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Psychoanalysis in Times of Science: A-

Void-Ance Versus Creativity

Article in Psychoanalysis Culture & Society · March 2004

DOI: 10.1057/palgrave.pcs.2100003

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Article

P S YCH OA N A LYSI S I N T I M E S O F
S C I E N C E : A -VO I D - A N C E VE R S U S
C R E AT I V I T Y

Pa u l Ver h a e g h e a n d S t i j n Va n h e u l e
Ghent University, Belgium
Correspondence: Professor Dr Paul Verhaeghe, Department of Psychoanalysis and Clinical Consulting,
Ghent University, H. Dunantlaan 2, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium

A b s t ra c t

Psychoanalysis can be considered from three different viewpoints: first as a science and a
theory of psychic functioning, secondly as an ethical system, and thirdly as a clinical
practice. In this paper, we argue that these three perspectives are deeply inter-related, since
they have everything to do with a fundamental structural underlying lack. We discuss why
and how psychoanalytic ethics need to assume this lack, how the original contribution
psychoanalysis can make to science is related to the study of it, and how psychoanalytic
practice is faced with the continuous challenge of starting from the lack as a source of
creativity.

Ke y wo rds
Freud; Lacan; ethics of psychoanalysis; psychoanalytic research; psychoanalytic
practice

Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society (2004) 9, 118–125.

doi:10.1057/palgrave.pcs.2100003

The most corrupting of comforts is intellectual comfort.

Lacan (1977, p 116)

I n tr oduc ti on

P
sychoanalysis can be considered from three different viewpoints: first
as a science and a theory of psychic functioning, secondly as an ethical
system, and thirdly as a clinical practice. Obviously, these three

c 2004 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd 1088-0763/04 $25.00

Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society 2004, 9, (118–125)
www.palgrave-journals.com/pcs
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perspectives are deeply inter-related. After all, the particular ethics of psycho-
analysis have everything to do with its clinical praxis; even more so, they can be
considered to be a direct result of a structural failure of all master discourse at
the clinical level. This failure is an issue one can not just get round: clinical
practice implies a discontent producing lack and one can not but deal with this
lack, either by assuming it or by defending against it. All efforts for constructing
theories too, as well the way we study science, are also related to this
determining lack.

Fro m f a il u re to a n e th i c s o f l ac k

Originally, psychoanalysis was developed by Freud as a medical practice for the

treatment and cure of ‘‘nervous’’ patients. Within a medical setting, a master
discourse is traditionally the most apt style to handle patients, and this is exactly
what Freud did for a long time. Reading the case study on Dora and on little
Hans, this is quite obvious. The therapist is the one who knows in matters of
desire, the patient is precisely a patient for lack of knowledge or – even worse –
because of a wrong knowledge that needs correction through interpretation.
Dora’s refusal is yet another sign of her hysteria and her resistance needs
interpretation as well. In the case of Hans, the therapist’s knowledge extends
even to the time before the birth of the patient (‘‘Long before he [Hans] was in
the world, I went on, I had known that a Little Hans would come who would be
so fond of his mother that he would be bound to feel afraid of his father because
of it; and I had told his father this’’ (Freud, 1909, 1955, p 42)). Hans knows
how to react properly (‘‘Does the Professor talk to God as he can tell all that
beforehand?’’ (Freud, 1909, 1955, pp 42–43)).
The trouble is that Freud tends to meet more Dora’s than patients like Hans.
Consequently, he needs a kind of back-up in order to endorse his position as a
deterministic master-therapist. Indeed, his initial theory on the oedipal complex
was not enough to secure the role division as intended by the master discourse.
His solution is simple: he discovers a historical truth by inventing the myth of
the primal father (Freud, 1913, 1953), thus providing the necessary ground for
every master. Therapy is the working-through of a neurotic stance towards
desire, femininity, and fatherhood under the guidance of a genuine authority
figure – the therapist – on whom the original pathological reactions can be
transferred and hence, corrected. Afterwards, life will be beautiful.
The only trouble is that this afterwards never turns up as it is supposed to, the
clinical hallmark of this failure being the negative therapeutic reaction. As a
result, Freud has to revise his theory and practice considerably. From 1923
onwards, the accent shifts from the oedipal to the castration complex, both for
men and for women. Finally, Freud will come to the conclusion that there is no
possibility to conclude this complex: both men and women continue to struggle
with it, albeit in different forms (Freud, 1937, 1964, pp 250–253). In one of his

