THE MODIFICATION OF KNOWLEDGE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR THE TRANSFERENCE

ABSTRACT

This article is an excerpt from the research for a Master's degree in the Stricto Sensu Graduate Program in Psychology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais, supported by the Foundation for the Support to the Researches in Minas Gerais (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais - [FAPEMIG]). It aimed to investigate the implications of contemporary discourse in establishing transference in analysis today. Among his formulations, Lacan (1964-2008) theorizes the transferential phenomenon from the epistemological dimension when he postulates the function of the ‘subject supposed to know’ as its pivot. However, the incidence of the contemporary master's discourse modifies the relation that the subject establishes with the knowledge field. What are the clinical consequences of this new relationship? What uses does the subject make of the analyst today? We will seek to verify the existence of new forms of transference, which are not established solely by the knowledge assumption. Thus, we will see that there are different uses for the analyst, and the transference can be set through knowledge via, but also through its drive dimension.

Keywords:
Transference; subject supposed to know; contemporary master's discourse

RESUMO.

Este artigo é um recorte da pesquisa de mestrado do Programa de Pós-graduação stricto sensu em Psicologia, pela Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais, financiada pela Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais - Fapemig. Sua proposta é a de investigar as implicações do discurso contemporâneo no estabelecimento da transferência na análise hoje. Dentre suas formulações, Lacan (1964-2008) teoriza o fenômeno transferencial a partir da dimensão epistemológica, quando postula a função do ‘sujeito suposto saber’ como o seu pivô. Todavia, a incidência do discurso do mestre contemporâneo modifica a relação que o sujeito estabelece com o campo do saber. Quais as consequências clínicas dessa nova relação? Quais usos o sujeito faz do analista hoje? Buscaremos verificar a existência de novas formas de transferência, que não se instauram unicamente pela via da suposição de saber. Veremos, assim, que há diferentes usos para o analista, podendo a transferência ser estabelecida pela via do saber, mas também pela sua dimensão pulsional.

Palavras-chave:
Transferência; sujeito suposto saber; discurso do mestre contemporâneo

RESUMEN.

Este artículo es un recorte de la investigación de maestría del Programa de Postgrado Stricto Sensu en Psicología de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Minas Gerais, financiada por la Fundación de Amparo a la Investigación del Estado de Minas Gerais - FAPEMIG. Su propuesta es la de investigar las implicaciones del discurso contemporáneo en el establecimiento de la transferencia en el análisis hoy. Entre sus formulaciones, Lacan (1964-2008) teoriza el fenómeno transferencial a partir de la dimensión epistemológica, cuando postula la función del ‘sujeto supuesto saber’ como su pivote. Sin embargo, la incidencia del discurso del maestro contemporáneo modifica la relación que el sujeto establece con el campo del saber. ¿Cuáles son las consecuencias clínicas de esta nueva relación? ¿Qué usos el sujeto hace del analista hoy? Buscaremos verificar la existencia de nuevas formas de transferencia, que no se instaura únicamente por la vía de la suposición de saber. Veremos, así, que hay diferentes usos para el analista, pudiendo la transferencia ser establecida por la vía del saber, pero también por su dimensión pulsional.

Palabras clave:
Transferencia; sujeto supuesto saber; discurso del maestro contemporáneo

Introduction

Transference is closely related to a question of knowledge. This is not by chance. In the Seminar book 11 - The Four Fundamental Concepts Of Psychoanalysis, Lacan (1964-2008) configures transference as one of the four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis, together with the unconscious, the drive and repetition. However, the greatest of Lacanian contributions to the theme is precisely the formulation of the ‘subject supposed to know’ function. This function is established from a subjective error, from a belief in the analyst who knows and from an addressing to the Other, and, in this perspective, the question of knowledge will be at stake.

From the Seminar book 17 - The Opposite Of Psychoanalysis, Lacan (1969/1970-1992) formalizes the Theory of Discourses. He postulates the Master's Discourse as the discourse of the unconscious and the Analyst's Discourse as its reverse. Years later, facing a modification of the Master's Discourse, Lacan (2017) will point out to the Capitalist's Discourse, legitimizing it as the modern master's speech. Today, we witness its consequences in the way subjects relate to each other, consume, and make social bonds.

