Language and Psychoanalysis

Is it Possible to Represent the Sexual Relation in Cinema?

2023-01-31T13:55:14+00:00

This article offers a reflection on the Lacanian theory of the representation of the sexual relation in film. It draws on the Lacanian logic of sexuation and its interpretation by Joan Copjec and Slavoj Žižek, analyzing what the author calls the cinematic non-relation, taking as an example Alfonso Cuarón’s film Y tu mamá también (2011). The article begins by returning to the work of Laura Mulvey, who was one of the first theorists to use psychoanalysis as a political weapon to challenge the phallocentric portrayal of women in Hollywood cinema. The author argues that Mulvey was correct in her conclusions, however not with regard to the production of a “ male gaze”, but rather with regard to the cinematographic construction of male desire, which is a constitutive element of patriarchal society. The author argues that it is not by creating an “alternative” cinema, but rather developing critical theory, itself, as a political weapon that we are able to challenge the dominant ideology. It is the practice of theory that politicizes cinema and the spectator, rather than the reverse.

An Exploration of Multilinguals’ Voice-Hearing Experiences

2023-01-31T13:55:14+00:00

Research on multilinguals’ voice-hearing, sometimes termed auditory-verbal hallucinations, is dominated by psychiatrists’ reports, skewing toward etic over emic approaches. Most also pre-dates developments in both voice-hearing and multilingualism research which highlight the complexity and dynamic nature of both phenomena and shows little cross-fertilisation between the two fields. This paper sits within this gap, presenting results from an in-depth interview study with ten UK-resident multilingual voice-hearers analysed via constructionist reflexive thematic analysis. A high proportion of participants described hearing voices they did not (fully) understand, challenging the dominance of the hypothesis that voice-hearing originates from misattributed inner speech. This set of experiences is presented along a spectrum with a complex array of associated emotions and subtle experiential distinctions. The relationship between language experiences, voices’ languages, and associated emotions was similarly complex and individual: participants described voices both reflecting and distorting or shifting the contexts, domains, interlocutors and feelings associated with their various languages. This has implications for therapeutic and peer support for those who are distressed by their voices, as well as opening up new avenues in voice-hearing phenomenology and aetiology.

The Narrative Structure of Transcripts and the Psychoanalytic Self

2023-01-31T13:55:14+00:00

Psychoanalytic publications often contain the patient’s discourse in the form of transcripts in the context of a clinical vignette. These transcripts are productions that result from a set of operations and technologies put at play by the psychoanalytic author, in the process of transmission and dissemination of the psychoanalytic discipline. The focus of our study was to investigate these transcripts and to determine first, if their narrative structure was affected by four factors (diagnosis, psychoanalytic school, gender and source of the transcript), and second, to articulate what type of self was promoted by such narratives. For this purpose, 93 clinical vignettes with transcripts, published in a recognized psychoanalytic journal, were analyzed and the effects of those factors upon the narrative structure of these transcripts, studied. Anova´s results showed that the produced transcripts were affected in their narrative structure by the studied factors. At the same time, the studied factors tended to promote certain forms of selfhood over others through the transcripts.

Esoteric Lacan

2023-01-31T13:55:14+00:00

This review analyzes Philipp Valentini and Mahdi Tourage’s Esoteric Lacan, describing the work in detail and the book review author’s reflections on it. Esoteric Lacan is a one-of-a-kind dialogue between Lacan and various religio-cultural studies. The study takes an interdisciplinary and interlocutive approach to ideas Lacan conversed with and goes beyond a Eurocentric context. The collection spans the gamut from Gnosticism to Judaism to Kabbalistic musings to Afropessimism to the Lacanian discourses to the Borromean Knot and Sinthome to Ibn ‘Arabī and much more.