Neuropathology and Anesthesia has listed down the various major texts by Freud on the issues that had not been discovered by the research of his time. ..Prior to beginning work on his theory of psychoanalysis, Freud (under the tutelage of great thinkers like Charcot and Maynert) made several contributions to the field of neurology and completed four large texts on several topics of interest to neurologists, neuropathologists, and anesthesiologists during the early years of his career. ..It is these forgotten contributions that best demonstrate Freuds scientific and research capabilities - particularly his ability to observe and describe a variety of disease processes. (Galbis-Reig) In his earlier career in Neurological research, he has developed his own skill in handling medical research in evident based method. And some of his research results were precedent to upcoming researches of his time. Especially in 1897, when Freud published his manuscript in neurology entitled, Infantile Cerebral Paralysis which provides a strong foundation for Freuds research about childhood cerebral paralysis and path the way for his to understand its influence on psychopathology of the adult.This research also represented Freuds premier achievement in the area of childhood cerebral paralysis, and established Freud as a well-respected expert on this topic during his lifetime. It is quite obvious Freud has a strong intention to build up a psychology of the mind based on neurological findings from his teachers as well as his own input related to clinical researches on the hysterics and obessionals. The creative impulse for writing that book is so strong that he has worked intensively and enthusiastically after his visit to Fliess and finished the book within several weeks. However, he has eventually given up the Project, and replaced his vision with enormous study on the theory of id. We shall not offer any guesswork to his intention before the historians of the psychoanalytic movement can offer more evidence about why he had given up the Project. Although there is a lot of linkage

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he theorized the psychical process as the movement of the neuron which was the material particles that quantified the variation in psychical changes. The main substance of these new discoveries was that the nervous system consisted of distinct and similarly construct neurones, which contacted with one another through the medium of a foreign substance, which terminated upon one another as they do upon portions of foreign tissue, [and] in which certain lines of conduction are laid down in so far as they [the neurones] receive [excitations] through cell-processes [dendrites] and [give them off] through an axis-cylinder [axon]. They have in addition numerous ramifications of varying caliber. (SE 1 298) The neurons theory is highly aggressive in the time of Freud who has proposed an idea which today neurologist has adopted and elaborated with the help of modern technologies like clinical brain profiling (Peled, Kandel). The neurons which is not a substance in reality but a constructed agent initiates the flow of psychical energy through their movement and contact with other external agents. The force behind the movement of the neuron is what Freud proposed as (Qh), which means the quantity of the intercellular order of magnitude (SE 1 294) The neuron is guided by the principles of inertia and of constancy which lay down the first articulation of primary and secondary processes. Also, Freud has distinguished two types of neurons which one of them is permeable (f ) while the impermeable system is called (y). The neurons are separated by a contact barrier that impedes the transmission of excitation, or what Freud called cathexis, from one to the other. There has been material showing that Freuds conception may have a connection with his teachers in psychiatry, Ernest Bruck and Theodore Meynert. Ernest Bruck proposed to study the psychical problem based on a physical mathematical and biological model of the brain. During that time, human psychical functioning was viewed not so much as a problem related to the brain, rather than having to do with un-reached non-explainable phenomena. The study of the brain as urged by Ernest Bruck used modern physics. Theodore Meynert said that mental operation was presented through the action of the neuron while a thought was represented

between Project and subsequent notions of psychoanalysis, we cannot undermine the uniqueness of the Project as the foundation for a quantitative research on psychical substance. At this moment, we can only understand that there is still an unsolved relation between natural science and psychoanalysis that Freud has ventured himself. Among recent Freudian researchers, Richard Boothby is one of those that tend to read Freud in a deconstructive way by reading Freuds frame of reference and metaphorical language. Rather than making judgment on Freuds biologism, he claims that Freuds conception is operated by a metaphor of psychic energy. In what he writes as the energetics of the imaginary that Freuds concept about libido is operated by the metaphor of the energy functioned as a quantitative principle by means of which the psychical equivalence of manifestly different mental contents could be postulated. (Boothby, 48) The metaphor has supported the whole mechanism from energy cathexis or investment, which has developed in varieties of displacement, condensation, resistance and repression. This is the frame of reference that validates the whole concept of drive. Boothby does not provide a deconstructive

