A Lacanian Perspective on Wandering and the Drives in Alzheimer's Disease

Aims

This article addresses the issue of wandering in Alzheimer's disease from a psychoanalytic point of view, taking into account the importance of the spatial dimension in psychic dynamics.

Method

After having presented wandering from a behavioral point of view, it is discussed from a metapsychological perspective, making use of A. & G. Haddad's concept of the “viatoric drive” and as well as J. Lacan's reflections on “the wandering of the journey” and “the wandering of desire.” The clinical vignette of Mr. M. in a workshop of therapeutic mediation through art helps us illustrate the unconscious psychic movements at play in walking.

Results

Three subjective markers emerge: wandering reveals the subject's difficult in orienting himself in both physical and psychological space, demonstrating a form of excitation that is not supported by the viatoric drive; “the wandering of the journey” makes it possible to relocate the place of the Other in the Imaginary; “the wandering of desire” incites the subject to repetition through the play of the drives.

Discussion

Neurodegenerative disease is an obstacle to wandering. Art-therapy workshops can help Alzheimer's patients with the reorganization of wandering, where unconscious knowledge would prevail over the excitation of ambulation, thus suggesting, for the subject, the possibility of a structuring “elsewhere.”

Conclusion

Thinking of mediated workshops as places of creation for the subject opens up the possibility of inhabiting one's wandering, considered as expressions of a journey and of desire.