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very last works – his will so to speak (Freud, 1939, 1964) – he has to revise his
self-constructed myth on the primal father as well. A couple of years before
(Freud, 1937, 1964) he had already concluded that there are three impossible
professions: governing, educating and psychoanalyzing; impossible, because
they require a continuous master discourse; and impossible since this aim
inevitably fails.
The implicit link to ethics comes into the open with Lacan, who links the issue
of impossibibilty to desire and jouissance (see Verhaeghe, 1996). For him every
psychopathology has to do with desire and jouissance, meaning that it is
impossible for any kind of psychotherapy to avoid ethical questions. The usual
way to avoid them is by providing an answer to them, mostly a ‘‘scientistically’’
endorsed answer. In his seminar XVII (‘‘L’Envers de la Psychanalyse’’) Lacan
(1991) coins the Oedipus complex as ‘‘Freud’s dream’’ and ‘‘strictly unusable’’,
because the master discourse is exactly the opposite of the analytic discourse.
On top of that, each discourse demonstrates both the impossibility and the
incapability of the subject in matters of desire and jouissance, meaning that
there is no final answer. Freud was right to focus on castration, although his
theory remained within the Imaginary in this respect. Lacan introduces us to the
notion of symbolic castration and the resulting structural lack caused by the
inadequacy of representation – that is, of the Symbolic – on those crucial points
where the drive enters the scene (femininity, sexual rapport, authority).
The consequences for both clinical practice and analytical theory are far
reaching. In Lacan’s opinion the precise nature of the impossibility we have to
deal with is strictly ungraspable by means of the Symbolic: it ‘‘does not stop of
not being written’’ (Lacan, 2001, p 559). The psychoanalytic treatment – as it is
based on free association and hence on representation – must necessarily meet
with this lack in the Symbolic and becomes truly ‘‘interminable’’, yet not
without a finality. The aim shifts towards a necessary creativity. After having
articulated the lack and the resulting conflicts in his/her own words, the subject
faces a situation in which s/he might create a solution of his/her own, that is his/
her own ‘‘sinthome’’ (Verhaeghe and Declercq, 2002).
This is diametrically opposed to the way lack is usually dealt with in
contemporary society, where the void is avoided as much as possible: the lack is
denied, repressed, foreclosed. These illustrate psychopathological mechanisms
at the level of society. Western capitalism has created the illusion that every lack
can and must be filled. Within the same line, psychotherapy has become a
commodity for ‘‘clients’’ who are in need of the right answer: it is just a matter
of finding the right ‘‘workshop’’ in order to ‘‘develop’’ the necessary ‘‘skills’’ and
everything will be fine. On the socio-cultural level, a perverse super-ego obliges
the subject to enjoy as much as possible, filling in every desire before it is even
articulated. The net result becomes clearer and clearer: the increasing frequency
of depression, where desire itself is structurally occulted. As Lacan noticed in
‘‘Television’’, depression is a ‘‘moral failing’’ (Lacan, 1990, p 22).

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T h e f u t u r e o f a di s i l l u s i o n : p s y c h o a n a l y s i s a n d i t s s c i e n t i f i c
c h a l l e nge