principle). The conceptual cause is mostly operated by the human cognitive, perceptual and logical thinking. However, there is another element, which directs the non-conceptual, emotional aspect of being cause of affect. Affect can arouse desire in being and will make use of suppressed libido force to motivate one for tense and violent behavior. Affect is always the constituent of hysteria and paranoia, but it also supports the working of the obessionals when driving the subject for repetition and also lead to frustration. In the Psychoanalytic experience, the three Freudian causes are not the only available factors (i.e. causes) behind the dynamics of the clinic session. In the analytic session, the subjects free association actualizes his past experience in present situation. And with the intervention, approval and denial from the analyst, the subject is able to release himself from structural repression from familial relations. There is however another cause that will twist the relations between the primal cause, conceptual cause and cause of affect. The twist will turn love relations (Oedipal) to hatred, expectation into rejection. The twist will also make transference relations into the double of the primal love. This twist is the force driving for a return to the thingin-self, which hints or presupposes the termination of the analysis. This is also the realm that opens up dialectics of the subjectivity that Lacan depicted in The Subversion of the Subjectivity. In some cases or situation, affect is mistakenly regarded as the driving force for the twist, but here actually twist is more of a structural cause that no affect is needed to support its work. Twist can be a sublimation of the affect and twist will sometimes hinder the affect rather than release it. Therefore, handling of the twist is crucial in psychoanalysis. The twist is para-logical in the sense that it is not as the kind of logical thinking supported by rational process. It is only a way to present the inversion, subversion of the original logics. The purpose could be a way to prevent direct confrontation of the psychical problem with the subject. To evade from direct confrontation, the defense process will motivate the system for the twist. Repetition in twist is possible when defense process further intensifies the protection of the subject. This is always the reason why psychotic patient has undergone very complicate logical inversion. It is very obvious that the para-logical thinking presents a clear and valid value but to normal person, their thinking is insane. The twist is also the analytic cause, which provides the very specific experience in the clinical session. It is the gaze through ,which the analyst is able to restructure the discourse created out of the subject presented by the work of the primal cause, conceptual cause and the cause of affect. This restructuration, however, is not the work driven from the intention of the analyst nor is a hermeneutic process in other counseling practices.The twist is also driven by the transferential love /hatred which repeats the primal relations and transfer the archived experience as double into the present experience of the subject. The twist is itself a bilateral cause, it initiates the repression, condensation, replacement and the defense which formulates the unconscious presentation of the psychic material; it also provides the same mechanism to undo the unconscious presentation by re-enactment, transference, regression and resistance. However, one shall bear in mind that the twist is a structural cause, which invents the para-logics of the psychopathological problem as well as provide the clue to undo the suture, which covers up the hidden unconscious presentation. As mentioned, psychoanalysis provides the very unique setting and relations that can help to undo the unconscious presentation. By making uses of the techniques free association, intervention, approval and denial, analysis, the analyst is positioned as the analytic cause that is always already beyond the

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undoing of Freuds metaphor, he only points out that Lacan has also supported the notion of energy as important that makes Freud different from Hegal. ..Lacan claims that in Freud something is talked about, which isnt talked about in Hegel, namely energy. (Lacan, Sem II 74) Boothby also argues that Lacan has separated the real from the imaginary in how Freud splits the biology with psychology. We will come back to this topic at the end of this chapter. Before going into more discussion about how Freud has put a gap between biology and psychoanalysis, I want to go back to my discussion about psychoanalytic causes. Based on clinical psychoanalytic experience, we can summarize several aspects that we can regard as the causes of psychical problem. The Psychoanalytic primal cause is about drive or the hedonistic id, which Freud has put into what he called as the primary process. The primal cause as aroused in the clinical experience is the process of the unconscious that keeps looking for chances to actualize its presence. It is the impulsive force that is more adhered to the raw and inborn needs of the biological aspect of human psyche. The primal cause is mostly the working of the biological needs, however Freud is not satisfied with this primal cause. There is also the conceptual cause, which helps to sublimate the biological process to the level of subjectivity. The conceptual cause is about the symbolic world that is interweaved by law and rules that govern the grouping of species in the universe. What makes community or the position of an individual in a community possible is his/her position in the a prior system. This is the symbolic, linguistic, grouping aspects of human community. Within this realm, the psychoanalytic subject is put into a realm of meaning (logos). Meaning represents the understanding of the universe as well as the understanding of the subject himself. In this conceptual cause, subject is able to make himself available to the desire of the other, or his or her own desire is also actualized through the exchange of interest in the process.This process is what Freud regarded as secondary process which function is to control and monitor the needs of the id and put it into the constraint of the reality principle (beyond the pleasure principle). The opposition between the primary process and the secondary process has eventually become the opposite principles (i.e. pleasure and reality

