From the Fundamental Rule to the Analysing Situation1

The analytic method relies on the mental capacity to produce an associative sequence, and, afterwards, to discern its unconscious logic; within the social practice of the analytic cure, the method presents itself as the mastered enactment of the condition through which free association proves to be possible, interpretable and beneficial. There is a contradiction between the necessity of relying on a former theorisation and that of willingly suspending a knowledge that might serve the authenticity of the experience. The author reminds us of the structural links between the fundamental rule and the defined situations within which the analytic process of transformative investigation can take place. He raises the problems that it is suggested arise with the initial objectivation method by acknowledging the transference as the created-found object of interpretation. He shows how the transformation of the patient into analysand implies the functional introjection of the various elements contained by the analytic site. The meaning given to the expression ‘analysing situation’ is made explicit. The crucial value of the process of enunciation is illustrated by a brief example.