“But, first, does it in fact exist, and if so what is it? Is it the name of something so sufficient unto itself—i.e., as a continent—as to have identity? Is it the name of a concept? And what could this concept have to do with psychoanalysis?”
-it’s just a concept; a construct created by society
“For psychoanalysis has an earth, sole and singular. An earth that is to be distinguished from the world of psycho analysis. It is not my purpose today to inquire how it goes with the psychoanalytic world, or whether psychoanalysis is a world, or even whether it is of this world, but observe the figure which psychoanalysis in its becoming-a world, in its ongoing worldification, inscribes upon the earth, upon the surface of mankind's earth, upon the body of the earth and of mankind.”
-exactly, how psychoanalysis informs the world around it
“It suggests that for psychoanalysis there are continents, semi-continents, peninsular entities—some of them peninsulas thickly settled by psychoanalysts and psychoanalysis, others as yet virgin, half-continents black or white; and that there is more or less one dark continent only, and one more or less dark—dark, that is, as uncleared or unexplored land is dark, black like femaleness, like a sex, like the skin of some, like evil, like the unutterable horror of violence, torture, and extermination. All this made me wonder whether it might not be possible to adopt a sort of "map reading" approach to psychoanalysis”
-another methodology?
“How could an event be expected to take place if one responded only after having understood the question or invitation, only after having monitored the nature and meaning of the question, demand, or provocation?”
“Interestingly enough, it was once again in connection with telepathy and thought transference that Freud, in a letter to Jones, used the ex pression "foreign policy" in speaking of psychoanalysis as a global institution, as though this organization were a kind of state seeking to govern its relations with the rest of the world”
-psychoanalysis is now a way to view the world and a way to interpret life’s unanswerable questions
“The symptom is always a foreign body, and must be deciphered as such; and of course a foreign body is always a symptom, and behaves as a symptom in the body of the ego it is a body foreign to the body of the ego. That is what I am doing here; I constitute a symptom, I am the symptom, I play that role—if not for each one of you separately, then at any rate for the ego, so to speak, of psychoanalysis as an institution”
“These are among those parts of "the rest of the world" where psychoanalysis has never set foot, or in any case where it has never taken off its European shoes. I don't know whether you will find such considerations trivial or shocking. Naturally, there are outposts of your European or American psychoanalytic societies in these regions, notably in Africa, in particular places formerly or still under colonial or even neo colonial rule”
-interesting to consider what information is transferred between cultures and how it evolves and changes
“" It seemed to me that the formulation "geographical and economic circumstances" was standing in place of something that was not being said, and this distinctly not by reason of circumstances of a geographical or economic order.”
“First of all, there is no denying that this protest statement does bear some fairly specific characteristics. It is aimed, we read, at a variety of worldwide health organizations; and it is concerned with psychotherapeutic methods which deprive individuals of their "legitimate freedom," with treatments "based on political considerations," or "the interference with professional confidentiality for political purposes”
“The second inadequacy relates to the formality of the IPA's declaration. Let me make it quite clear right away that I have never subscribed purely and simply to the old critique of the formalism of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, as developed early on in Marxist circles. Not that that critique was without merit—indeed, the best proof of its merit lies in the fact that in countries flying the flag of socialism formal constitutions based on respect for the rights of man have never posed the slightest impediment (even when they are formally respected) to the most horrendous violence”
-the power in who is interpreting the document and who is able to question what is intended
“All these efforts and their products, which have the form of traditional legal pronouncements, are doubtless not as subtle as they might be in their conceptualization, nor as speedy as they might be in their application.”
“Are the causes of the difficulty inherent to the discourse of psychoanalysis, to its practice, to the institutional forms it re quires and to the relations it is obliged to entertain with the dominant political forces? Or are things difficult for reasons which are neither essential nor general, but which derive from a particular dominant state of the theory, the practice or the institutional forms?”
“Under given conditions, once a protocol has been established, naming can become a historical and political act responsibility for whose performance is inescapable”
“To call Latin America by its name, by what that name seems to mean for psychoanalysis today. At least as a start. All I could hope to contribute to that appeal today was: the naming of Latin America.”
