Nathalie Lacher: I (ECF and NLS) share responsibility for the blog with Daniela Fernández (EOL). The guiding compass for making the blog is, for me, a quote from Lacan in his Seminar, Les non-dupes errent, when he says that where there is no sexual relation, we invent. The people we brought together to make this blog each have a taste for invention. It begins with neologisms that go beyond linguistic borders, the elucubratorio, to designate the blog’s scientific committee, the Midimmi tab, and the one of non-rapporteurs del Mondo. For Midimmi! We establish a list of 20 questions. Each person can choose one of 3 questions. For the non-rapporteurs del Mondo, what guides us is Lacan’s invitation to the psychoanalyst: to be up to the task and to be attentive to the real of his time. We brought together young colleagues, from places where psychoanalysis is alive, inviting them to observe an event, a discreet or fashionable phenomenon in the city where they live, which evokes the question of the non-sexual relation. This tab brings together reports that attempt to describe in detail a contemporary phenomenon.
M: So, all of us will be very attentive to read these reports.
N.L.: Our team is multilingual, speaking five languages. Sometimes we start the meeting by speaking in French and then it switches to Italian, then to English, etc. There are misunderstandings, evidently. So, the non-rapport never ceases to surprise us! The title of the newsletter, Nya Nya. Some hear Yum, Yum, others hear Nian Nian. Voilà!
Dalila Arpin: Today it is called J Commission (J commission in French, J from jeunesse) which evokes youth. Originally, this commission was intended to encourage young people from the WAP and its surroundings to attend the Congress. It was, in particular, a response to the difficulties of accommodating young people to come to the Congress. This was initially, the concern of Agnès Aflalo who created this commission. Today, this commission has evolved and changed its name, it is the J commission. It merged itself with the festivities committee, which makes it more like a welcoming committee. You can always find all the information in the tab called ‘The Globetrotter’ on the Blog. There will be accommodation in private homes and in youth hostels, at a reduced price. The blog also gives a list of hotels that can be consulted.
Andrea Orabona: Yes, at first, it was a question of organizing festivities and welcoming young and old people, notably to welcome our colleagues, coming to Paris. We had to look for the right way to do it. It was also a question of organizing the great closing party of the Congress. We have prepared a good surprise for this closing party, for this Congress closing ball which will take place on Saturday. You will learn more about as the announcements are made.
D.A./ A.O.: We have also expanded the reception, with before and after. Every morning, with the exception of Sunday morning, on the days of the Congress, including the two previous days reserved for WAP members, there will be guided tours in the WAP diverse languages, which will propose both, sites traditionally visited in Paris, or visits related to the Congress theme, for example historical places related to eroticism in Paris.
M: So, you’re looking for “There is no sexual relation” places?
D.A.: That’s it! There will be professional guides and the “Lacan walk”, created by Jean-Claude Encalado that will go through places related to Lacan’s trajectory in Paris.
And the after consists of proposals for outings that will be organized by a WAP member, who offers either a dinner, or a gathering at a bar, or to discover an unusual place. And all that will take place in the evening, at 8 p.m., after the Congress, to get to know each other. And there will be a blind date side. Our colleagues will know who is organizing the evening event, but the organizer will not know who would be registered for this event. A link will be created, with information on the event. Also, the discovery of Paris will take place. A colleague will suggest a place that he likes, to show it to colleagues from other countries or other parts of France.
D.C.: I am part of the executive board, a commission created by the Congress’ director, Ricardo Seldes, and which has already begun to function for several months from the perspective of the construction of the Congress. I must say that we shared a very lively moment of work between us. A first function is that of thinking, which arises as brainstorming work, occurring each time when the director found appropriate to bring us together to reflect on the themes of the Congress or the axes of the simultaneous sessions. We are currently working on the themes of the plenary sessions. It relates to the function of developing the program, of work in progress. The other function that I also find important is a function of junction between the WAP Congress and the Schools. In my case, it was very important to work with the Italian correspondent of the Congress, Loretta Biondi, and with the president of the S.L.P., Amelia Barbui, since we are developing activities towards the Congress. For example, as Loretta already mentioned, we proposed a study day, on October 19, in Milan to work on the theme of the Congress, an encouragement to the lampo (flash) cartels. Now we are considering other incentives to encourage our Italian colleagues to register for the next WAP congress.
