Truth and Knowledge in the Clinic

"Freud was a psychoanalyst and not a case writer, the difference being that the psychoanalyst seeks to transmit not only truth but also knowledge. His aim is scientific. Following Hegel, Lacan established an articulation between truth and knowledge as such. But it was Freud who first established the existence of these two planes, in his readings of works of art and in case histories." Drawing on Lacan's concept of fiction as a bearer of truth, Erik Porge focuses on the theme of psychoanalytic transmission, showing how some dimensions of psychoanalytic works-in and of themselves untransmittable-emerge only as a consequence of the analyst's formation. Such issues as style, proper names, and the relation between the collective and the individual are treated with clarity and penetrating originality.