You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The variable-length session (or session of variable duration—the original French used by Lacan is séances scandées) is strongly related to Jacques Lacan's work, not only because he pioneered the use of this technique in psychoanalysis, but also because his use of it was the main official reason for his expulsion from the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA). This historical contingency has been detrimental to the judgment of the contributions that the variable-length session can bring to psychoanalysis. This round table wants to bring back the debate to the question of whether the variable-length session is a useful tool for psychoanalysis, to revisit the variable-length session in light of its experimental value. We recognize that it is “Lacan's experiment,” but we want to use it as an opportunity to abstract from its political issues. In short, is the variable-length session a useful technique in an analysis? Lacan's work will not be ignored, but the main contribution will be providing an evaluation based on the advantages and disadvantages of its use in everyday sessions.
Unlike sessions of fixed duration—which are terminated always and only at a predetermined time, after a predetermined duration has elapsed—variable-length sessions are terminated by the analyst at a moment judged opportune and fruitful. As a result, their duration may vary between sessions and between analysands, following the rhythms of the analytical work. Using Lacan's words, the variability in the session's duration makes the transference “dialectical,” potentially helping the working-through of the analysand. Even if the average duration of the variable-length session is typically shorter than the canonical 50 minutes promoted by IPA regulations, we want to emphasize that by variable-length session, we do not mean a short session lasting a few minutes or a few seconds. It is simply a session where the duration is part of the analytical technique. Empirically, we will report cases