Introduction

Psychosis occupies a paradoxical place in psychoanalysis. A pivotal term in Freudian metapsychology, if not a paragon, it ranges across the full spectrum of the field, warranting a dynamic, topographical and economic discussion. Instrumental in Freud's elaboration of key concepts such as the unconscious or narcissism to name the most obvious ones, it is a goldmine for theoreticians. Yet, historically, it has struggled to find its place in psychoanalytic technique on account of the assumed ‘unanalysability’ of psychotic subjects. It is fair to say that in the absence of repression, of the kind of transference and resistance featured in the psychoanalytic treatment of neurosis, psychosis has always profoundly challenged the analytic method, leaving clinicians bereft of their common landmarks.

By blurring the basic partition between conscious and unconscious systems on the one hand, psychosis overturns the first topography. On the other hand, it radically stunts the second one, cutting it back from a triadic model (id/ego/superego) to a dyadic one: in psychosis, there is no triangulation to speak of. As for the link between subject and object, it is deeply disorganized to say the least, the impermanence of the object obstructing the advent of subjectivity. Is psychoanalysis relevant to the psychotic experience? Can it accommodate its evanescent subjects and the urgency of their ontological precariousness? Can it meet their rightful demand for subjective delineation and substantiality?

These questions - the place of psychoanalysis in psychosis, the place of psychosis in psychoanalysis - brought together an outstanding panel of clinicians in March 2016, under the auspices of the Freud Museum, London. The answers that were given across a variety of theoretical perspectives (Lacanian, Kleinian, systemic, relational and attachment theory, among others) were fertile and hopeful, despite the political and economic difficulties besetting the psychoanalytic treatment of psychosis