WAP
d.g.Newsletter
October 2002

Translated from Spanish by Paula Kalfus and Liliana Mauas-Singer

 

WAP — The Delegate General

to the members

Dear colleagues,

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)