Pierre Malengreau, Note on the Construction of the Case

NLS Messager 38 - 2010/2011
<strong>Pierre</strong> <strong>Malengreau</strong>, <strong>Note</strong> on the Construction of the Case
In this note from 2001*, <strong>Pierre</strong> <strong>Malengreau</strong> lays down the following thesis: what is specific in the
psychoanalytic approach to the case is that it includes the orientation to the experience of the real in it,
thus corresponding to what a psychoanalysis is. The question is: “What place do we give to the real of the
clinic in the way we report our cases?”
<strong>Malengreau</strong> particularly takes from an article by J.-A. Miller, “Homologue of Malaga”, which, with its
theory of sequences offers an appropriate logical instrument for the construction of the case. You have on
the one hand the sequence without any surprise, which is entirely determined; on the other hand, you have
the sequence that takes into account the undecidable not-all, which includes the unknown element, a hole;
the latter would suit psychoanalytic case construction: itconsists in “revealing the incidence of the nonprogrammed
in the sequence” and the real of the encounter, of the “as if by chance”.
He adds that this inclusion of “chance” also applies to the use we make of case constructions: a
“demonstrative practice” - as opposed to an “objective practice”, - is thus inseparable from the School as
a place of transference to work.
Let us read this as an invitation to state this orientation to the real in our forthcoming clinical conversation
in London on “How Psychoanalysis Works”.
Anne Lysy
*This text is taken from the booklet “Liminaires des XXX e Journées de l’ECF”, and also appeared in
Lettre Mensuelle n° 202 (November 2002)
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<strong>Note</strong> on the Construction of the Case
<strong>Pierre</strong> <strong>Malengreau</strong>
Is there a mode of clinical presentation, Eric Laurent has recently asked1, that favours the isolation of a
psychoanalytic problem as such? The question is double-edged: it relates to both the clinical material
presented and the use we make of it, to different ends, that of teaching or transmission, of monstration or
demonstrating. Thus, it is worthwhile unfolding this question in so far as a certain clinical use, based on the
case, may on occasion go against the very clinic it came from. Which use do we make of our cases in our
presentations, in our teaching? Is there a way proper to psychoanalysis of speaking about its cases?
The psychoanalytic clinic requires an approach to the case that does not deny its aim from the outset. It
supposes an approach to the case that includes an orientation of the experience towards the real.2 The
experience of the real in analysis is the experience of an encounter with an evasive real. Two dimensions of
the real are joined in this definition, one concerns the real as encounter, as irruption, and the other concerns
the real as outside-sense (hors-sens). An approach to the case that is in agreement with this orientation
towards the real therefore supposes the inclusion of contingency in its construction. “The psychoanalytic
clinic must interrogate analysts, so that they account for what is hazardous in their practice”3. Lacan invites
us to take seriously the fact that there is an element of chance in the psychoanalytic experience, which is
part of the experience itself, and it is by treating this part “in the right manner”4 that we get the chance to
transmit what is specific to it. What place do we give to the real of the clinic in the way we report our
cases?
A remark made by J.-A. Miller enables us to unfold this question. Evoking certain phenomena of libidinal
irruption, he insists on the necessity of situating them in their symbolic process. “Otherwise”, he says, “we
will find ourselves in a clinic whose neck I would like to wring, to borrow Eric Laurent's immortal
expression, a clinic of merely saying 'Oh well, he is invaded by jouissance', 'Why do these spots appear on
the patient's body?’, 'This is a phenomenon of jouissance.' This is not what we do. I say that wemust try, in
all cases, to reconstruct that through which we have access to the alienation phase, in order to give the right
place to the phenomena concerning separation.”5
This remark denotes and opposes two approaches to the case, and consequently two conceptions of the
clinic.
The first takes delights in a clinic that can be called objective. The objective clinic relies on what can be
observed, be it from an innocent point of view or an informed one. It makes use of the master signifier for
purposes of identification. The notion of jouissance to which reference was made here is denatured in this
case as anobservation tool. No longer being in touch with the real of the experience it loses its conceptual
pertinence. The Lacanian psychoanalyst should not settle the case on this use of the concepts.
The other clinic, we may call demonstrative, leans on a mode of case construction that takes into account
that not all can be said, or that the operation of alienation, as constructed as it may be, can nevercover what
operates on the side of separation. This clinic, founded on the Freudian temporality of the après-coup,
needs instruments that do not belong to observation, but to logic. The articulation between the intuitive
notion of the series and sequence theory, which J.-A. Miller put forward in “Homologue of Malaga”6 can
guide us here.
