| Spring 2007 Program |
| Lutecium a non-school of Lacanian/Freudian Psychoanalysis San Francisco, California |
| Open House Join us at the founding Open House to learn more about the Lutecium Psychoanalytic Training Group and our programs. Refreshments will be served. San Francisco Flood Building, 870 Market Street, Room 838 |
| March 9, 2007 6pm - 9pm |
| Case Conference with Dr. Jacques Siboni Jacques Siboni, M.D., senior faculty and founding member, will lead a clinical case conference. Two trainees will be presenting cases. Coffee and light brunch will be served. San Francisco Flood Building, 870 Market Street, Room 419. Fee: Students: $5-$10, Interns/Trainees: $20.00, Professionals: $40.00 |
| March 11, 2007 10am - 2pm |
| Thursdays: 3/22, 4/12, 4/26, 5/10, 5/24, & 6/14 - 2007 6pm - 8pm |
| Seminar Subjective Subservience to the Lies of Leaders; The Modern Occidental Slave with Rebecca Bauknight, Ph.D. (Faculty) and Kristopher Lichtanski, Ph.D. (Teaching Associate) San Francisco Flood Building, 870 Market Street, Room 838. Fee: $300.00 (monthly payments accepted; see registration form for details). Readers will be provided and are included in the cost of tuition. |
Seminar Description:
By Rebecca Bauknight, Ph.D., February 2007.
In this seminar we will address the complex dynamics between leaders and followers; a topic that directly addresses the issues
faced between groups and leaders at global and local levels. As we move from a capitalist industrialist era with a focus on
action-related production to a thinking-related exchange of technological information, the far reaches of the world become
accessible and interlinking. How does this restructuring of a basic exchange system affect the way that we perceive ourselves
and the other and why, in times of crises, are we particularly vulnerable to inviting malignant and dangerous leaders into our
midst?
Amidst the chaos and excitement of a transition based on thought production rather than the activities of bodies, there is a
dread and fear of transgressing the normal modes of exchange that anchor our identities. How do we unconsciously relate to a
world where information exchange radically rearranges our notions of selfhood? How do we accept, incorporate, and relate to
the alien, foreign and new? Is it possible that we are experiencing something akin to jouissance as we break out of traditional
symbolic exchanges into an era of multidimensional communications? Žižek asks if we seek a “literal father,” a literal external
limit to return us to the familiar so that we do not have to deal with the dread of moving beyond our forefathers through new
forms of thought, new routes of trade, new cultures, and new ways of drawing boundaries around our thoughts and bodies that
transcend traditional gender, race, and national definitions. Who is the transsexual or the person who is of mixed race heritage,
and how do these growing identities challenge even our most recent versions of race, gender, and national identities? A natural
tendency would be to avoid, look away, or cling to dated notions of markers as a way to stabilize such a dizzying evolution of
human categorization.
Žižek demonstrates the oedipal problems that arise when returning to imaginary oedipal fantasies and the wish that the phallus
could be real. It is the acceptance of movement and rearrangement that becomes so highly difficult to tolerate when the fabric
of selfhood woven through history, kinship, community, and myth is unraveling at an unprecedented rate through new
formations of groups based on technology that is remapping our interrelatedness.
In the desire to turn away from the global transitions and the unraveling of historical groups once bound by location, we may
long for fantasies of an original identity; something to cling onto that offers us a concept of self-wholeness. The leader always
offers the fantasy of a simpler solution; an idea of someone who can make it go away. The leader is the fantasy of the “good
father.” S/he appears to prohibit transgression. S/he appears to offer a simple truth. S/he positions herself or himself as the
instrument of the other, as the phallus. In this sense, frequently in times of crises, leaders with narcissistic and perverse
structure exploit the vulnerability of those needing the most reassurance.
According to Bollas, the importance of fantasy is that it is the imagined representation of reality; a version of thinking derived
from the capacity of the mind for imagination, illusion, and hallucination. Yet, this is exactly what is impossible to bear: the
recognition that pieces of the fantasies are not “real” but representations of reality. The unformed known generates archaic
and primitive fantasies that cover what we may intuit or grasp but cannot represent with any purity or exactitude. During times of
crises, the primal fantasies are especially difficult to endure. Hence, the fantasy of a savior, a chosen one, becomes a pacifying
wish that the leader exploits by embodying the messianic projection, Lacan’s notion of “subject supposed to know;” the one who
is above all others and has “special” wisdom or powers.
The leader promises to find what is irrevocably and nostalgically missed through guarantees that followers are special and that
very soon, they will obtain what they have always deserved. Those groups who are most vulnerable to deep generational and
transgenerational losses are frequently the target of such leaders. We only have to look at Jim Jones to observe how easy it
was for Jones to brainwash people who were economically desperate.
As psychoanalyst, we open ourselves to the aspect of being that is idiosyncratic, alien, and fragile. We open ourselves to the
Other through an acknowledgment of vulnerability, limits, and the ethic of difference. How do we make sure that we don’t abuse
the analytic posture and succumb to the temptation of “becoming a leader”? How do we check our narcissistic impulses to
create the patient in our own likeness? The break in identity structures of “appearances” beyond designated race, cultural, and
national markers offers potential space to be deeply transformed by the speech of the Other. How do we allow ourselves to
represent the significance of the question rather than the answer? How do we allow the subject to speak for him/herself and to
leave analysis with more questions than answers? The sphinx becomes a critical feature of the oedipal myth, the sphinx is the
riddle-generating ripples of ideas and solutions and provoking one to grapple with conflict and think through solutions on one’s
own. The seminar will emphasize the psychoanalytic work that values the radical freedom obtained by the encouragement to
think and speak freely. Apart from groups, apart from one’s analyst, apart from institutionalized thinking that all too often
structures rather than stimulates thought.
