Otherness and Our Sexuality: Laplanche Clinically

I comment first on the analyst's agreement to record the analysis he conducted with Mrs. C. It was the rare analyst in the 1970s, and currently as well, who was willing to tape record an entire analysis. This was an analyst who considered the researchable features of psychoanalysis. Analytic recordings allow us to look at the data from many perspectives. It also means that the analyst's work is subject to evaluative commentary, which is never easy for any of us. Thus, my thanks for this aspect of this analyst's work.

Why have I chosen to focus on Laplanche and his theoretical perspective; or, to present this question in a Laplanchian way: What does Laplanche's theory want of me? I am working to understand Laplanche because of his focus on sexuality (Silverman, 2001, 2015, 2017). Like Freud before him, he asserts that sexuality is a powerful force in our conscious and unconscious lives and that we need to recognize, as Freud did, the formidable features and urges associated with our infantile sexuality. The life of the body and its needs, its skin, its senses of taste, smell, touch, sight, its mucous membranes and its bodily cavities and organs are potentially stimulated by excitations that induce painful/pleasurable sensations (Freud, 1905/1953). Freud's normalization of infantile sexuality as part of our psychic experience was shocking and unacceptable to his contemporaries, and currently there is once again some disregard for its presence. Freud's psychosexuality has become minimized and demoted in our dialogue (Fonagy, 2008; Silverman, 2017). What Laplanche added to Freud's initial conception of the infant is the recognition that our minds are organized intersubjectively. The seductive otherness of early experience opens the door to increased possibilities around images, fantasy, and their potential meanings for the infant as well as the future patient.

Laplanche (1970, 1987, 1999, 2011, 2006) is a scholar of Freud's work. His writing is not transparent an