The Links: What is Produced in the Space between others*

Argentine psychoanalysts have been working on a link approach to psychoanalysis for more than forty years, inspired by Isidoro Berenstein's and Janine Puget's theoretical–clinical developments. It proposed an additional perspective of psychoanalytic theory with ideas that had not been previously developed or included. Bridges were built with other disciplines such as philosophy, anthropology, and the history of contemporary subjectivity. This task has required the deconstruction, rethinking, and invention of some conceptualisations, not only of family and couple bonds or links, but of what was called “lo vincular” (the link) itself.

The term lo vincular describes the work carried out by subjects in the context of links, for in order to create a link with others we must do something with the changes brought about by their presence. Such “doing” cannot be anticipated; it is always about to happen despite having happened often before. The same is true of each therapeutic session, no matter whether it is the first, second, or third. We cannot foresee what will happen in this session or in the next, or even what our patient's next idea might be.