Back to Table of Contents
The evolution of the concept of the setting/frame is an independent story in the case of French Quebec analysts, situated in the confluence of three psychoanalytic cultures: their natural affinity for Continental French analysis is predominant, but nevertheless influenced by all three schools of thinking in Great Britain, and aware of some of the major developments changing the American psychoanalytic landscape. With respect to the setting, the identificatory choice for the Quebec French analytic community was clear: by deliberately distancing itself from both the medical model and the Eitingon version of the frame, it has explicitly defined itself in opposition to the “canonical” pressures which became such a divisive issue for many American (US) analysts. In contrast to the need for iconoclastic assertiveness that has tended to characterize important segments of American theorization, Lacan’s legacy promoted a mental freedom, expressed in a spirit of deep debate with and extension of the Freudian oeuvre. Both André Green’s work on the function of the frame as a “third” and as a support to the mental functioning of the patient in its capacity to form a shared “analytic object” (1975) and Jean Laplanche’s introduction of the notion of the “hollowed-out” transference ((1997, p. 662), mobilized by the relative non-reactivity of the analyst, which re-activates the possibility of solving anew the enigmas of childhood, are subsequent examples. Scarfone (2010) has extended reflection upon the quality of the analyst’s listening in his notion of “passibility”. Another strong current in the evolution of French psychoanalysis which has had influence in Quebec, has been the exploration of non-classical elements of the setting as support for psychic representation and subjectification, especially in infra-neurotic registers: Françoise Dolto’s (1982, 1985) use of symbolic payments in child analysis; Cahn (2002), Roussillon (2013), Donnet (1995) and others regarding the metapsychological function of visual perception of the analyst in face-to-face analytic work. Practice within psychoanalytic clinics in France and in Quebec also has been a source of “framework” innovation, especially from the triple points of view of the evaluation process (Kestemberg, 2012; Donnet & de M’Uzan, 2012; Lasvergnas, 2012; Reid, 2014), of third party payment (Kestemberg, 1985, 1986), and of alternative psychoanalytically-inspired interventions, such as a specific expansion of the frame in ‘psychoanalytic psychodrama’ by Lebovici and Diatkine (Lebovici, Diatkine and Kestemberg, 1952) and by Gibeault (2005). Another valuable though paradoxical outcome of Lacan’s theory and practice was the critical investigation among Aulagnier (1969) and others of the potential for insidious abuse in the “setting” of teaching and training in psychoanalytic institutes. Lastly, among French-speaking North American analysts, there is the added conception that the setting intensifies the “laying out” of speech (Imbeault, 1997) in such a way as to render the unconscious logic within it accessible to observation. VI. B. Specific Latin American Contributions and Developments In Latin American psychoanalysis, Horacio Etchegoyen (1986) and José Bleger (1967) are the most internationally cited authors on setting-related issues. Due to cultural diversity and to the plurality of schools that have influenced Latin American psychoanalytic institutions,
827
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online