We will investigate the incidence of contemporary discourse in the clinic field, demonstrating how it implies a change in the relation that the subject establishes with knowledge. We will question the place of the psychoanalyst from the uses that the subject makes of the analytical device, founding new modes of transference manifestation beyond the relation with knowledge.

Contemporary discourse

Psychoanalysis follows issues relating to the horizon of its time. What is the place for psychoanalysis in the contemporary world? Miller (2004) will question himself about the status of the hypermodern civilization, in which what he calls ‘unbuttoned subjects’ are found. The author will associate this disorientation of the subjects with the dissolution of ‘civilized morality’ - as named by Freud -, which remained as a compass in the face of the subject's structural helplessness. If we have lost civilized sexual morality like the compass of the past, the reason is that nowadays we have another one: the objet petit a (object a). As a characteristic of our time, we observe the rise of the objet petit a - the surplus-jouissance object - to the social zenith.

A new star had risen in the social sky, in the ‘sociel’. Lacan registered this 'sociel' new star, if I may say so, as objet petit a, the result of a forcing, of a passage beyond the limits discovered by Freud, in his way, precisely in a surplus. An intense element that perimes every notion of measure, always going towards the more, towards the measureless (Miller, 2004, p. 2).

When we talk about the ascending object a, we think of the Capitalist's Discourse. It is worth remembering that the Theory of Discourses is found in Seminar book 17 - The Reverse of Psychoanalysis, delivered between 1969 and 1970, a period marked by the turmoil of a historical and social landmark - the French student movement in May 1968. On this occasion, Lacan formalizes the four radical discourses, which he called Master, University, Hysteric and Analyst. The discourse would be how the subject's relation with the object is governed. In every discourse, we have the agent's place as what promotes it; the other, that the discourse orders to work; the generated product, and still the truth's place. These places are occupied in different ways by the following terms: object a; cause of desire object; barred subject; master and knowledge signifier, which comes to produce the four discourses.

Subsequently, from a modification of the Master's Discourse, the Capitalist's Discourse will emerge, legitimized as the discourse of the modern master. There is a “[…] capital mutation [...] which gives the master's discourse its capitalist style" (Lacan, 1969/1970-1992, p. 160). This mutation is possible from an inversion in the position of the two elements present in the Master's Discourse: ‘signifier’ (S¹) and ‘barred subject’ ($). In the Master's Discourse, the S¹ takes the agent's place and the $ takes the truth's place in the discourse. The capital mutation will give $ the agent's place and S¹ the truth's place. It is only in 1972, at the Milan conference, that Lacan will bring his schema:

Figure 1
Modification of the Master's Discourse to the Capitalist's Discourse.

We cannot forget that object a has the face of the cause of desire object, but also the surplus-jouissance object. In the Capitalist Discourse, the surplus-jouissance object appears in the place of production of the discourse. Capitalism produces modes of jouissance, and this object a reveals itself through gadgets, the consumption objects that allow the subject to freely access jouissance (a > $). In the Capitalist Discourse, there is the production of jouissance and the search for surplus-jouissance, expressed in consumerism and its excesses.

Miller (2004) formulates what is so current in our hypermodern civilization: the object a as the guide of contemporary discourse. As the new guide to civilization today, he points to a new era, the era of jouissance. Surplus-jouissance is seen in exacerbated consumerism, in the imperative of jouissance, in new forms of symptoms, in drug addictions, in what is configured as a surplus, the immeasurable. If the objet petit a places itself in hypermodern civilization as its guide, or as its agent, therefore, we can understand the Millerian observation (which the author himself calls ‘a fantasy’) that “[…] the discourse of hypermodern civilization has the structure of the analyst's discourse” (Miller, 2004, p. 3). Lacan presents the Analyst's Discourse as the reverse of the Master's Discourse, which is the very discursive structure of the unconscious - the reverse of psychoanalysis is the Master's Discourse. However, "The discourse of civilization is no longer the reverse of psychoanalysis. It is its success" (Miller, 2004, p. 3). And this implies consequences for the practice of psychoanalysis. It is also worth pointing out that we take as a guideline to understand our society as a hypermodern society, the Millerian reading that defines our civilization as governed less by ideals than by the object.

