No. 12 (2012): «THE QUESTION OF THE SYMPTOM»

Desde el Jardín de Freud 12

In its simplest consideration, the symptom is the expression of a malaise, of what does not work according to expectations, and this at the level of the clinic as in the field of the social. In the first case, the accent is placed on the subject who suffers, and on the Other to whom this subject addresses his complaint or question. In the second, we do not hesitate to give the title of "symptomatic" to the manifestations by which societies acknowledge receipt of what does not march. This double reference to the subject and to the "social body" gives an idea of the use, at the same time, of a restrictive and broad that we can give the category of symptom, by virtue of which the researchers of the different disciplines of the human and social sciences can To contribute elaborations that enrich the panorama of what we propose to treat. As far as psychoanalysis is concerned, the double reference mentioned above puts us on the track of a pertinent and current discussion about the distance or proximity between the individual symptom, that which results from the Freudian elaboration and whose reference is the subject, and the "Social symptom", as it appears in the articulations of Lacan.

The "social symptom", on the other hand, establishes connections that we should not take for granted. What does this category of "social symptom" that comes from the Marxist theory of history and economics refer to? Why can Lacan say that Marx is the inventor of the symptom? Does this category refer to the historicity of the symptom, an inescapable issue when estimating the complex relations between symptom and discourse? Nobody ignores that the symptom is related to the ideals and imperatives of an era, but precisely, how to measure the determination of the symptom by the discourse and not to fall into the trivial accumulation of "contemporary symptoms" to the way the psychiatric classifications proceed? These questions have culminated in a number of theses whose examination is all the more pressing because what has been called the new malaise in culture poses not inconsiderable challenges to psychoanalysts and to psychoanalysis itself in terms of its future.

Published: 2012-01-01

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