After the vacations in the Northern Hemisphere, the WAP is recovering
its rhythm on both sides of the Atlantic.
In Europe, the preparation of the Institutional Conference of 13
October is encouraging a debate opposing the Europe of regulations to
the Europe of the symptom.
For the Schools of the Old Continent, adopting a position on this
stance is the way to avoid isolation within the fortress of sleeping
beauties. The right response is not evident. Because we are not
claiming any benefits of extraterritoriality for psychoanalysis, we
cannot ignore the influence of the new European legal and political
conditions on the practice of psychoanalysis. But at the same time we
can ask ourselves for how long our own way, which is that of the
symptom, will be incompatible with the idea of the norm. Lacan, for
instance, did not rule out the possibility that the proliferation of
sense could silence the symptom. It is therefore understandable that
our adoption of a public position regarding psychotherapies implies
our stakes in favour of psychoanalysis, pure and applied.
In the American continent meanwhile, the case is quite different:
norms, far from standardising, clearly disclose their fictional
status; the S1 gladly resigns its place in favour of the capitalist
subject and the symptom reveals itself as social in the purest
Lacanian sense: every individual (...) has no discourse whatsoever
with which to create a social bond or, in other words, no semblant.
Faced with this, common sense replies by encouraging communitarian
participation, solidarity networking, the assembly, the forum and the
fair. Nothing to object: the call for identification is nothing but
the logical consequence of structure when it discloses that the
dispersion of the not all generates solitude. But the psychoanalyst
should not ignore the fact that when in his practice he pretends to
soothe the real by means of identification he places his discourse in
the service of the worst. PS Discourse, Lacan said ironically in at
his time. To be read: Plague. Or equally, Psychotherapy. In America,
a further step could be taken by adding: Psychologism.
I will explain myself further in the next issue.
Until November,
Graciela Brodsky
Buenos Aires, 9 October 2002
By means of the monthly dg-Newsletter, the Delegate General intends
to bring to the attention of the members the most outstanding events
taking place in the widespread area of the WAP, comprising Europe,
America and Australia. The publication also includes a news flash on
upcoming events and a virtual stroll through the Psy world. Members
of the WAP Board will regularly participate in the Newsletter.
G.B.
NLS: As from 3 September the NLS statutes and the 8 communiqus
establishing its composition, organisation and tenets of functioning
were published by WAP Uqbar. The NLS comprises Societies and
Affiliated Groups originating in ESP-Dev. At this time of
constitution under charge of the WAP, the School is managed by an
Executive Committee and an Advisory Board formed by the Presidents of
each of the component Societies. The NLS has three electronic lists:
WAP-Dispatch (general information in English), NLS-Messager (general
information in French) and NLS-Agora restricted to members.
WAP-Europe Commission for the Guarantee: After having been approved
in Brussels by the ESP Board and Assembly, the WAP-Europe Commission
for the Guarantee was adopted by the ECF Board in its meeting of 20
September 2002 and will be submitted for ratification to the General
Assembly of 16 November 2002.
WAP-America Commission for the Guarantee: the EOL Board pronounced
itself in favour of its creation at the meeting of 5 August and
likewise the EBP Board on 25 August. The next steps will be: NEL
Board pronouncement on 16 November. Ratification by the EOL Assembly
in March 2003 and ratification by the EBP Assembly during the first
days of May 2003.
The Freudian Field Encounter in Europe will take place on 14-15 June in Paris,
at the Palais des Congres. It will be inscribed in the frame of PIPOL (International Research Program on Applied Psychoanalysis in the Lacanian Orientation).
The Freudian Field Encounter in America will take place on 5-7
September 2003. Associated groups of the Freudian Field in Argentina,
Brazil and the NEL component countries will participate. Its subject
will be Applied Psychoanalysis.
New electronic lists: Following decisions taken in the Internet
Committee meeting held in Paris on 19 July, new electronic lists for
School members were created, under the responsibility of the
respective Boards.
IMPAR, the e-list of the EOL Board and UM por UM, the e-list of the
EBP Board are on-line as from mid- September. SLP Dibattiti, the new
e-list of the SLP, will be on-line in the next days. Meanwhile, The
Wannabe list is in preparation at the NEL.