Reading the elements of the Analyst's Discourse as a proposal for the new discourse of hypermodern civilization, we can find that it is the surplus-jouissance object in the dominant place of discourse. This object a imposes itself on the unbuttoned subject, making him produce the S¹ of modernity, symbolized by the numerous assessments and questionnaires produced about the subject. On the other hand, knowledge S² is situated in the place of truth, but as a semblance of the lie. However, Miller (2004, p. 3) will say that "[…] these different elements are dispersed in civilization and that only in psychoanalysis, in pure psychoanalysis, these elements are ordered in discourse". It is interesting to note that both in the Analyst's Discourse and the Capitalist's Discourse, object a is directly addressed to the barred subject (a > $), thus demonstrating how the subject of the modern world has free access to the modes of jouissance in both discourses, in his civilizing reading. Therefore, we can understand that the surplus-jouissance presents itself as the guiding element for the contemporary subject.

Miller (2017) will clarify that the Master's Discourse is not without variation. It changes and modifies in our area and time. At each moment, there may be an element occupying the master's dominant place, be it the divided subject ($) of democratic individualism, either knowledge (S²) under the guise of bureaucracy, or object a situated at the social zenith as we have seen above. However, "[…] it is always the S¹ that definitely supports the master's discourse" (Miller, 2017, p. 2). Thus, the discourse of contemporary civilization necessarily refers to the Master's Discourse, which is the discourse of the unconscious as established by Lacan.

There is no longer a compass that serves as a guide and makes an order for the ‘unbuttoned subject’. Therefore, we are confronted with the unrestrained presence of the master in his multiple faces, variations and forms of discourses. The contemporary master has changed, and this change operates in the social sphere and imposes itself on each subject's individual sphere. Today, the jouissance imperative exposed in the capitalist-consumerist way of life puts a series of impasses on the subject in his relationship with this jouissance. We live in a world of excess, a world that demands the satisfaction of each one's modes of jouissance; however, this satisfaction is never done completely; consequently, the subject always wants more, wants to enjoy always more. If the only thing considered for the contemporary master is the satisfaction of the various ways of enjoying each one. In that case, as he gets stronger and stronger, the division of the subject fades away.

Freud creates psychoanalysis in an age whose ‘civilized moral’ remained as an ordering ideal. The symptom was what made an enigma and presented itself as a meaning to be deciphered. From this perspective, we understand that a lack of knowledge always marked the subject's relation with the symptom. Thus, something about the symptom could be apprehended, ordered, and given meaning through the sense. This relation changes in the contemporary world - and this is clearly expressed in the clinic of new symptoms, drug addiction, bulimia, anorexia, among others (Marcos, 2015; Marcos & Mendonça, 2017; Marcos & Sales, 2018). What is considered by the "unbuttoned subject" is only the empire of his jouissance in an ongoing search for the various ways to satisfy him.

If, on the one hand, we can locate an imperative of Enjoy! which proliferates in the jouissance of the symptom, on the other hand, we can see that it does not seem to produce an enigma, remaining devoid of meaning. Something about the meaning is excluded for the subject in this relation: the dimension of knowledge escapes him. The jouissance imperative, characteristic of contemporary discourse, modifies the connection that the subject establishes with knowledge.

The knowledge modification at present

Before the advent of technology, the internet and the Google website, contemporaneity opens a new relation between the subject and knowledge. When confronted with the lack of knowledge, the modern subject seeks his answers where he supposes he can find them: on websites, in applications, on the internet, on the computer, on smartphones. The jouissance imperative puts, for the subject, an urgency, a thrust that belongs to the order of consumption, and knowledge also enters this guideline. Is knowledge one more object of consumption that the subject looks for in the place where he thinks he will be able to find it? With Lacan (1964-2008), we know that transference has its epistemological dimension, which can only be set when establishing its foundation, its pivot: the function of the ‘subject supposed to know’. What is the place for the ‘subject supposed to know’ in this era ruled by the object a, in which there seems to be no assumption of knowledge connected to the subject?

