Part I
15–17 November 2023

Freud characterises psychosis as the “breaking off” of the ego’s relation with reality and the institution of a new relation to a “better reality” constructed from “unrepressed, completely conscious”, and “wishful” fantasies. He then speculates that this process “may be put on par with the processes of repression”. Lacan comes to call this mechanism Verwerfung, forclusion, or foreclosure. Years prior to naming the metapsychological mechanism as such, in the case history of Aimée, Lacan aims his inquiry at the connection between literary production and psychosis. In both Freud’s metapsychological papers and Lacan’s case history, there is a shared concern with writing and its function in instituting a relation between the ego and reality. In emphasising this shared concern, I raise the question of a possible writing underpinning the category of relation in general: an underwriting guaranteeing that some relation, however tenuous it may be, exists between the ego and reality. I will end on the following question: What does this possible underwriting of relation, and its clinically observable rewriting in psychosis, illuminate regarding subjectivity and relation in general?

To Be Continued?... Philosophy and Psychoanalysis Today Part II 16–18 April 2024

Part I 15–17 November 2023

Info, Index

Holden M. Rasmussen (Newcastle University)

On Writing, Psychosis, and Relation

To Be Continued?...
Philosophy and Psychoanalysis Today

Part II
16–18 April 2024

Part I
15–17 November 2023