The Lacan Ward: Pharmacology and Subjectivity in Buenos Aires

Author： Lakoff Andrew  

Publisher： Berghahn Journals

ISSN： 1558-5727

Source： Social Analysis, Vol.47, Iss.2, 2003-06, pp. : 82-101

Disclaimer: Any content in publications that violate the sovereignty, the constitution or regulations of the PRC is not accepted or approved by CNPIEC.

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Abstract

Abstract This essay describes the use of medication by Lacanian psychoanalysts in an acute psychiatric ward in Buenos Aires. In this chaotic and difficult setting, psychotropic drugs provided a way to sustain the object of psychoanalytic knowledge—patient subjectivity. Such drugs enabled the patient to speak—as long as such speech did not include discussions of medication. This ‘ironic’ use of medication was premised on a strict division of labor between the task of the physician and the task of the analyst—and, more fundamentally, on a distinction between the body and the subjectivity of the patient, known as ‘structuralist dualism’. In effect, physician‐analysts in the ward gave medication not to treat the illness directly, but in order to remain Lacanian.

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