Miller (2007) will point out that there will not always be the establishment of a "subject supposed to know" among the possible effects of a question. When the subject accesses the internet and questions his knowledge through a computer, the impact of this question does not appear to be a knowledge assumption but something of a different order. "Today the encyclopedia is questioned through the computer, through the internet, and perhaps it is not so much an assumption as an anticipation that I will find what I am looking for" (Miller, 2007, p. 8). The subject's interrogation would not start from an assumption, but from an imperative demand to know, anticipation that there would be in the other - whether in Google itself or the search for a Google-analyst - a ready answer with the status of truth. The subject would use knowledge as another object to be consumed.

Leguil (2011), when questioning himself on these effects from the contemporary world for psychoanalysis, will mention the difference between psychoanalytic practice in the Freudian era and today. According to the author, in Freudian times, medicine was anchored in a kind of magic, the magic of words. "This magic of words gave doctors an aura, a reputation that enabled them to improve the patient's condition due to the knowledge that they were supposed to" (Leguil, 2011, p. 41). Leguil reminds us that Freud uses the term ‘physician’ in his first publications but later replaces it with ‘psychoanalyst’. We can say that there is certain anticipation from Freud to Lacan. Freud anticipates an association between the power of the word and the dimension of belief in the figure of the analyst; the magic of words and the knowledge assumption in the doctor had a curative virtue insofar as the uniqueness of that treatment was able to produce some relief for the subject. Is not this love capable of healing through knowledge and speech precisely the function of the ‘subject supposed to know’? In a way, Freud anticipates to Lacan that the function of the word, associated with the analyst's assumption of knowledge, can treat the subject's symptom.

However, nowadays, the power of medicine no longer comes from this medical aura. It comes from science and its gadgets. What was previously supposed knowledge now becomes ‘exposed knowledge’. This modification of the place that knowledge occupies in contemporaneity brings implications for analytical practice, as the subject's relation with knowledge has also changed. Leguil (2011) emphasizes that today the subject no longer arrives at the clinic with a demand for treatment addressed to the figure of the analyst, to whom one would suppose knowledge capable of unraveling the enigma of his symptom; today, it is not so much the assumption that is in question: there is a demand, a claim to knowledge.

When you leave the doctor's office, you go straight to the computer to check whether the prescribed medications are not silliness. This means that the exposed knowledge replaces the supposed knowledge. Physicians, psychologists and psychiatrists, who realized this and who are in the master's speech, understood that this suppression of supposed knowledge by the exposed knowledge destroys the relationship with the patient since the latter will seek this exposed knowledge elsewhere (Leguil, 2011, p. 42).

If today we see knowledge taking the place of demand and a claim, this is due to a specific mode of discourse circulating in our time. The object a as the guide of our civilization points to a jouissance imperative that modifies the way the subject makes bonds and relates to the world - including how he deals with knowledge -, and in this way, everything becomes orderly of consumption, based on the subject's relation with his objects, now situated in the dimension of "having". With this expression, we refer to the phallic logic in which the subject seeks being through having, in which phallic jouissance is seen in the jouissance of the owner, possession, and goods.

We can also consider that there is, in contemporaneity, free access by the subject to the consumption of the knowledge-object. We live in a world of supply, whose use of knowledge on internet search sites, Google, tablets and smartphones is in the palm of everyone's hands. Everybody knows! Everyone knows about everything. However, this growing wave of knowledge ‘for-all’ ends up horizontalizing knowledge to the point that both ignorance and knowledge have the same value. As a result, we attest to the contemporary phenomenon of the pulverization of knowledge. From the moment the modern subject starts to have free access to all kinds of information and data via the internet, everyone soon becomes ‘experts’ in any topic whatsoever. By contrast, true experts now have less knowledge than they used to. That knowledge that was previously localized is now dispersed. It can be said then that, while everyone has free access to every kind of knowledge available, few are believed to know about anything. This phenomenon has been gaining such proportions to the point of entering the psychoanalyst's office. If before it was possible to locate the assumption of knowledge in the figure of the analyst, today, what we can observe is a kind of discredit in him. The analyst's knowledge becomes the same value as my ignorance. Without supposition, what remains is the place of demand, of claim.