other psychoanalytic causes (i.e. primal, conceptual, affect) in the unconscious presentation of the subject. The status of not being a part it creates the omniscient of the analyst. In clinical experience, the omniscient and omnipresence of the analyst is the imaginary constitution of the subject, as he tends to position the analyst into all his causes. Analyst is to be the father, the phallus, the logo and the lover. The subject will try every mean to make analysts presence in every scene that he needs the analyst to be there. The presence of the analyst is not supposed to be the gazing point but he shall be a part of the imaginary. It is because the analyst does not involve in his imaginary by keeping distant and actualizing its position as the Other that the subject will have to face the unconscious presentation directly. This twist is the undoing process, which puts the subject imaginary into the symbolic process by entering into the verbal dialectics in the analytic discourse with the physical presence of the analyst in the real. In Lacans Borromean rings, the imaginary is interweaved with the symbolic and the real. This is the situation in the analytic session,

of paralogism in the patient. She invests on the loss of eyes with bodily pain (previous experience in painful abortion) and then move on to associate her loss of eyes to her personal loneliness (previous experience of loneliness and helplessness in US). Immediately this is also related to her financial insecurity (loss of job) and loss of pleasure and freedom (especially about freedom in material enjoyment). And she starts thinking the man will go with other woman and leaving her at home (suspicious about the mans loyalty). It is obvious that the patient is over sensitive but the link from one notion to another notion is actualized within a very short time (slightly within one minute). She starts beating the man and complaining about all the deeds that the man causes to her. The psychical reasoning involved here is a self-constructed linkage, a structure, and a paralogism that has long been posited in her psychical system. The reasoning is a kind of paralogic thinking that it is perfectly valid in itself, at least the patient firmly believes the loss of eyes will associate with the subsequent notions (i.e. misfortune in life). As an analyst, we are not in a position to argue with the patient that the paralogism is not true. What we can do is to follow the logics of the linkage and analyze to her the structure of it. The twist itself is what relates the notions (unconscious presentations) into a sequence. It is also through the intervention of the analyst that we are able to undo what are being linked up and return it back to it original state. The Project in Scientific Psychology has long been a major point of polemics between Freudian and Lacanian. And this is also the major contribution that reflects Freuds earliest attempt to build a scientific psychology based on the model of biology. Lacan has pointed out that the metaphor of energy has limited the whole ideas of dynamics in Freudian psychoanalysis, which constitutes the concepts of displacement, condensation, resistance and repression. And this also contributes to Freuds major conceptualization of the theory of Id. The mechanism of energetics associated the ideas of energy flowing in and out of the psychic system and eventually under the suppression of the ego that the unconscious energy is stored in the reservoir. However, this energetic concept has also faced a lot of criticism. Some critics points out that the idea of energetic is an outmoded concept in mechanics in the time of Freud. Roy Grinker suggests that ..information theory is replacing libido theory and its energic concomitant.[S]ilently but definitely the dual drive theory, never fully accepted even by its originator, Freud, is being replaeed by a monolithic theory of motivation (Eros) not too different from the ancient ideas of life. Life is a process that is there and necessary. Any other consideration at this time becomes speculative, science, philosopher or religion. (Grinker, quoted from Boothby 49) Grinkers idea is correct even today as neuroscience retains the vitality of psychoanalysis with advance research in brain scanning. The advance in neuropsychoanalysis has posed hope and vision for the biological nature of consciousness (Kandel 377) The neurologist has started to seek direction from philosophers and psychoanalysts about the biological status of mind. Some believe that the consciousness is separated from the brain and the working of the brain will have some direct connection with the conscious and unconscious process. The development of neurology is directly related to Freuds vision in The Project of Scientific Psychology, especially about the notion of neurons. However, the modern neurology is still falling short in lack of finding about subjective emotion. As from philosopher like Thomas Negal, the neurology can help to find out particular neural correlates of consciousness for particular percept, such as looking at a red color. This biological and material concomitant of conscious perception is a big advance