Papers: The e-list of the new Action Committee of the School One was
launched today. The first issue includes four texts written by the
members of the Action Committee (Marco Focchi, Esthela Solano Suarez,
Jesus Santiago and Ricardo Seldes) as well as a presentation of the
list under the charge of the moderator, Oscar Ventura, and my own as
the devil's advocate.
Journal des eXceptions: The fifth issue of the WAP local bulletin
has just appeared in Paris, still under Yasmine Grassers careful
direction. The New Journal, which is reviving the spirit of the
Brussels Congress, is dedicated to the testimony. It includes replies
from fifteen WAP members to seven questions posed by the editorial
staff, the contributions of ten colleagues who accepted the proposal
to reflect on the real that orients testimony, as well as some
definitions of the term testimony in the languages of the WAP. As
from this issue, the Journal will be distributed amongst members via
the Schools.
Coming soon On 13 October, the Institutional Conference on Analytic
Europe will take place in Paris under the responsibility of the ECF
Board and particularly that of Lilia Mahjoub. The event was preceded
by a debate launched through the Lettres Quotidiennes in the
ECF-Debats e-list.
The ECF is preparing the permutation of its Board which will take
place on 16 November.
The ELP is preparing its next Assembly, due 23-24 November, in
which the first permutation of its instances will take place.
On 15, 16 and 17 November the NEL will hold its IInd Annual
Conference in Medelln, Colombia under the title: The Psychoanalyst's
Responses (in the Consulting Room and in the City). Miquel Bassols
will lecture at the international seminar. As part of the agreements
held by the WAP-America Co-ordination, Marcelo Marotta (EOL
President) and Romildo do Rego Barros (EBP President) will also
participate.
On 24-25 November the EOL will hold its XIth Annual Conference in
Buenos Aires under the title: Applied Psychoanalysis: A Therapeutics
Unlike Others. Marie-Hlne Brousse will be the guest giving the
international seminar.
Psy world
On 24-25 September, in Montevideo, Uruguay, the XXIVth Latin
American Psychoanalytic Congress on Permanence and Change in the
Psychoanalytic Experience took place.
'We are starting from a general supposition of a theoretical-clinical
psychoanalytical experience in movement and change, and of
psychoanalytical conditions of such experience, which persist and
give them consistence.
On the contents of a title so comprehensive in its formulation, there
may well be no disagreements. The purpose of this meeting is to work
on the various determinants of such changes and their sources: in
metapsychology and theory in general, in clinical practice due to
changes in the presentations and/or in the method and its
applications, in culture and its variations through time, in the
manifold social and local economic aspects in which Psychoanalysis
develops itself, in the effect of other disciplines on
Psychoanalysis, etc.
The convocation in the title is to work on these subjects as from
those experiences, theoretical as well as clinical, in the consulting
room as well as in other practices (groups, institutions, etc.), and
to elaborate these experiences from the perspective of their
functioning in the different Latin-American realities.'
(Taken from the FEPAL Web page Latin American Psychoanalytic Federation)
English Speaking Weekend Conference of the British Society, from
Friday 11 to Sunday 13 October 2002 in London.
'We warmly invite you, on behalf of The British Psychoanalytical
Society, to the 16th English-speaking Conference in London (ESC). The
theme of the conference is LOVE.
Our first speaker, Riccardo Steiner will trace the development of the
concept of love in Freud's writing. Each succeeding presentation will
then explore one of Freud's quotes on love. In order to facilitate
participation in the discussion of this important yet neglected
subject, we have changed our format this year by organising
conference participants into discussion groups.As at our last
conference, we have asked European colleagues to participate as
speakers in order to foster discussion and dialogue amongst
psychoanalysts across Europe. Papers will be presented by Andr
Green, from the Paris Society, and Anna Christapoulas, a candidate
with the Hellenic Society.[........]Dinner on Saturday night will
again be held in the Ballroom of the Park Lane Hotel, an elegant art
deco building.
For the first time, entertainment after dinner will be provided by a
lively cabaret presented by colleagues from around Europe. This will
be followed by dancing. The conference will end with a farewell lunch
on Sunday. We hope you can join us and help make this a stimulating
and thought-provoking conference.'
(Taken from the home-page of the EPF, European Psychoanalytic Federation)