However, demand and claim are not the only effects in contemporaneity concerning the place that knowledge occupies for the subject. According to Leguil (2011), its mutations are diverse. Before the contemporary master, we increasingly see ‘exposure knowledge’ giving way to ‘imposed knowledge’, that is, to the numerous protocols, exams and techniques that produce a so-called scientific knowledge and, in doing so, leave the subject and his unconscious knowledge, which as we know, is situated on the side of supposition.

We learn from psychoanalysis that it is essential that we are precise when we are in the language and words field. Now, ‘knowledge assumption’, ‘knowledge anticipation’, and ‘knowledge requirement’ are three very different expressions that need to be differentiated from each other. While the knowledge assumption considers the knowledge of the unconscious, when we are talking about anticipation or requirement, it seems that this demand is of another order than that of unconscious knowledge, but of full, scientific knowledge, in the discourse of ‘for-all’ and with the status of universal truth.

Knowledge under suspicion

When inquiring about the status of contemporary society, Ram Mandil (2005, p. 2) will say that "[…] one of the characteristics of these new times is the questioning of all supposed knowledge and a stimulus to the knowledge exposure […]", thus indicating that today's subjects present a knowledge question, placing "[…] all assumptions under suspicion".

For Miller (2010), we live in a ‘society under suspicion’, whose ideology is not favorable to the foundation of psychoanalysis, precisely because the psychoanalytic practice was established based on transference and the ‘subject supposed to know’. The author will point out that the term ‘supposition’, which composes the phrase ‘subject supposed to know’, can be understood as an instance that is not readily observable. However, when he names our current society as the ‘society under suspicion’, it is precisely to say this opposition between what is suspect and what is supposed. "Well, what I just called the 'society under suspicion' is intolerant towards the supposed knowledge. It is animated by another imperative, which is to make everything explicit, expose everything, show everything" (Miller, 2010, p. 75, our translation³). On the other hand, the knowledge supposition presupposes a fluctuation, the existence of knowledge that is not immediately observable. The knowledge supposition is called into question in the contemporary world. The knowledge that is credited today is not veiled. Quite the contrary, it is the knowledge that shows itself, exposes itself and is readily exhibited.

Faced with the changes in the world and the contemporary master, we also see changes emanating in the dimensions of belief, transference, the function of the ‘subject supposed to know’. Apparently, we live in a time marked by a weakening of the knowledge assumption about the unconscious subject and a consequent modification of the demand for analysis, which now imperatively presents itself by a knowledge that is of another order than the supposition, but rather the requirement and use of this knowledge as an object of consumption. Thus, when the subject seeks an analysis, the analyst must first locate from which place his demand is placed and what relation this subject establishes with the knowledge assumption. Could the subject demand an analysis without addressing knowledge to the Other? How to operate with the transfer in an era ruled by the bankruptcy of the Name-of-the-Father?

Éric Laurent (2018) wonders about the uses we can make of the analytical technique based on Lacan's last teaching. Alluding to Miller, the author emphasizes that from the moment Lacan formulates the decline of the Name-of-the-Father and the theory of generalized foreclosure, the term ‘transference’ almost disappears from his texts.

This way of leaving transference aside, since the subject is no longer approached from the Other, could not free us, since precisely 'Lacan goes over transference, because [...] transference presupposes the Other well-established and well-settled. Is there a transference when it was supposed to know that it would mean something'? (Laurent, 2018, p. 3).

For Lacan, transference is understood from an ‘attributive logic’ in which the analysand transfers/attributes to the analyst the agent's place in the production of knowledge under analysis. However, this attribution is a subjective error, considering that the one who knows during the analysis session is the subject and not the analyst. According to Laurent (2018), the formulation of Lacan's last teaching points to a rupture in the analyst's position regarding the attribution of knowledge. Today, the transference would not happen so much more through the supposition: "[…] we have to understand the analyst's rupture with his anchorage in the supposition. He is not in the place of the subject supposed to know, he is in the place of the one who follows" (Laurent, 2018, p. 4). With the author, we can understand the analyst's place as one who follows the guidance provided by the unconscious. Could this be the indication of a new modality of transference in contemporaneity?

