Duchamp, Sadomasochism, and the Psychoanalytic Field

Abstract:

Some patients tediously describe depictions of their sexual perversions. These can bring the analyst to feel intense boredom and frustration. This "almost unavoidable monotony" can be interpreted in various ways. It can be seen as an expression of the patient's compulsion to repeat, whether one considers it a product of the death drive, or the need to give meaning to the traumatic experience that caused the perversion itself. On the other hand, it may be seen as an aspect of the unconscious emotional function that binds the couple together in the analysis. Monotony, then, is no longer intrinsic to "the patient's" perversion, but becomes the search for "mono-tony" or "at-one-ment" in the here and now of the session. At the root of this may be the fear of the tensions that arise from confrontation and difference, which may cause the pair to stay rigidly on the same wave. Then, analyst and patient maintain an adhesive identification with each other to prevent separation, and they pay the price of boredom and immobility. The field theory point of view is distinguished by two important aspects. As the analyst listens from the perspective of a "narrative We," this protects the pair from a judgmental attitude and, consequently, from a form of perversion of the analytic relationship. Second, it detects precise and distinct signs of how the process of mutual recognition unfolds on the level of the third, intersubjective or "common," unconscious. The fundamental postulate is that psychic suffering, including that which is expressed in sadomasochism, stems from important deficits in this same process in the primal relationship to the object. Consequently, it is important to privilege the level of being-with rather than that of knowing-about.