The Partial Object or Objet (a)

A young woman in analysis reported during a session a detail that had come to her attention in recent times: whenever she was reading a text in the context of her work or for pleasure, a syllable would stand out from time to time as she was reading. She noticed that she could not stop herself from paying attention to it, and that this experience, albeit fleeting, had affected and troubled her. She immediately associated this experience with the surname of her boyfriend from whom she had recently separated, which concerned the syllable in question. At the time of their relationship, she was vaguely aware of the attachment that she had to the name of this man, even if it was difficult for her to separate it from the feelings that she had for him. Since their separation, this name had continued to haunt her by reappearing in certain words of written language: she would see this syllable, a quite ordinary one in French, “flashing” in words she came across at random in her readings, and feel an emotion that she found difficult to explain other than by the fact that this combination of letters reminded her of the man she had loved.

During one session, she even wondered if this name had not contributed in part to the profound seductive effect that this man had had on her. In the course of the elaboration that followed, she recalled that this syllable, which can be found in many French words, was also present in her mother's maiden name. Another memory then came back to her concerning her mother's surname. When her mother had applied for naturalization, the surname had undergone a slight modification in its spelling at the precise position of this syllable. The civil status official, seeking to “give a French version” of the foreign name, had chosen to transcribe the surname in this way.

The syllable that kept cropping up in the name of the person she loved seemed to be indistinguishable from him, to get lost with him, but was also liable to turn up again in the world or in w