By Rebecca Bauknight, Ph.D., February 2007.
In this seminar we will address the complex dynamics between leaders and followers; a topic that directly addresses the issues
faced between groups and leaders at global and local levels. As we move from a capitalist industrialist era with a focus on
action-related production to a thinking-related exchange of technological information, the far reaches of the world become
accessible and interlinking. How does this restructuring of a basic exchange system affect the way that we perceive ourselves
and the other and why, in times of crises, are we particularly vulnerable to inviting malignant and dangerous leaders into our
midst?
Amidst the chaos and excitement of a transition based on thought production rather than the activities of bodies, there is a
dread and fear of transgressing the normal modes of exchange that anchor our identities. How do we unconsciously relate to a
world where information exchange radically rearranges our notions of selfhood? How do we accept, incorporate, and relate to
the alien, foreign and new? Is it possible that we are experiencing something akin to jouissance as we break out of traditional
symbolic exchanges into an era of multidimensional communications? Žižek asks if we seek a “literal father,” a literal external
limit to return us to the familiar so that we do not have to deal with the dread of moving beyond our forefathers through new
forms of thought, new routes of trade, new cultures, and new ways of drawing boundaries around our thoughts and bodies that
transcend traditional gender, race, and national definitions. Who is the transsexual or the person who is of mixed race heritage,
and how do these growing identities challenge even our most recent versions of race, gender, and national identities? A natural
tendency would be to avoid, look away, or cling to dated notions of markers as a way to stabilize such a dizzying evolution of
human categorization.
Žižek demonstrates the oedipal problems that arise when returning to imaginary oedipal fantasies and the wish that the phallus
could be real. It is the acceptance of movement and rearrangement that becomes so highly difficult to tolerate when the fabric
of selfhood woven through history, kinship, community, and myth is unraveling at an unprecedented rate through new
formations of groups based on technology that is remapping our interrelatedness.
In the desire to turn away from the global transitions and the unraveling of historical groups once bound by location, we may
long for fantasies of an original identity; something to cling onto that offers us a concept of self-wholeness. The leader always
offers the fantasy of a simpler solution; an idea of someone who can make it go away. The leader is the fantasy of the “good
father.” S/he appears to prohibit transgression. S/he appears to offer a simple truth. S/he positions herself or himself as the
instrument of the other, as the phallus. In this sense, frequently in times of crises, leaders with narcissistic and perverse
structure exploit the vulnerability of those needing the most reassurance.
According to Bollas, the importance of fantasy is that it is the imagined representation of reality; a version of thinking derived
from the capacity of the mind for imagination, illusion, and hallucination. Yet, this is exactly what is impossible to bear: the
recognition that pieces of the fantasies are not “real” but representations of reality. The unformed known generates archaic
and primitive fantasies that cover what we may intuit or grasp but cannot represent with any purity or exactitude. During times of
crises, the primal fantasies are especially difficult to endure. Hence, the fantasy of a savior, a chosen one, becomes a pacifying
wish that the leader exploits by embodying the messianic projection, Lacan’s notion of “subject supposed to know;” the one who
is above all others and has “special” wisdom or powers.
The leader promises to find what is irrevocably and nostalgically missed through guarantees that followers are special and that
very soon, they will obtain what they have always deserved. Those groups who are most vulnerable to deep generational and
transgenerational losses are frequently the target of such leaders. We only have to look at Jim Jones to observe how easy it
was for Jones to brainwash people who were economically desperate.
As psychoanalyst, we open ourselves to the aspect of being that is idiosyncratic, alien, and fragile. We open ourselves to the
Other through an acknowledgment of vulnerability, limits, and the ethic of difference. How do we make sure that we don’t abuse
the analytic posture and succumb to the temptation of “becoming a leader”? How do we check our narcissistic impulses to
create the patient in our own likeness? The break in identity structures of “appearances” beyond designated race, cultural, and
national markers offers potential space to be deeply transformed by the speech of the Other. How do we allow ourselves to
represent the significance of the question rather than the answer? How do we allow the subject to speak for him/herself and to
leave analysis with more questions than answers? The sphinx becomes a critical feature of the oedipal myth, the sphinx is the
riddle-generating ripples of ideas and solutions and provoking one to grapple with conflict and think through solutions on one’s
own. The seminar will emphasize the psychoanalytic work that values the radical freedom obtained by the encouragement to
think and speak freely. Apart from groups, apart from one’s analyst, apart from institutionalized thinking that all too often
structures rather than stimulates thought.
Note: Psychoanalysis is an intimate undertaking. In order to maintain the dynamic between inner exploration and didactic
structure of training, we will emphasize the writing process as a way to navigate between free association, reflective thought, and
structured psychoanalytic material. We open the space for seminar participants to join in a revitalization of psychoanalysis
through the written and spoken word.
structure of training, we will emphasize the writing process as a way to navigate between free association, reflective thought, and
structured psychoanalytic material. We open the space for seminar participants to join in a revitalization of psychoanalysis
through the written and spoken word.
