In a press release, The School of the Freudian Cause (ECF) reaffirms the legitimacy, rigor and irreplaceable value of this discipline in matters of psychological care and for contemporary thought. Faced with the recurring questions to which psychoanalysis is subject, the ECF is concerned about the deleterious effects for the population of a possible suppression of speaking practices in places of care.
A discipline based on clinical experience
Since Freud, psychoanalysis has been built on the rigorous and patient listening of suffering subjects. It does not claim to replace neuroscience or biological psychiatry, but it occupies a terrain that these disciplines leave structurally vacant: that of speech and desire as well as the singular history of the subject. Where standardized protocols aim to reduce or eradicate symptoms, psychoanalysis does not promise a miracle cure, but the improvement of the subject’s position with regard to his or her own desire. Psychoanalysis is a tailor-made clinic, it is not a method for diagnosing and testing cohorts of users.
A rigorous theory, not a belief
Contrary to the caricatures that are sometimes addressed to it, psychoanalysis is not a closed ideology nor a system of beliefs, a world view or an ideology: it is a practice supervised by demanding training institutions, permanently controlled, with a theoretical development in constant evolution. The ECF ensures the training of psychoanalysts in respect of the ethics of speaking well and responsibility towards patients.
Facing institutional threats and market logic
The ECF observes with concern the growing trend to reduce mental health to measurable indicators and standardized brief therapies, under the joint pressure of public health policies and economic imperatives. If rapid effectiveness has its value, it cannot constitute the only horizon of psychological care. Contemporary pathologies, such as chronic depression, addictions, personality and psychotic disorders often require in-depth, long and unique treatment, which only the analytical approach is able to offer.
An incomparable cultural and humanist heritage
Psychoanalysis has profoundly transformed the way our societies understand childhood, sexuality, language, art and social bonds. It continues to irrigate philosophy, literature, the human sciences and contemporary ethical debates. Reducing it to an outdated or unproven practice is to considerably impoverish our collective capacity to consider humans in their complexity.
A call for debate
The ECF calls for a serious, plural and dispassionate debate on the place of different therapeutic approaches in the mental health landscape in France and in the world. She is ready to take part in any scientific or institutional consultation aimed at better responding to the psychological suffering of our fellow citizens, while respecting the diversity of clinical approaches.
Furthermore, the ECF is organizing a free access forum by videoconference on March 12, broadcast live by Lacan Web from 8 p.m. (Information: [email protected])
The School of the Freudian Cause, founded by Jacques Lacan in 1981, is recognized as being of public utility. It has had the status of a non-governmental organization with the UN since 2009. It provides training for psychoanalysts and transmits the teaching of Jacques Lacan through several study and research systems. It organizes annual Days at the Palais des Congrès in Paris on contemporary themes. The ECF manages two free psychoanalytic consultation centers in Paris.