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which helps to undo the unconscious presentation of the subject. The twist also presupposes the Lacans notion of subject supposed to know. It is that particular knowledge situation or truthful position that make the twist possible. The core of the twist is paralogical, the enclosed logics of the psychical relations. What I meant by paralogical is that the working of the twist has to follow some kind of associative process through which the subject keeps verifying the truth value of the thought-idea until he comes to the conviction he firmly believes. The process is not an operation of emotional rendering rather it is more like a kind of internal mediation for what is true and what is not true. The position of truthfulness is far more important than the cause of affect in this operation. While in the operation of affect, the subject will seek to break down into pieces his own psychical unity. In another words, affect drives the subject for intensive splitting of the subjectivity. However, in the operation of the twist, we see only further reinforcement of the subject as a gestalt. In the associative process, the subject invents the logically links between one event with another and at the end he will come up with a judgment which he thinks it is perfectly true. This operation is a process for truth, although we may not agree with the judgment that is made out of this paralogism. Nevertheless, in clinical session, there should not be any judgment or suspicious against anything being spoken by the subject as illogical. The subject may say something, which is intended to deceive; he may invent the fact in his personal history. However we find that the subjects discourse is supported by some kind of logical reasoning, which is valid in itself. What I mean by valid is that the reasoning itself has a sequence that is constituent to the being of the subject. It is always useless to argue with a psychotic about the logical thinking of his discourse. If we are a careful listener who understands the reasoning behind the discourse, one will follow the specific logics involved. One recent example from a case history is about a perversion. The subject has a strong emotional urge to harm her partner if she thinks the partner does not love her. To show the man loves her, she asks if the man is willing to accept her request for eye transplant in case she loses her eyes. As the man does not show immediate approval, she erupts into strong anger and starts beating the man. In her description, she provides a reasoning pattern that is an example

in neurology; however it is still difficult to identify the subjective experience of a person such as when a person looks at the red color and it remind him of his girl friends favorable color. The reason why Freud has withheld the development of the scientific psychology and turn to psychoanalysis could be his vision on the lack in developing a concept that can cater subjective experience. There is no point to have a universal concept of mind if the concept does not apply to individual and subjective experience. Modern Neurologist like Eric Kandel has worked hard to investigate and record the unconscious process by brain imaging studies. [T]he discovery of a correlation between volunteers background anxiety and their unconscious neural processes validates biologically the Freudian ideas that unconscious mental processes are part of the brains system of information process. (Kandel 388) The criticism against the biological research on mind focuses on the mechanist and automatism implied. Even though we are able to find the biological bases of unconscious process, one tends to believe every single conscious action (especially not those simple

are machines. (Lacan Seminar II 75) Energy has never been a concept in the time of slavery. Slavery is not to be count on energy. Only with the machine as an apparatus that we start have the concept of energy, which supports the operation of the machine. Lacan is right to point out the notion of mechanics as the origin of the energetic. But to him the more important vision is about the metaphor of the human body as a machine. (Lacan Seminar II 76) This is Lacans major theoretical contribution in psychoanalysis about the work of the symbolic in the constitution of human subjectivity.The apparatus we call human body is the embodiment of human understanding of oneself as a unity. As in a machine, the coordination between the parts creates a notion of unity; this unity is the kind of subjectivity from which the subject constitutes the position of the I. The formulation of the I as a subject is Lacans most revolutionary position in psychoanalysis. In the article The Mirror Stage as Formative of the I Function as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience, Lacan initiates a metaphor of the constituent of human subjectivity which postulates the psychical scene of the subject in his infancy. The metaphor created an infant baby who in his sixth to eighteen month of age suddenly recognizes his own image as a unity in his mirror image. At the moment of this situational apperception, the subject experiences the pleasure of playing with the gestalt of the body. This imaginary recognition does not guarantee the material and bodily integrity of the subject. In another words, the baby is still unable to control his own bodily movement and needless to say about his ability as a living being that is able to live on his own effort. From a developmental perspective, this is the moment that a subject enters into the history of being a human although this anticipation is of an imaginary processing without a solid material foundation. This development is experienced as a temporal dialectic that decisively project the individuals formation into history: the mirror stage is a drama whose internal pressure pushes precipitously from insufficiency to anticipation and for the subject caught up in the lure of spatial identification, turn out fantasies that proceed from a fragmented image of the body to what I will call the orthopedic form of its totality and to the finally donned armor of an alienating identity that will mark his entire mental development with the rigid structure. (Lacan, Ecrits 78) The mirror stage is both a moment for initiation of a new stage as well as a constitutive point for bringing up a structure to a point of activation. It is both diachronic (genetic) as well as synchronic (structural). Although the subject himself has not yet completed a full extension of a gestalt being nor he has entered into the social dialectic of the symbolic world, we have seen there is clue to implement a preparation for handling the exchange in symbolic world, which is based on the operation of difference. Lacans notion of gestalt is a structure, which is formulated by the three realm of being: the imaginary, the symbolic and the real. Comparing with Freuds topology (Id, ego and superego), Lacan has tried to evade the emphasis on mechanist thinking in Freud. The energetic model at the background of the notion of Id is replaced by a structural concept of imaginary. The imaginary is the distance between nature and human subjectivity. It helps the subject leaping from insufficiency to anticipation. If there is no imaginary, the subject itself may not be able to achieve his premature gestalt in anticipation. The working of the symbolic is the work of the language, which in structural sense includes all the major exchange and transaction of signs and symbols. It encircles the law and order in human community and by means of the filtering function of language, the symbolic pins down the position of the subject onto the grid of the social order. Although it seems that ego provides the similar function as the symbolic, however, Lacan does not accept the position of the ego as what the ego psychology does in 1960s to 1980s America. For

