• The debate around the treatment of autism continues to dominate almost all current French psychoanalytic output.  On 8th March the French public health body the Haute Autorité de Santé published it’s report on autism, Autisme et autres troubles envahissants du développementLacan Quotidien has a summary of its conclusions, in French, here. With the French press heralding that the report would be critical of psychoanalytic interventions, a few days prior to its publication several Lacanian analysts, including Jacques-Alain Miller and Eric Laurent, held a press conference in Paris to stake their position “against the behaviourists, against those promoting medication to the very young”. French site La Regle du Jeu has video extracts from the press conference here. News of the controversy has crossed the channel, though a less than balanced piece on BBC News provides English-speaking readers only limited context on the furore. Lacanian analyst Eric Laurent’s piece for Le Nouvel Observateur, Autism and Psychoanalysis: The True Issues gives a better overview, though is only available to date in French (though of course you can always use Google Translate). The international petition for a psychoanalytic approach to autism is still hosted on Lacan Quotidien for anyone that wants to sign it – a link and English translation is available here.

 

 

 

  • Podcast from the recent Maudsley Debate on the motion ‘This house believes that psychoanalysis has a valuable place in modern mental health services’. For the record, the vote went 260 in favour, 38 against. Listen here

 

  • Lacanian psychoanalyst Bernard Burgoyne is currently doing a five-part series on topology, Secrets of Space, at Tate Modern in London. You can see the video of an earlier talk with Etienne Balibar, ‘Topology – Spaces of Transformation: Borders’, on Tate Modern’s website here.

 

  • The London Society of the New Lacanian School will be hosting a Study Day on Saturday 14th April in London on the subject of the symptom. Full details here. The Study Day is in preparation for the VIIIth Congress of the World Association of Psychoanalysis, to be held in Buenos Aires at the end of April, and which will focus on The Symbolic Order in the 21st Century. Full details of that on the WAP’s site here.

 

  • Ricardo Rieppi has put together this Facebook page for current and prospective candidates and those clinicians wishing to pursue the a psychoanalytic training (though not necessarily in the Lacanian orientation). 

 

  • Lacanian Ink 39, on Lacan’s Life, is due to be published this spring. It will feature a translation of Jacques-Alain Miller’s essay Vie de Lacan which was published to mark the 30th anniversary of his father-in-law’s death in September last year. Keep an eye on Lacan.com for details.

 

 

  • Finally, a date for the diary later in the year – Alison Bancroft, author of one of this years most intriguing and original books on psychoanalysis, Fashion and Psychoanalysis: Styling the Self, will be giving a talk at the Freud Museum on 25th September. Details to follow.