If in the past, the Other presented itself consistently and the ideals guided the subject within a well-established ‘civilized morality’, on the other hand, today, this Other is no longer so incarnate- everything is nothing but a semblance. Consequently, the subject no longer finds guides to compass his structural helplessness, remaining at the mercy of the contemporary master's imperatives.

With Lacan (1964-2008), we learn that transference has an epistemological dimension, from when the function of the ‘subject is supposed to know’ is established. The author will say that “[…] as long as there is somewhere the subject supposed to know, there is transference” (Lacan, 1964-2008, p. 226). However, the relation that the subject establishes with knowledge is no longer the same, since today there is an uninterrupted offer of the knowledge-object, covering up the enigma and the question.

There is a modification of the transference, insofar as what is in the order of the supposition is also altered. The previously extracted knowledge from the relationship with the Other is now more invested in the objects of information technology; it is to these gadgets that the subject demands knowledge today. There is something in the establishment of transference in the contemporary world that seems to be in another field that is not purely that of the relationship with the knowledge assumption, calling the analyst's gaze to the new forms of transference that are founded.

A good use for the analyst/object

When Freud (1912-1996) establishes transference as the mechanism in which the patient includes the analyst in one of his ‘psychic series’, he treats it through its drive aspect. It is again clear to Freud (1914-1996) when he deals with the compulsion to repetition. The importance of repetition for transference is given as it allows the displacement of the content of unconscious representations repressed to the analyst, promoting the continuity of the subject's series of object choices.

Later, when Lacan (1964-2008) defines transference as the update of the sexual reality of the unconscious, as the analyst's mode of presence and as a pulsation in its opening and closing mode, he is also defining it by its drive dimension. However, we can say that the author highlights the concept of knowledge in the Freudian reading, considering the function of the ‘subject supposed to know’. Based on these two dimensions, the analyst can be present in an analysis. We can, then, ask ourselves if today the analyst is being called more from this place of a drive object than from knowledge supposition. If transference is not inclined to relate to the knowledge assumption, would it show more of its drive aspect today?

This seems to be the indication of Ram Mandil (2005). The author states that transference manifestations in contemporaneity demonstrate greater articulation with the drive dimension than with the demand dimension. Faced with the insistent and imperative presence of jouissance, in a context where immeasurable consumption prevails, the contemporary subject reduces the Other to an object as a way of guaranteeing his access to that jouissance. "Transference does not seem to aim at the lack in the Other, giving the impression of being confused with the demands of an absolute presence as a condition for jouissance" (Mandil, 2005, p. 3). We have to remember with Lacan (1964-2008, p. 148) that transference is “[…] the update of the unconscious reality […]”, being that “[…] the unconscious reality is the sexual reality". Then, the contemporary subject seeks to make use of the analyst, aiming at access to jouissance. There is a question of the transference in these new forms based on their drive dimension, summoning the analyst from that place.

Miller (1999) will raise a discussion about the existence of inaccessible or impossible cases for treatment or psychoanalytic experience. According to the author, the term ‘treatment’ was changed in the 1950s based on the reading of Lacan, who attributed to psychoanalysis the meaning of an ‘experience’. As this is an experience, the issue of an indication or contraindication is no longer placed in the foreground but the existence of a demand for analysis by the subject and the desire related to this demand.

What Miller (1999) teaches us is that psychoanalysis is always possible in cases where the subject puts a demand and a desire to the analyst. For this, the psychoanalyst must incarnate as an object - the psychoanalyst/object. There is a place of an object that the analyst must embody, sustaining, in his way, the work of analysis.

This psychoanalyst/object is henceforth available - available on the market as it is said - and lends himself to very different uses from those that had been conceived under the term 'pure psychoanalysis'. Therefore, 'pure psychoanalysis' is no more than one of the uses to which the psychoanalyst lends himself. It is the new face of the indication to analysis. It is minor to anticipate whether the nature of the problem is ‘accessible’ to psychoanalysis than knowing whether the meeting with the analyst will be helpful or not, will do well or not. Let us avoid philosophizing about well and harm. The meeting with an analyst, in general, is good. The psychoanalyst/object is amazingly versatile, available, multifunctional, if I may say so (Miller, 1999, p. 54).