The analytic experience is first of all an experience of serialisation of the signifiers that matter to the
subject. It is about a subject apprehending the different traits, memories and identifications that marked his
history. We start from there. We start step by step with puttinginto a series of what is important to the
analysand. The construction of a case passes first through this tracking. However, this is not specifically
psychoanalytic. Describing the symbolic order in which a subject is captured is not what is proper to a
practice oriented towards the real7. The tracking and serialisation of the identifications, the regressive
signifiers, may well take us back to what Lacan called “the ordinary lure of understanding”8. Isn't it
therefore necessary that in our constructions a lack of a signifier in the signifyingchain that determines the
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subject shall appear, and that this lack is not accidental? This lack must be nevertheless specified if we
want to deciphermore closely the real that is at stake in our praxis.
This is where the sequence theory can be useful to design a case construction that is appropriate to
psychoanalysis. J. -A. Miller distinguishes two kinds of sequences. The first, so called normal, is “the one
we derive from an all”. It is a sequence without surprise. It presents itself in a completely determined
manner. Thecase constructions that come out of it, often convincing in their form, leave behind a sense of
déjà vu reinforced by the absence of a clinical edge.
J.-A. Miller points out another kind of sequence, a sequence that relies on the connection between the logic
of the treatment and the feminine position. This sequence differs from the preceding one in that it leans on
this very particular lack with regard to the universal, which Lacan designates with the term of the not-all.
“The properly Lacanian not-all should not be confused with the not-all of incompletion, with which it has
nothing to do, to which it is opposed”. The not-all of incompletion is what can be understood in the form of
an element lacking to the set. The Lacanian not-all is utterly different. “It is the undecidable not-all”.
The example proposed by J.-A. Miller of a candy-eater evokes the example of the card game that fuels the
most arguments between children, a game we call “war”. Each time the two players lay a card on the table,
they form a sequence determined by a rule by which the highest card wins. Suppose that we introduce an
additional rule that would add a card, such as a joker, with whatever value, so that the player who has it in
his hand could use it as he sees fit, or even not use it at all, if that's what he likes. This changes the whole
game. This new fact introduces an unpredictable element into the sequence, an unknown. This gives the
game of war the structure of an encounter, of tuché, which implicates the desire of the player. We have here
another kind of sequence, a sequence that includes the unknown, a hole in the sequence itself.
The case construction proper to psychoanalysis may here find a logical foundation. It would mean in this
case, to construct a sequence that would reveal, in the sequence itself, not a missing term but the
undecidable part that it includes. Concretely, this consists in revealing the incidence of the nonprogrammed
in the sequence. The only sequence that would suit the construction of the case, for
psychoanalysis, is therefore a sequence that would include the hazardous part of the experience. Certain
testimonies of the Pass go in this direction. They could serve as examples for our constructions.
One might of course object to the view that once a sequence has been constructed, it becomes in turn a
description of the case. That would mean to underestimate the scope of Lacan's invitation to take seriously
what the analytic experience owes to the real of the encounter. The inclusion of the “as if by chance”9 in
the case construction is not only of value for the constructed sequence. It is also of value for the use we
make of it. The demonstrative clinic by this fact turns out to be inseparable from the School. Objective
clinic and demonstrative clinic are here opposed. The first expects from the partner love and recognition.
The second includes interlocution. It invites conversation and it offers for debate the sequential material
that makes it possible. The demonstrative clinic gives itself “a partner who has the chance to respond”10. It
thus inscribes itself in the transference to work.
Translated by Noa Farchi
1 Laurent, E., Poétique pulsionnelle, La Lettre Mensuelle , 198, p. 2.
2 Lacan, J., The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. Transl. : Sheridan, A., p. 53.
3 Lacan, J., Ouverture de la section clinique, Ornicar ? , 9, p. 14.
4 Lacan, J., Le sinthome, Seuil, 1999. p. 15.
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5 Miller J.-A., La Conversation d’Arcachon, Agalma-Le Seuil, 1997, p. 249-250.
6 Miller J.-A., « L’homologue de Malaga », La Cause freudienne nº26, 1993.
7 Laurent, E.,Logique du temps et mode du sujet, Cahier de l'ACF-Val de Loire et Bretagne, nº1,
1993.
8 Lacan, J., The Direction of the Treatment and the Principles of its Power, Ecrits. Transl. : Fink,
B. p. 636.
9 Lacan, J., The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. Transl. : Sheridan, A. p. 54.
10 Lacan, J., Introduction à l'édition allemande des écrits, Autres écrits, Seuil, 2001. p. 558.
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