Sinthome

Definition

The sinthome is a term employed by Jacques Lacan to indicate a characteristic of the function which the writing had for the writer James Joyce. This concept was elaborate in the years 1975-1976, during the seminar entitled the sinthome . This takes direction as soon as one follows the development of the Psychanalyse since Freud until Lacan. As much Freud located the Symptôme as being much more one attempt of cure that a disease with the medical direction of the term, as much Jacques Lacan considered the symptom as what makes it possible on a subject to fall under a bond.

As evoked in its preceding work, inter alia Lituraterre , 1971, the existence of the Langage is always supposed to introduce a division under the condition of the Sujet. But so in the majority of the cases this division is what is articulated in the word since his report/ratio in the Oedipus, it may be that the writing makes it possible to treat on its own plan such a division (where what is supposed is not only the language, but the “Lalangue”).

In this work, Jacques Lacan thus made the assumption that a work of writing could be radically distinct from the articulation of the word referring to the Oedipus (foreclosed or not), but comparable with the functions which the word œdipienne supports as soon as it is a question of measuring the way by which a subject ties his report/ratio with the other, and the Other of the language. Starting from this assumption and of his development of the Node borroméen (R.S.I., cf bibliography), Jacques Lacan tried to give an account of the way by which the literary creation of James Joyce succeeds where, for this subject, the Name-Of-Father probably foreclosed, is not operative.

Let us recall that with the node borroméen, it was not only any more the word which was studied as what has a function at a subject, but directly the way by which a subject is put up with the existence of the language. So in the Névroses this proposal of articulation specific to the development lacanienne is organized through a Co-dependence between the three registers of reality, of the symbolic system and of the imaginary one which compose the node, this Nouage is different in the psychoses, either by the setting in continuity of the three registers, or by impossibility for one of them of binding to both others. But in these cases (psychoses), which is articulated by a subject is marked by this failure of the node, by impossibility for the three registers of tying way borroméenne.

At James Joyce, the possibility of existence of a Symptôme psychotic made it possible Jacques Lacan to stress that the round of imaginary did not tie with the rounds symbolic system and reality. On the other hand, the proven absence of the development of a Is delirious psychotic and the originality of the writing of James Joyce pushed Jacques Lacan to consider that the writing like practice, had had a particular function in tying. On the assumption of the node borroméen, Jacques Lacan has thus advanced that the writing had made it possible James Joyce to make hold together the three rounds of the imaginary one, of reality and the symbolic system, the practice of the writing of James Joyce having functioned like fourth term, while coming to connect between them these three rounds.

In this proposal of articulation, Jacques Lacan called “sinthome”, or “Synthomme” this fourth round, in a word game having for references on the one hand, the role which admiration would have held that James Joyce could have towards holy Thomas d' Aquin, “saint-man”, and, on the other hand, the usual writing of the word symptom.

Topicality of the concept

By extrapolation, in the contemporary Psychanalyse, the term of sinthome is used by certain psychoanalysts to indicate what at a subject succeeds in making hold together the three rounds of the imaginary one, of reality, and the symbolic system. However, if such feat of ingenuity can to be succeeded by subject (through a practice which is not necessarily of the Littérature), others find more logical than the name of this function refers to the particular report/ratio maintained by the subject with the language. Since the term sinthome is specific to the experiment joycian, these psychoanalysts prefer to him that of Suppléance (although this concept can make him-also debate), as long as a term suitable for each particular case is not found.

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