Terms of Certainty

THE BURNING OF INFANTS Unveiled, unhesitating, boundless the infants lie in wait to strike down whatever reality we vainly erect. Formless, unashamed, imperfect the infants pour forth to drown whatever we temporarily erect in a dream. Unborn, incorporeal, mortal they slip into every act leaving upon the ephemeral their eternal mark.

The way in which Nature defines the possibilities of Reason, and the way in which Reason defines the mind’s capacity to represent and comprehend Nature, finds within psychoanalysis an explosive condition that drives it to extremes. One extreme is defined by the decline of the psyche, which, as unbound, irrational energy, strikes the body. The other extreme is defined by insubstantial, illusory discourse. At one extreme, psychosomatic illness; at the other, delirium. In between, a multitude of psychosomatic functions—such as dreaming, perceptual imagery, representation, memory, fantasy, and conscious thought, attempt to keep the bridges between the physical and the mental active so as to maintain the coherence of the individual, who bears them and is borne by them. By examining the above functions, the author seeks to demonstrate the strategies of the analysand and the analyst so that discourse, by exhausting its potential uses (from form and referentiality to the creation of meaning and its deconstruction), may offer the subject a Material Mind: an Embodied Psyche, a Psychicised Body. Clinical ‘fragments’ shed light on the theoretical constructs of this psychoanalytic book, which seeks to engage in dialogue with linguistics and epistemology.

locked up inside the tower of signs You minus! Me minus! Is anyone out there?

INDIVIDUAL Ecstatic before the divine. He freezes to freeze the image. Serenity, the absolute desire: An insect in the landscape

This essay attempts a psychoanalytic approach to violence, as it manifests itself in various stages of psychological development. The classical view of the phenomenon at the level of the psychic economy and instinctual investments is not employed, not because the author disagrees with it, but because he seeks to study violence within the realms of subjectivity and intersubjectivity. Violence is distinguished as organisational and disorganising, and the crisis conditions that promote mental organisation or, conversely, create fixations, regression and a tendency towards repetition are examined. A general intersubjective model is proposed which, in its extreme positions, describes the conditions under which violence manifests itself. The role of action and thought is examined. Although the essay originates from clinical psychoanalytic practice, it offers a theoretical framework for those wishing to approach the subject of violence in the fields of sociology and education.

I kiss you with an ‘o’ that splits you in two now everything begins I smile, I laugh, I say I am your identity! If I laugh, an angel Beyond Health, Beyond Death with my form I cut the forms of the world single, double, quadruple filled with kisses, stars, loves juice upon juice I pour out, I give, I give, to you I give I give the world, I fill the void with loves, I ask: if you don’t fill yourself with shit can you have expectations? If you act, man? I wear my blood on the outside. ‘Nice suit,’ they say to me. ‘You’ll get used to it,’ I tell them.

What happens when, from the very beginning of his life, a child is trapped in a symbiotic relationship with a mother who leaves him no room to develop his personality, his speech and his autonomy? How captivating yet also dependent can his relationship with a ‘mother-wolf’ become, terrifying for others but also for himself? How does his identification with her, as revealed by the interpretative process of psychotherapy, create a powerful imaginative foundation for the emergence of his true self? Drawing on psychotherapy material and guided by the theories of M. Mahler, F. Tustin, D. Meltzer and other psychoanalysts regarding autism and childhood psychosis, the psychopathology of early developmental disorders is examined, as well as major issues concerning personality development in general, based on the hypothesis that there is an autistic shell and a strong symbiotic tendency at the core of every person’s personality. This hypothesis leads the author to broaden the scope of the study and prompts him to seek out figures in Greek mythology that embody the symbiotic dilemma, highlighting the interaction between the individual and the social imagination.

Childhood Loves, the first book in the SCHOOL FOR WORRIED PARENTS series, emerged from the author’s recorded evening discussions with a group of parents. Parents who are concerned about what is happening to their children, at home, at school, in society. Concerned because they do not rest on their laurels but seek to learn. Starting each time with a specific question from a parent, placing it within its broader context and offering theoretical and scientific insights, the dialogue then, the book now, seeks to provide answers and raise new questions. All this seems, and is, very serious, but, as the reader who immerses themselves in the atmosphere of each ‘evening’ will discover, the narratives are often tragicomic and the exchanges have something of Socratic maieutic irony, directed at oneself and others. All the more so when the subject is childhood romances or, put another way: What is the sexual instinct? When and how is it triggered? Are we born with a gender, or is it constructed? Two, three, or seven genders? Is homosexuality a pathology? How much nudity is acceptable in front of children? What do we tell them about our romantic relationships? What does sexual provocation in teenagers mean?… And many other unspoken questions!