Since its beginnings, psychoanalysis divided into different currents. During his lifetime, Freud decided who was truly a psychoanalyst and who had left the field (exit Jung, Adler and a few others). The IPA then tried to play this role, but the exclusion of Lacan caused the analytical milieu to explode. Today, the numerous Lacanian associations, not members of the IPA, are  recognized as effectively forming psychoanalysts. But for some, it would be better to say psychoanalyses than psychoanalysis…

However, beyond the disagreements and invectives, there is indeed a single psychoanalysis. It is easy, in fact, to recognize an analyst – one who practices psychoanalysis – based on compliance with three main criteria.

. The first refers to the method: the free association (saying whatever comes to mind) of the patient and the evenly suspended attention and interpretive listening of the psychoanalyst.

. The second concerns the setting: the one that best promotes free association, namely the couch as an instrument, which places the two protagonists in two different spaces. The gaze offers its place to speech.

. The third criteria is grounded in the respect for some major Freudian theoretical foundations, which no analyst has ever called into question: the recognition of an unconscious which dictates the subject in spite of himself, the taking into account of infantile sexuality, the notion of transference as the driving force behind the cure.

Of course, theorizing and methods of intervention will then vary depending on the practitioners, but these three main criteria are both necessary and sufficient to qualify a clinician as a psychoanalyst.

Should we regret that this unity of our discipline hides important divisions within it? These are undoubtedly due to the singularity or even the susceptibility of each analyst, but also to Lacan’s late verdict: “psychoanalysis is intransmissible”! Analysts thus have their privileged theoretical references, their own experience of the cure as analysands, their work transferences, their psychic structure, their style, etc.

However, these different psychoanalysts, who nevertheless practice psychoanalysis, are sufficiently numerous to offer those who still want to try the adventure of the couch, in order to get rid of certain obstacles, the possibility to find someone with whom to hear something of their own saying… Isn’t that good news?

P.S. : these brief remarks will undoubtedly be developed during our next Winter Seminar, devoted to the formation of psychoanalysts.

Thierry ROTH, vice-president of the l’ALI

Translation by Lorena Strunk