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We have gladly accepted this invitation to discuss Fink’s paper as we believe that focusing the discussion on analytic practice is of great interest. We will try first to point out some similarities and differences between his approach and ours and then discuss how we might continue to move this dialogue forward.
We have been asked to speak from our own personal positions. To do so, we must mention the role Lacanian thought has played in the psychoanalytic culture in which we were trained. We both come from a highly pluralist association—the Psychoanalytic Association of Uruguay (APU, Asociación Psicoanalítica del Uruguay). During training, candidates can choose some of their courses, while others—especially those on Freud’s work—are mandatory. We both took courses on Lacan, whose theoretical ideas have been taught in APU courses since the 1970s. We also studied other authors during our training, particularly Klein, Bion, Winnicott, and contemporary French authors. During that period, several Lacanian associations were created in Montevideo and Buenos Aires; some were non-IPA associations, but there was also a group called “Lacan in IPA,” made up of analysts who were members of IPA associations. All this demonstrates the relevance of Fink’s comments in his conclusion about the points of convergence between Lacanian thought and that of IPA associations and at what points a “paradigm shift” takes place.
In the Kuhnian sense, a paradigm shift means a modification of the disciplinary matrix that leads to a change in both the nature of the relevant questions and the assumptions their responses are based on, as well as what type of problem-solving is considered exemplary (Kuhn 1962). Psychoanalytic theories become different paradigms when they stress the role of theoretical assumptions for understanding the material (Bernardi 1989). Paradigm shifts can lead to areas of incommensurability between theories, where there is no assured logical compatibility or semantic congruity