A marketing logic marks contemporary discourse. We face a world of supply and availability for using different objects - be it the jouissance object, knowledge object or psychoanalyst/object. However, Lacan had already taught us that the Analyst's Discourse will always be the reverse of the Master's Discourse. Therefore, access to the psychoanalyst/object occurs differently in contemporary times, not merely through marketing use but instead through treatment. As Miller (1999, p. 54) teaches us above: "[…] the meeting with an analyst, in general, does well […]", since there is no contraindication to the subject's meeting with his/her desire. Insofar as the analyst knows how to occupy the object's place, for any subject that demands an analysis carrying his/her desire, there will then be a place and indication for psychoanalysis in today's world. It will be up to the analyst to know how to be an object, allowing the subject to make good use of it. According to Miller (1999), while the analyst behaves like the object of analysis, its contraindications are reduced to the same extent. It is the presence of the analyst as a multifunctional object that will make analytical work possible.

According to Miller (1999), the analyst as a multifunctional object not only supports being but also offers himself as an object in an analysis, allowing the subject to make good use of him, either to unveil ideal identifications, to serve as a condenser of the jouissance, putting a stop to it, organizing his speech, providing a meaning, introducing a dialectic where meaning is lacking. Faced with transference, "[…] the analyst can be taken as a libidinized object, which witnesses the plasticity of the libido and makes present the very formation of the symptom [...], that is, the analyst/object" (Miller, 2007, p. 18). The analyst is taken as the object of analysis for each subject on a case-by-case basis. Therefore, there is enormous versatility in using the analyst from this place.

Nowadays, we can observe symptoms that do not go through a dialectic of meaning and supposition in the clinic. Consequently, the use of the analyst passes through the aspect of the drive object. In that case, it will be up to him to respond from this place in that is summoned. Through their faces and from nonsense and lack of knowledge, the analyst will be able to carry out a minimal operation in transference, betting on the beginning of an analysis. Ram Mandil (2005) will say that in the face of this new clinic, it is, above all, about

Creating a new relation with knowledge. Search for better conditions so that the unconscious continues to be a dignified way of accessing the analytic cause. In this sense, if there is room for a knowledge supposition in an analysis, it should be measured based on the analyst's use-value by the analysand, as part of knowing how to do with the non-relationship built through the symptom. We can say that there is a knowledge in the use of the symptom-partner, a knowledge that includes the analyst in its exercise (and not as a form of access to jouissance) (Mandil, 2005, p. 4).

The author comes to indicate that the entry into analysis may occur from the creation of a new relation among the subject and knowledge and its symptom, but for that, there must also have a possible partnership with the analyst; a partnership that is not through the use of the analyst as a means of free access to jouissance and as an object of consumption, but perhaps as a condenser of that jouissance, or, as Miller teaches us, a multifunctional analyst who can introduce the least meaning into what there is of most opaque of the symptom. Maybe so, something in the field of supposition and enigma can arise.

According to Miller (2004, p. 9), Lacan's last teaching points to an inversion of the famous and traditional phrase according to which "[…] the subject supposed to know is the pivot of transference". Now we have the transfer as the pivot of the subject supposed to know. This inversion seems to be characteristic of our time and necessary for the understanding of those who practice psychoanalysis. If we understand the transference as the pivot of the subject supposed to know, it is a matter of saying that "[…] what makes the unconscious exist as knowledge is love" (Miller, 2004, p. 9). Love is the element capable of mediating the one-on-one, the so-called ‘unbuttoned subjects’. "The primary unconscious does not exist as knowledge. And for it to become knowledge, to make it exist as knowledge, love is needed" (Miller, 2004, p. 9).

This leads us to another reversal that Miller (2007) will point out in Lacanian thought. When Freud formulates transference, he understands the libidinal presence of the analyst in the foreground. That is why he will say that, in analysis, the subject's symptoms gain a new meaning in the ‘transference neurosis’. In Freud, transference is established from the moment the patient makes an exchange, a replacement of the paternal imago by the doctor's figure, including him in one of his ‘psychic series’. The work of analysis is possible from the moment the subject acts his neurosis in the transference, and that is why it is necessary to wait for it to start the interpretations. It is transference as a libidinal phenomenon that conditions interpretation and treatment in Freudian thought.

