Commentary by a Lacanian Psychoanalyst

The case discussed is a fragment of a psychotherapy. Although the aims of a psychotherapy may be different from those of an analysis, in terms of responding to a situation of suffering, certain connections between material offered by the patient will be necessary to obtain anything more than short-term relief. In this brief comment on the case, I will try to show how the perspectives of Lacanian psychoanalysis may shed light on such connections and the framework in which they are structured.

In the early stages of a treatment, most clinicians would agree on the importance of establishing some of the central coordinates of the family history, although many crucial details will emerge, of course, much later on. The format of a short clinical presentation obviously makes such a historical sketch limited, but one would nonetheless like to know more about the start of the earlier period of therapy and its termination, about the details of the mother's swallowing of tablets (their name) and about the course of the patient's childhood. When the grandfather is described as cruel, for example, one would like further associations here. Now, in terms of the family history that is available in the commentary, there are clues as to the difficulties that are faced by the patient, which revolve around ‘not being able to cope’ with both her job and her partner. This disjunction between job and partner may have significant resonances, in terms of the father's own dilemma of a choice, as it were, between his career and his wife. The wife had indeed swallowed the pills at the time when the father considers returning abroad for his work. This disjunction of work and partner has many echoes in the material (for example, the sacking of the colleagues), and it may not be unconnected to the moments when she was led to enter therapy. The father's choice becomes the legacy of the daughter, and one might try to formulate what Lacan