NEW FOUNDATIONS FOR PSYCHOANALYSIS IBD

Sinopse

The appearance ofáNew Foundations for Psychoanalysisáin 1987 marked the beginning of five years that may be the period of LaplancheâÇÖs greatest synthetic creativity during which he articulated the central concepts of his thinking. Along witháNew Foundationsáthis period saw the seminar on aprÿs-coup of 1989-1990-later published as Problématiques VI, the seminar of 1991-1992 published asáProbléma¡tiques VII: Le fourvoiement biologisant de la sexualité chez Freudáand, in an English translation by Donald Nicholson-Smith, asáThe Temptation of Biology: FreudâÇÖs Theories of Sexualityáand much else.New Foundationsáis a synthesis of LaplancheâÇÖs conceptual research going back toáLife and Death in Psychoanalysisáof 1970 and, before that, to works co-authored with J.-B. Pontalis and with Serge Leclaire. Referring toáProblématiques IáthrougháProblématiques Vá(1970 - 1984), Laplanche writes, 'Now the moment has come to show how my positions are connected with each other.' He certainly does just that and, most importantly,áNew Foundationsáwas the first major presenta¡tion of the General Theory of Seduction (GTS) that guided his work for the rest of his life even as he continued to refine it.Later, from a different angle Laplanche refers to the GTS as the Funda¡mental Anthropological Situation. The GTS will provide the basis for unearthing and extending FreudâÇÖs translational model of repression leading Laplanche to propose 'a translational model of aprÿs-coup and, more generally, a translational model of the theory of seduction and even a translational model of the constitution of the human being.' He will speak of translational theories of psychic trauma, of infantile sexu¡ality, and ultimately, of translation as a mechanism at the origin of the human subject as a self-narrating, self-theorizing creature.'Starting from radical, violent challenges to established themes inevitably leads to a new theme with new patterns, new concepts or a new framework for the concepts that emerge. My positions on drive, narcissism, language, and many other topics are precise, but in the Problématiques they appear in a scattered form. Now the moment has come to show how my positions are connected.á Will this entail schematization and oversimplification? To some degree that is inevitable, and from the beginning of this presentation I unhappily feel that weight, which is to say the necessity to cover the theme of foundations and the desire to get to my conclusions. So, in this text, I am in a race against the clock and my approach will be less that of the flaneur and less in the form of a 'spiral development' of ideas, than was my approach in the Problématiques.'-Jean Laplanche