[The-Lacanalyst] As a temporary conclusion

[Tate]

Dearest Jacques and Folks,

In your last emails, there is always a looming question of risk. I will respond to your
question on the risk of working analytically in the US. I then have a question of my
own about the risk of working analytically in France that I hope you will respond to.

But first, in response to the following:

> If you confirm this approach is possible in the USA without the major danger of
> being sued by IPA or any other Health dept, for me it is good to hear this. And
> Therefore the use of the concept of lacanalyst is useless. If you confirm
> that someone with no specific diploma can put a plaque on his door mentioning
> "Psychoanalysis" in California and can receive public and won't have
> legal problems that's fine and great for me.
> 
> This is not what I heard when I talked to Aviva, Kris or John. That's the reason
> why I tried to invent a counter measure.

I can confirm that in the US, anywhere but New York (and maybe Mass.), there is no law
restricting the use of the title psychoanalyst and you need no license to practice. The proof of the pudding is 
you will find at PLACE people working as analysts who have no diploma, no license, and not sued (if that is your
worry), for the last 20 years. Some of them, besides myself, were even present at the time before last
meeting on Zoom. The problem of working legally with the prevailing laws in CA was resolved a long time ago, at
least for those working at PLACE. This is not the problem today.

I am not saying some people will not have problems actually establishing an analytic practice – this impossibility
is intrinsic whether you are in France or the US – in fact, some people have so many problems that all that
they can think of doing is to get a psychology degree, or some kind of therapy degree, or a psychiatry degree,
then try to improvise something around that. Unfortunately, if this professional basis is used as the standard for
an entry to the US public, then such entries are themselves phobic, and it is no surprise that people would
be scared. But I do not think they should be scared of being sued, I think the problem is much worse: they 
should be scared of the s’autotorize which I described in my last missive. I think R. Bauknight is just one
warning among others of what not to do in this manner when trying to enter into a psychoanalytic discourse:
no doubt, she had a psychoanalytic transfer and threw great parties, but was there any analysis? In the end,
there are people who work at PLACE who do have psychology degrees and the rest, but it just takes a little
more time to work and show what is at stake to get beyond the crazy and fears.

In the end, Jacques, for me and others, since  the questions that are being asked about the Laws in the US have
been resolved, I would ask today not how to game the US system, but how to establish fundamentally that
one is, or has, ever worked as an analyst in the first place? If it is only the s’autotortize that is appealed to here, then, again, there
is more than a risk of being sued, there is the risk of crazy (knowing full well that analysis is part of its own clinic). 

So, if you will permit my question to you Jacques. We know that Lacan started a ’Section Clinique’ in France
whose intention was to make room for the entry of psychoanalysis into psychiatry in France. But in fact, we know just the
opposite happened: psychiatry entered into psychoanalysis and never left (even though Lacan disbanded the school and the clinic).

Today, we find, and I have been told by many that the problem of practicing Lacanian analysis  in France is that the two Apostles, 
Melman and Miller, have maintained a professionalization and psychiatrization of analysis that holds its participants captive in a Lacanian Ghetto, 
with little or no work of consequence. That is why I left and it is why Vappereau also left. 

So this is my question to you: do you agree that the psychiatrization of Lacanian analysis in France has
made it impossible to work at analysis in France? 

I would be relieved if you could answer this question.

Best to you and friends,

ScullyRobert









> On Nov 26, 2025, at 3:32 AM, Jacques B. Siboni via The-lacanalyst <the-lacanalyst at lutecium.org> wrote:
> 
> Dear friend
> 
> To give a kind of temporary conclusion, I'll just advance my personal vision.
> When I work as psychoanalyst I would not accept that any health department ask
> me to produce a diploma or license to prove I have the right to practice analysis.
> 
> Of course as long as a patient puts forward this license demand to me, I consider he is
> legitimate to do so, but on the way I direct the cure he is in the process of
> preliminary sessions and not actual analysis.
> 
> If you confirm this approach is possible in the USA without the major danger of
> being sued by IPA or any other Health dept, for me it is good to hear this. And
> Therefore the use of the concept of lacanalyst is useless. If you confirm
> that someone with no specific diploma can put a plaque on his door mentioning
> "Psychoanalysis" in California and can receive public and won't have
> legal problems that's fine and great for me.
> 
> This is not what I heard when I talked to Aviva, Kris or John. That's the reason
> why I tried to invent a counter measure.
> 
> All the best my friend
> 
> Jacques
> 
> 
> -- 
> The-lacanalyst mailing list
> The-lacanalyst at lutecium.org
> https://lutecium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/the-lacanalyst

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