The tea of the master and the tea of desire. A short story in the light of Lacan’s Seminar XVII

By | September 15th, 2018|LRO 89|

Amantine is the heroine of the exceptional short story À Clairmont by Maryse Battistuzzi.[1] She is an old lady with a particular whim that makes other people wonder: when taking her tea she invariably leaves a small quantity in the bottom of her cup. To Amantine, to consume those last sips would doubtless amount “to [...]

Gustavo Dessal, Surviving Anne

By | September 10th, 2016|LRO 45|

It is in this context of ‘a world where the difference between delusion and reality was shown to be completely useless’, (Dessal, 231) that Gustavo Dessal’s remarkable new novel Surviving Anne (Karnac, 2016) explores the delusional reciprocities of the contemporary clinic of psychosis. It focuses on a different Anne to Allen, Anne Kurczynski whose mother, [...]

In Defence of an Immoderate Life

By | July 11th, 2016|LRO 42|

KRING-LRO: ‘Restlessness’ and – surprisingly – ‘in defense of an immoderate life’: this title requires clarification. It seems to suggest that you disagree with the contemporary discourse that has infiltrated healthcare: relax, slow down, avoid burn-out, finding the ideal balance between work and family, etc., while at the same time there is an increasing regulation [...]

Stephen Grosz: Hero to his Readers, Father to his Patients

By | December 19th, 2015|LRO 13|

The Examined Life chronicles the cases of thirty-one patients who, we are told, have collectively spent more than 50,000 hours in analysis with Grosz. These are not really case studies, at least not in the classical style of psychoanalysis or even psychiatry. The comparison that comes to mind, and may well have served as a [...]