The Logic of the Cure - [excerpt]

translated by Barbara P. Fulks

He does this in such a way that, if we condense the logic of the cure that Lacan presents through the graph of desire, it would connote that the cure is, fundamentally, the transformation of A into barred A, or the passage from the imaginary to the symbolic.

It is thus that one could summarize the cure of Little Hans as a process of symbolization. It is worth the trouble to take a moment to think about it, because it is almost the only example Lacan gave us of a logic of the cure that is not only a beautiful expression but also a work on the cure. It is a matter of a process of symbolization on an essential element: the phallus. One could consequently summarize the cure of Little Hans in this way: from the imaginary phallus to the symbolic phallus; and one could situate the moment of the malady itself of Little Hans or of his symptom in the apparition of the phallus as real, be it in Little Hans’s phallic jouissance or in the apparition of the little sister, which are two destabilizing elements of his position. One could also say, although Lacan does not use this term in the Seminar, that the formula of the logic of the cure is also from the imaginary phallus to the symbolic phallus. It is only after The Seminar on Le transfert that Lacan will use the symbol φ.

La Cause freudienne 69, Paris, 2008. Opening conference of the Second Annual Sessions of the EOL, “la Logique de la cure,” August 1993. la Logique de la cure, Collection of l’Orientation lacanienne, 1993. Edited by Diana Etinger.

Purchase Lacanian Inkclick here.