If I did not, I never would have made it to my fifth year. That being said, my advice to all of you: find a way to amuse yourself throughout this grueling graduate school process. I for one do and have done so, by heading directly into the belly of the beast- Apres-Coup (the New York Lacanian Institute). They, historically and presently, have a bone of contention to pick with psychology and American psychoanalysis. By attending their meetings, you get the dual satisfaction of finding an intellectual way to complain about the program and prove these complainers themselves wrong with your very presence and intellect. And they are not as unwelcoming as all that and their meetings are often a scream, which is more than I can say for most psychoanalytic ensembles.

They just had a lecture by a psychoanalyst, Catherine Millot, who was analyzed by Lacan, on a French mystic whose complete works (all 42 volumes of which are in the New York Public Library) were written right after she tried to cut out her own tongue- an act of castration commanded by God in a vision. Likewise I just attended a seminar held by David Lichtenstein focusing on Lacan’s seminar whose title is a pun: ‘les non/nom du pere’ (the no/name of the father) and ‘les non dupes errent’ (the person who refuses to be a dupe will make a mistake). This pun wound its way toward an understanding of the termination of analysis centered around affirmation, being a dupe, certain kinds of failure and loving one’s unconscious. A strange amalgamation I agree, but it made sense in the end in that particular way that one only gets when they’ve sloughed through pages of Lacan together with others. For the timid, if I was at first extremely intimidated, I am, almost five years later, perhaps equally intimidated but with enthusiasm. Understanding so little for so long is like learning to sit with patients- the first encounter, the muddle of the transference, and eventually, momentary flashes of insight. And so Apres-Coup has been a lesson for me in listening.

After all is said and done, my experience permits that I can say, with little equivocation, that they seriously consider sexuality, gender, the phallus, the body, fantasy, drive. They read Freud carefully and closely, they traverse dense Lacanian texts with ease and clarity, bring up the import of semiotics, logic, philosophy, art, the history of science, politics, and, above all, constitute a work that is profoundly clinical. As much as I can poke fun, I am deeply reverent.

This spring semester, a lot of great people are coming to speak- and, as I have admitted to insoluble crankiness, I must also admit to being an unapologetic proselytizer. As such, I think it would be wonderful if one or many of you would venture downtown to one or many of these meetings. My affections run in both directions, and I can’t think of anything else that would benefit myself, City, and Apres-coup more than an influx of our students. I will gladly hold myself responsible for the repercussions.

All meetings are held at the School of Visual Arts- 214 East 21st Street (between 2nd and 3rd Avenue) and you can always check their website at www.apres-coup.org.

Listed below are a few of their larger meetings:

Alba Flesler
Saturday, May 13, 2006 10:30 A.M.–2:00 P.M.
"The Times of the Subject and the Place of the Parents in Child Analysis"

Psychoanalysis was characterized from the start by a focus on adults’ neuroses. Work with patients who don’t fit that category invites us to reconsider the limits and scope of the analytic act. In addressing the question of subjectivity, this workshop will map out the coordinates characteristic of the analyst’s interventions in a child analysis. Special attention will be paid to the specific requirements imposed by the “times” of childhood.

The Reading Freud Series focusing on The Psychopathology of Everyday Life

David Lichtenstein
Saturday, March 11, 2006 10:30 A.M.–2:00 P.M.
How Is It Possible to Slip?

Claude Rabant
Friday, March 17, 2006 6:30 P.M.–9:00 P.M. and
Saturday, March 18, 2006 10:30 A.M.–2:00 P.M.
Reading Freud's The Psychopathology of Everyday Life: Names Proper and Foreign: Chance, Coincidence, and the Unconscious in Everyday Life

Leo Bersani
Friday April 7 6:30-9:00
Going Bareback and Being American

Daniel Lemler
Saturday, April 29, 2006 10:30 A.M.–2:00 P.M.
Agieren, A Play in Five Acts

Other upcoming events

Jean-Michel RabatéFriday May 5 6:30-9:00
How to Begin Reading Joyce’s Ulysses

Isidoro Vegh
Friday May 12 6:30- 9:00
Our Fellow Man: Knotting and Unknotting Jouissance

Martine Aniel
Date TBA
Paranoia/Obsessional Neurosis: Differential Diagnosis, a Case Presentation