Lacan (1966) compares the imaginary belief-side of science with paranoia,

because in both cases, no lack is permitted or acknowledged. The question is
whether it is possible to construct a theory and a form of science that precisely
are based on the notion of lack. The history of psychoanalysis in this respect is
not very hopeful, yet, based on the mess of the past, things can now perhaps be
seen more clearly.
In 1920 (February 12), the moment psychoanalysis was about to become
wildly popular, Freud in a prophetic mood wrote to Jones ‘‘I’m sure in a few
decades my name will be wiped away and our results will last’’ (Paskauskas,
1993, p 370). Unfortunately enough, some decades later, the reverse of this
prophecy tends to be true (Major, 2001): everyone has heard of Freud and of the
existence of psychoanalysis, but the original message of psychoanalysis has
continually been erased. Indeed, all too often current scientists and academics
classify psychoanalytic insights in over-simplified terms and/or qualify psycho-
analysis as a historically dated branch of thought and practice. Even though
several signifiers that once transmitted the innovativeness of psychoanalytic
thinking are often still in use, the essence of the psychoanalytic invention tends
to be forgotten or to be rejected. Nowadays, psychologists, for example, easily
talk about unconscious processes in the mind, but most often they mean to say
that non-conscious or subliminal processes play a role in psychic functioning. It
would be most naı̈ve to applaud the fact that in this kind of reasoning Freudian
signifiers still prevail. After all, Freud conceptualized the unconscious as a
causal agency and as an active force, and this simply implies a totally different
conception of the nature of the unconscious.
The question, of course, is of what does psychoanalysis’ original contribution
consist. As explained above, the answer lies at the level of the determining and
causal lack that ever again subverts human’s representations on no matter what
(Verhaeghe, 2002). It is here that the object of psychoanalysis is to be situated.
Different concepts touch this dimension of lack – as examples we can think of
Freud’s constructs of primary masochism, castration or the (death) drive, but
also of Lacan’s ideas on the division of the subject, the object a or jouissance.
Remarkably enough, these concepts are the ones that most easily become
forgotten or that in the course of time tend to flatten out. We think that the
process of erosion is essentially connected to the inherently perturbing nature of
the constructs under study. These are problematic precisely because they don’t
fit with the ideological beliefs or ‘‘scientistic’’ side of science, which aims at
creating neat units of knowledge (Derrida and Roudinesco, 2001; Lacan, 1966).
Indeed, compared to attempts that aim for a definite understanding of
phenomena and univocal operationalization, the typically psychoanalytic
concepts are striking because of their opposite character (Milner, 1997). In

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this respect, they are inherently uncomfortable and prone to being repressed
from thought. On the other hand, the most interesting contributions psycho-
analysis can make to intellectual life and other scientific disciplines are precisely
situated at this level (Derrida, 2000; Derrida and Roudinesco, 2001).
However, it would be all too comforting to attribute the cause of
psychoanalysis’ scientifically marginalized position to the bad outside world.
Psychoanalysis undoubtedly suffers from an internal corruption of its own
system, which also leads it to lose track of its originally subversive message. Due
to wrong tactics, psychoanalysis often positioned itself in a sterile or ‘‘auto-
immune’’ (Derrida, 2000) position. Derrida (in: Derrida and Roudinesco, 2001,
pp 293–294) criticizes its institutionalization, its ‘‘mercantilization’’, and its
useless fights with psychopharmacological approaches and (other) psychother-
apeutic theories. To this, we can add that psychoanalysts all too often
conceitedly retreat into the comforting world of their own jargon, which leads
to a position of isolation, and that the shattering group-fights among all kinds of
schools prevent(ed) exchange between intellectually interesting entities and
promote(d) navel-gazing (for an interesting analysis of the group-dynamics at
hand, see Žižek, 2000).
We can, however, make a step beyond these difficulties, focus on psycho-
analysis’ scientific future, and check how psychoanalysis can indeed stay in
touch with the lack that founds its object. In this respect, we think that a key
role is reserved for dialogue with current intellectual reflection and research. An
example can be taken from Freud and Lacan, who dialogued with the scientific
and intellectual movements of their time. Indeed, through a dialectical
discussion with other disciplines, psychoanalysis can develop itself beyond old
saws. In order to keep the lack on which it is based alive, its original discoveries
need to be re-invented again and again. By earlier giving the example of the
difference between the unconscious of cognitive science versus the unconscious
of psychoanalysis, we do not mean to say that both disciplines can not have
fruitful interchanges; the opposite is true: dialogue enables scientific and
conceptual re-invention. What we do mean to say is that differences should not
be flattened out; on the contrary, the void must be kept open. Psychoanalysis
should not bargain away its own object. Exactly by starting from difference,
new insights can arise that cross the borders of the paradigms that fixate us in
the activity of understanding.
Concerning research, we think, on the one hand, that psychoanalysis is not
able to get around empirical studies – in order to count as a discipline at the
academic level, the development of its own empirical tradition is needed – and,
on the other hand, that the empirical field precisely constitutes the touchstone
for psychoanalytic theory. A major challenge for psychoanalysis, however, lies
in the development of its own methodological strategies for empirical research,
strategies that are transparent and acceptable to other scientific disciplines, but
also that maintain the unique richness of psychoanalysis’ traditional clinical

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method. We think that the speech of the divided subject is that from which all
thinking on empiricism should start. Only by starting from the speech of a
particular subject can the object of psychoanalysis be studied (see e.g. Vanheule,
2002; Vanheule et al., 2003).