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action as lifting a finger), there may have multiple reaction correlates in the brain. And it is even harder to identify the hidden process of the unconscious. What could be the biological status of a hidden process, if it is not expressed in the conscious mechanism as recorded in the brainwork? It is even harder if the neurologist ever tries to engage in the transference, regression and dream work, which are proven to be major tool for reprocessing the unconscious thinking. Criticism against Lacans return to Freud like those from Paul Ricoeur also points out that Lacans linguistic interpretation of Freud fails to encompass the energetic-hermeneutic duality of Freud. (Ricoeur 129-137) Lacan does not show a strong inclination toward the energetic metaphor nor does he ever tries to work out a scientific model in the same direction as Freud does in The Project of Scientific Psychology. Lacan in his Seminar II provides one of the best description and clarification on Freuds biologism. He has pulled the discussion backward to the very root of biology, which has never intended to be a science of life as we used to think it is.The founding spirit of modern biology has tried to retain a vague link with the notion of life or God. Life is a phenomenon of the spirit in contrary to death which is the lost of spirit. The difference between life and death if viewed from the perspectives of biology is the working or stoppage of the machine itself.The spirit or life phenomenon is never count. It is for this reason that Lacan does not think Freuds biology is the modern biology. What Freud has borrowed from biology is the notion of a machine the living machine. And this is eventually the root of energetic metaphor. The metaphor itself is not able biology but about mechanics. Freudian biology has nothing to do with biology. It is a matter of manipulating symbols with the aim of resolving energy questions, as the homeostatic reference indicates, thus enabling us to characterize as such not only the human being, but the functioning of its major apparatuses. Freuds whole discussion revolves around that question, what, in terms of energy, is the psyche? This is where the originality of what in him is called biological thought resides. He wasnt a biologist, any more than any of us are, but throughout his work he placed the accent on the energy function. (Lacan Seminar II 75) Energy, I had you observe last time, is a notion which can only emerge once there

Lacan, the symbolic does not include the function of censoring of the internal drive. The symbolic process is more of socialization but it does not a strong conviction to eliminate the activities of the drive. Freud has proposed a closed system in which the internal drive from Id will be filter internally by the mechanism of the ego as a guard against unwanted feeling. The censoring process is internal while the socialization in Lacans model as explicated in the symbolic is an open system. The exchange between the subject with his otherness operates the dialectics which serves functions for building up knowledge, awareness, perception in the one hand and create the foundation for the satisfaction of desire or even the final fulfillment of his moral destiny. Lacan thinks ego is driven by misrecognition. This ego whose strength our theorists now define by its capacity to bear frustration, is frustration in its very essence. Not frustration of one of the subjects desire, but frustration of an object in which desire is alienated; and the more developed this object becomes, the more profoundly the subject become alienated from his jouissance. (Lacan, Ecrits 208) The symbolic is opened up for the realm of desire. Through the exchange on the speech about desire, the subject is able to access his jouissance in the symbolic, rather than standing in the realm of imaginary which only facilitates