Pascale Fari: Given that each language, each culture, each WAP School, has its own codes, its own specificities, there is an extimacy specific to each one. There is no relationship between one’s language and the other’s. Due to each one having its own jouissance there is a fruitful misunderstanding as a result. Which is the reason why one must expose one’s clinical work, debate it, because neither psychoanalytic theory nor practice constitutes a closed whole, a wholeness. The simultaneous sessions benefit from this, this need to present one’s work, in a conversation between colleagues to adjust and refine the knowledge that can emerge from the practice. It’s a challenge, isn’t it? It is also about talking with the other, with the idea that misunderstanding is ineliminable, and instead taking advantage of the singularity of each one. This challenge is at stake in the cartels and in the preparation of the simultaneous sessions, because they are multilingual cartels. There are eight cartels composed of members from each of the 7 WAP Schools. We have already received numerous clinical cases, and of high quality. I and Adolfo Ruiz, member of the NEL, under the guidance of Ricardo Seldes, the Congress’ director, we can already assure you that these two days of simultaneous sessions on Thursday, April 30, and Friday, May 1, will be of excellent quality and will be passionating. The debate will be open.
Dominique Corpelet: So, before saying what is happening in the secretariat, I would like to tell you how this commission was finally constituted as Ricardo Saldes wished. He suggested that I should work in partnership with a colleague from the EOL (Argentina), Marina Recalde. It’s a very important point because, in the end, it pushes us to work in two languages, Spanish and French, and with methods, habits, that are sometimes different between the School of the Freudian Cause (ECF) and the EOL. This is already a first enrichment. He also suggested us to work with two collaborators. Marina Recalde invited Betty Nagorny from the EOL, and I proposed to Claudio Maino, a young colleague from the ECF, to be a collaborator. Why? He has Chilean origins and is bilingual, fluent in French and Spanish. And I insist, the presence of these two languages in our daily work is crucial, exhibiting the structure such as Ricardo finally wanted it. And all the commissions are a bit similar as this model. So, your question was about…
M: What is happening right now?
D.C.: It’s first and foremost a secretariat job, but again, Ricardo wanted us to stay in contact with the various committees of the Congress. So, we are at the intersection or at the center of the different commissions, the communication and dissemination commission, the newsletter, the blog commission, all the other commissions. A bit like a transmission chain between the secretariat and the various commissions, an important first aspect in the organizational structure. The second point is a formal secretariat type of work, which will evolve as we get closer to the Congress. There are of course emails to be sent to the participants, answers for all type of questions. Ultimately, I will discover, simultaneously, this function in the coming months. Finally, it is evolving.
Anne Ganivet-Poumellec: I’m very happy to say something about the numbers, it’s rare in our field to be delighted with an event based on numbers! But, the treasury of the WAP Congress surprised me immensely. When registrations opened for WAP members, we were very surprised to see that Brazilians, Argentinians and NEL members were registering massively. So we, that is to say, the director, Ricardo Seldes, the president of the WAP, Christiane Alberti, myself and my counterpart in Buenos Aires, we thought that the whole amphitheater was going to be booked in a week or ten days, so much so that at every moment of the day these registrations arrived, arrived, arrived. We thought it was a tsunami! We wondered how to ensure places for the members of the other schools. So, messages were sent by the presidents of the Schools to their members, encouraging them to sign up quickly. And then, suddenly, the numbers hit a plateau, everything went back to normal, but, from the original tsunami, we can assume that there is a strong desire among the members of the Latin American Schools to be there. Of course, all the Schools will be present. All the members have been mobilized, all those who want to come signed up.
Aligning generations
Loretta Biondi: We worked together, Domenico Cosenza, who is on the executive committee created by Ricardo Seldes, and I. We thought that, in the SLP, it was important to balance the presence of different generations, taking into account the new youth policy, in order to make it effective and operational. Together with the president Amelia Barbui and Domenico Cosenza, we began by provoking an elaboration using the instrument of the cartel, cartel lampo (flash cartel), in which we were reaching out to different generations, the generation of the elders, the one who experienced the movement of the Italian group towards the School, in 2002, and the young people from 3 institutes of the Freudian Field. We formed 5 cartels, which participated in the first preparatory meetings of the SLP, last October 19, on the theme There is no sexual relation; there is, there is not. We had 9 young speakers who were very involved in the presentations as well as in the discussions.
Translated from French by Renata Teixeira