Schroeder, Jeanne L. The Four Lacanian Discourses or Turning Law Inside-Out. New York: Routledge-Cavendish, 2008.
Discourse of the Analyst
The analyst, … takes on the role of the objet petite a itself. “[T]he agent (analyst) reduces himself to the void that provokes the subject into confronting the truth of his desire.” [Žižek Lacan’s Four Discourses]
This is significantly different from the two discourses of power. Both the master and university address the other with the voice of positivity. The master speaks from the position of authority telling you what to do. The university speaks from the position of expertise lecturing you why you should do it.
The analyst and the hysteric, in contrast, speak from radical negativity. In the analyst’s discourse “the analyst plays the part of pure desirousness.” The analyst asks, “What do you want to do?” … Similarly the attorney in her role as counsellor must empty herself of her positive content to identify with her client’s needs. 108
By addressing the analysand from the position of the cause of the analysand’s own desire, she stands in for that which is missing. … Consequently, the analyst’s address consists largely of silence – through an absence of speech. The analysand speaks to fill in the gap represented by the analyst. 🙂 This is the most straight forward of explanations of the Analyst Discourse
When the analyst does speak, it is not in her own voice as master or teacher. She tries to articulate the analysand’s voice, helping him to articulate his desire – to dissolve the traumatic symptom lost in the real by integrating it into the symbolic. The other addressed by the object of desire is the barred subject himself. The analyst “”interrogates the subject in his or her division, precisely at those points where the split between consciousness and unconscious shows through.”
The truth hidden beneath the analyst is knowledge. Lacan calls the analyst “the subject supposed to know.” The analysand goes to the analyst because the analysand is a barred subject – he is traumatized, unhappy, and alienated. The analyst is the expert who is supposed to know what is wrong. The knowledge that is the truth underlying the objet petite a is neither savoir faire nor expertise. Rather, this hidden knowledge is the analysand’s own unconscious knowledge. The truth of the analysand’s desire is within himself. This is not to deny that the person who is a psychoanalyst also has savoir faire – she knows how to treat patients – and expertise—she is a highly educated professional. Nevertheless, these forms of knowledge are not the truth of analysis.
The result of analysis is the master signifier. But this time, it is not the master signifier imposed upon her by the Big Other (as in the master’s discourse) but his own “new master signifiers (S1), ultimate values, formulations of their identity or being.”