already been framed into the familial structure the triad relations between the father, mother and the son. In Lacans theory, the position of the Father as reflected in the actualization of the phallus is the major structural locale from where we see the flow of the energy. The position of the mother in the Oedipal relations is another locale, which links our imaginary with the subjectivity. One of my clients has never mentioned anything about her father. The empty speech as in the position of the Father has already pointed out her reluctant or resistance to talk about her love toward her father. It is so obvious that her love toward her father is unspeakable. In this case, there seems to be no psychic element related to her father. And actually she has brought forward very common episode about the father. It seems that the psychic energy related to her father is so low. Nevertheless, unspeakable relationship is always the most important part of ones being. This case always reminds me of the revolution that Freud brought to us is about something hidden or unawared. If an analyst only counts on the issue, which carries powerful psychic energy, what is the whole idea of unconscious which does not necessarily issue strong energy. Lacan is right to stress on the notion of structure rather than the energy. The locales in the structure are best standpoints for us to understand how the patients psychic energy flow fort/da toward the structure. The analyst is the one whose gaze is on the structure rather than on the flow. Before I finish this chapter, I will discuss how psychoanalytic causes reframe the true knowledge (truthfulness) of psychoanalytic object (effect). If Freud thinks that biology can offer some material evidence to the working of the mental process, it is because he has in mind an energetic model, which may not be very useful in analytic experience. It is actually not useful for practitioner to understand the mental process as a machine. For a practical and useful end in psychoanalysis, one cannot eliminate the question about analytic truth as reflected in psychoanalytic experience. And this truth is not the empirical truth in natural science nor does it only rest upon a closed system. The analytic truth is dialectic toward materialism (not as materialist dialectics) as the return to material bases on ones being is why psychoanalysis is different from philosophy. It is not even a system, which may help us return to the knowledge about oneself or the knowledge-in-itself. We have discussed the four psychoanalytic causes earlier. They have provided us with the unique scope to reframe our analytic experience. The analytic truth is what the causes aiming at, the destination, the path or absolute knowledge. To start with this understanding, we shall go into our thinking about the psychoanalytic object which Lacan regarded as the Other and the object a. The meaning of a return to Freud is a return to Freuds meaning. And the meaning of what Freud said may be conveyed to anyone because, while addressed to everyone, it concerns each person. One word suffices to make this point: Freuds discovery calls truth into question, and there is no one who is not personally concerned by truth. (Lacan Ecrit 337) In our analytic experience, an analyst cannot escape the problem of truth. At the earlier stage of the analysis, most of the patient will assume the analyst will hold all the truth related to the patient. The analyst is situated at the position of subject supposed to know although he may not anticipate it. Freuds discovery is about the hidden truth of human knowledge. The knowledge is about the subject himself but he may not be in the position to access it. Lacans idea about analytic truth is a mirage. Psychoanalysis is the science of the mirages that arise within this field (Lacan Ecrits 339)

The

MONOGRAM

fantasies. However the ego is working on a different position. Only with the function to eliminate the desire (if it is over the limit or it starts to disturb the psychic equilibrium), the ego will function to filter the desire. It is for this understanding that Lacan has criticized the expansion of the function of ego in some of the ego psychology schools, which has hindered the efficiency of psychoanalysis. It is not difficult to find out that the energetic model is what behind the scene of the Freuds topology. However, it is also because of this metaphor that Freuds notion cannot continue his radical attitude toward humanity. Equilibrium, as Freud stresses in his energetic model has made it impossible to liberate the subject from suppression and it does not help eliminate the repression and achieve the kind of freedom in spirit as promised in Freuds psychoanalysis. Based on the analytic experience, I find that the energetic model is only good enough to understand the unconscious process on the surface level. The hidden motivation of the patient is mostly driven by the sexual inclination toward the parents. The unconscious thinking will be driven to reappear during the analytic session either through verbal recognition or from the transference love toward the analyst. The energy is always at the background to push the patient to uncover the hidden thinking. However, the energy itself does not have a clear direction of how the session is driving to. It becomes quite often that the analytic session will go sidetracked or repeating the same element on and on. In my experience, psychic energy is not reliable and it does not guide us for finding the truth if we do not already have a direction or directive in mind. Freud seems to advise us to uncover the agency of suppression (phobia for incest, aggressivity or moral reasoning). He has actually a notion of structure in mind, which has been expressed in his notion of psychic apparatus. The patients unconscious is structured in how energy is enclosed. The complexity of energy flow does not affect the structure itself. The patient can never escape the psychic structure, which has always