However, we will have in Lacan an inversion of this thought. For Lacan, first, the function of the ‘subject supposed to know’ is the fundamental belief that the Other is the cause of my desire and the knowledge about my symptom. So, it is the interpretation that conditions the transference. This inversion is of fundamental importance for us to understand the direction of cure before the impasses placed on the establishment of transference today. In this new clinic, in which the sense and the unconscious are increasingly silent and unheard, it seems that this is a necessary operation to create a new relation between the subject and knowledge, which is not imposed from demand or anticipation, but which may include access to the unconscious subject.

Laurent (2008) will work with the conception of birth of the ‘subject supposed to know’ function. This birth occurs at the subject's private level, as the transference is established from any signifier in the encounter with the analyst. The signifier of transference is born from a question, a question mark over the subject's symptom that “[...] is, above all, an empty place” (Laurent, 2008, p. 16). If the ‘subject supposed to know’ is born from an enigma, a question and an empty place, then there is the possibility of an analyst's operation within a use made of this multifunctional object so that, in the subject, arises the encounter with the knowledge assumption.

We have the indication of a proper and necessary movement for contemporary psychoanalysis, given the countless changes of the speaking being in its relationship with knowledge, with jouissance and with the Other. A clinical operation can become the essential element for establishing transference and the continuity of analytic treatment in today's world. Today, it seems to be necessary an interpretation or handling by the analyst so that the knowledge assumption about the subject's unconscious is opened up, sustaining the entry into transference in its epistemological aspect.

Thus, the analyst must be aware of what the subject calls for in the transference relationship. There is a good use for the analyst/object, from the moment he places himself as an object that provides knowledge production or even as a drive object. Faced with the subjective coordinates of the analysand, the multifunctional analyst may have the value of producing an enigma, of interpretation through meaning, or even from use in the driving aspect of transference, allowing the subject to shift his jouissance economy.

Final considerations

Psychoanalysis is not immutable or static. More and more, we are faced with changes in the world and with the unrestrained presence of the master, which, in turn, also impose changes on subjects who seek psychoanalysis as a way of treatment. While the Master's Discourse is reversed, psychoanalysis must always follow what is related to its time, operating from its place of subversion.

The contemporary master is the one who took from the subject the compass that gave him a certain ordering before his structural helplessness. Today, what is growing is the rise of object a to the place of social zenith. Object a, acting as a new civilizing guide, demarcates what is at stake in contemporaneity: the era of the imperative of jouissance, of exacerbated and unmeasured consumption. This imperative also modifies the relation that the subject establishes with knowledge.

When faced with the lack of knowledge, the subject no longer starts from the supposition and the enigma in searching for an answer. On the contrary, the answers are already ready to be consumed. All that is needed is the subject to find a way to access this missing knowledge. That is why he anticipates, demands and imposes it. There is a thrust towards jouissance that inaugurates a new way of obtaining knowledge from the logic of capital. Knowledge has become another object of consumption. However, this new relationship also implies a change in the field of transference because, as we have seen, one of the fundamental aspects of transference is epistemological. If the subject sought analysis from the dimension of belief in the classical clinic, today, there is an inversion of this logic since the supposition can be established later.

Facing the impasses experienced in the knowledge field, the analyst can create a new relation between the subject and the unconscious knowledge, giving rise to something in the supposition and enigma fields, enabling the birth of the ‘subject supposed to know’. But transference does not exist only while knowledge, as the analyst is also summoned in the place of love and jouissance. Therefore, he must become multifunctional, becoming himself the object of analysis by each one, based on the particular use that the subject will make of this device. Contemporaneity, and the subject's new presentations for analysis, call us to a need to reinvent clinical practice and investigate transference from an imposing context.

Referências

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• 3
  “Eh bien, ce que j'appelais tout à l'heure la société du soupçon est intolerante au savoir supposé. Elle est animee par un tout autre impératif qui est de tout expliciter, de tout exposer, de tout exhiber”.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  11 Apr 2022
• Date of issue
  2022

History

• Received
  31 May 2019
• Accepted
  23 Dec 2020