O n t h e a p p l i c a t i o n o f t h e p s y c h oa n a l y s t

Psychoanalysis is a strange bird in the psychotherapeutic sky. It does not focus

on symptoms, it refuses to provide solutions, and it cannot predict the length of
the treatment. This apparent inhumanity disappears in the light of its focus: the
story told by the analysand, albeit within the boundaries of free association. As
explained above, the failure of Freud’s original master practice gave rise to the
analytical discourse. In the meantime, it has become clear that the opposite
movement is very frequent as well: the analytical discourse tends to topple into
its reverse, that is, the master discourse. After Freud, his invention was turned
into an established practice endorsing the society to which it belonged. We
needed subversive figures (such as Lacan) for a return to its original character.
Nevertheless, today (Lacanian) psychoanalysis has often been turned into a
master discourse again, thus necessitating yet another return.
No wonder that, in line with its academic decline, psychoanalysis’ clinical
practice is under pressure as well. In a recent issue of Time magazine, it was
concluded that psychoanalytic practice plays only a minor role in current mental
health care: ‘‘The members of the American Psychoanalytic Association today
treat fewer than 5000 patients in the U.S.’’ (Grossman, 2003, p 56). From a
cynical point of view, this situation can be considered as quite hopeful – we have
left the position of ‘‘those wrecked by success’’ (Freud, 1916, 1957, p 316)
behind us, meaning that we can go back to where we belong: in the margin of
the societal and individual clockwork, questioning all those little instances
where the clockwork fails and thus making room for the subject to make its
appearance; as Lacan (1994, p 22) said: ‘‘there is cause only in something that
doesn’t work’’.
A therapeutic approach like psychoanalysis can only catch on if it subverts the
master discourse of the societal context in which it is supposed to function, and
if it, in some way or another, provides the subject with a possibility to create a
way out of the deadlocks this context entails. Just imagine that the patient of
Alan Lightman’s (2000) ‘‘The Diagnosis’’ could have met an analyst! This
necessary subversion marks psychoanalysis’ difference from most forms of
psychotherapy that, in one way or another, are aiming at adaptation.
Unfortunately enough there is the rub. In the recent past, psychoanalytic
practice belonged to the established patriarchal (high) society that in the
meantime has outlived itself. We think that psychoanalysts should be present in
the settings where people nowadays arrive with their sufferings, not so much to
apply batteries of psychoanalytic technique and language, but to listen to people

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and to work through the dimension of lack with them, such that it becomes an
instance of possible creativity (see Gherovici, 2003). In other words, it is not
psychoanalysis that should be applied in current therapeutic settings, but the
psychoanalyst him/herself, with the lack and the analytic desire he/she is
characterized by (see Cottet, 2002).

Conclusion

Often, psychoanalysis is considered as a theory and practice in which

determinism rules, as a closed system of thought and practice. This criticism
is right, but for the wrong reason. In our opinion, psychoanalysis should not be
thought of as starting from deterministic elements, but from a determining non-
element: that is, lack. Starting from this dimension, psychoanalytic ethics,
psychoanalytic research and psychoanalytic practice can be designed in creative
ways, such that psychoanalysis’ peculiar object maintains its subverting
qualities.

A b o u t th e a ut h o r s

Paul Verhaeghe, Ph.D., is a Full-time Professor at Ghent University (Belgium)

and a psychoanalyst in private practice. His research interests include clinical
psycho-diagnostics, psychoanalytic psychotherapy, and gender studies. He is the
author of several books on Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis.
Stijn Vanheule, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at Ghent University (Belgium)
and a psychoanalyst in private practice. His research interests include
psychopathology (especially depression and melancholia), human laboring
and professional burnout, and the relation between psychoanalysis and
empirical research.

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