The Body in the Preliminary Sessions
Dries G.M. Dulsster
In his seminar ...Ou pire, Lacan (2011 [1971-1972]), discussing the preliminary sessions, stresses the presence of two bodies. Enigmatic at first, now, for me, this remark indicates a crucial shift for what is at stake in the preliminary sessions. As in the matheme of transference (Lacan, 2001 [1967]) the focus concerns the knotting of an epistemic and therapeutic question, Lacan now specifies one must also take into account the silent question of the drive. What he stresses is the fact that the body of the analyst is not only a body that sits on a chair all day but is also a body that is part of the analytic discourse; it is an instrument, it incarnates a presence, a being there. The analyst must be able to play with her gaze and voice, her presence and absence, be able to take the place of the object a. What is of essence in the analytic act, is that the analyst pivots in the position of the object a (Miller, 1984). As such, this bodily remnant, which manifests itself through presence, is essential for the establishment of the analytical process (Miller, 1995).
The analysant not only puts the analyst in the position of the subject-supposed-to-know but also assumes the analyst to have the object that causes desire. One does not only want to love another for their knowledge, but also to receive an object, e.g., a gaze or a voice from the other, they want to see and be seen, speak and be spoken to. Undeniably, these elements of the drive will already appear in the preliminary interviews: After the first couple of sessions, an analysant discussed a dream in which she held a box, secretly opening it. Looking up, she sees me looking at her, suddenly feeling caught and ashamed. The gaze of the other had a fueling effect on her desire. The analyst enters the experience as a being (...) as an agalmatic object, as the bearer of something that the subject, for its part, is deprived off (Miller, 1995). As such, for the analyst it is not enough to support the function of Tiresias. As Apollinaire says, he still has to have breasts’ (Lacan, 1973 [1964], p. 243).
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