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Erik Porge is a Lacanian psychoanalyst practicing in Paris. A member of the École Freudienne de Paris until its dissolution, he is the cofounder of the Association de Psychanalyse Encore and the editor-in-chief of the psychoanalytic journal Essaim. Dr. Porge is the author of numerous articles and books, well known in France.
Truth and Knowledge in the Clinic, the English language title for Transmittre la clinique psychanalytic , is Erik Porge's first book to be translated into English. The central aim of this book is to clarify what is specific to the practice of psychoanalysis, and to articulate the manner in which that specificity is transmitted. This is an important undertaking in a field in which a kind of “Tower of Babel” effect has been taking place, where new symptoms, new pathologies, and new specialties designed to address specific symptoms are constantly arriving at the marketplace.
Attention-deficit disorder has spawned “adult attention-deficit disorder.” Bipolar disorder, or borderline personality disorder, is increasingly diagnosed and has replaced what psychoanalysis has traditionally understood as hysteria. “Angst” as a psychoanalytic concept has vanished behind “stress,” “panic disorder,” or “generalized anxiety disorder.” “Autism spectrum” is a category so broad that it has made a pathology out of shyness.
Thanks to the focus on the proliferation of “new” pathologies, treatment is transformed into specialized techniques that target specific symptoms.
These specialties range from “psychoanalysis with adolescents,” to treatment of eating disorders, autism, grief, to the likes of DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy), which, according to its creator's website, “is now recognized as the gold standard psychological treatment for [chronically suicidal individuals diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD)]” ().
Another example: a notice in the February 29, 2016, e-bulletin of the National Association for