<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;">Dearest Jacques,<div><br></div><div>I will try to make my response and argument clearer by addressing your reply and concerns below.</div><div><br></div><div><blockquote type="cite">1-- There is absolutely now (NO) warranty in the practice of psychoanalysis; and the fact<br>the analyst has a MD, or PhD or no university diploma does not make a difference.<br>An analyst gets authorization only from himself (and a few others, namely his<br>analysands). When he receives authorization from university or Health Dept or<br>organization, and he believes he is acting by this means, he is a fraud.</blockquote><div><br></div><div>1’ - (Correcting your ’now’ to NO warranty in the above) I agree with what you say above, but then we need to ask</div><div>how can someone, whether in France or the US, assume responsibility for such a ‘liberty’?</div><div><br></div><div>Notice, if before psychoanalysis was rendered impossible because of over-regulation, medicalization,</div><div>and academization, today we are in an inverse problem: if anyone can <b>authorize </b>him/herself,</div><div>per the lacanian <b><i>s’autotorize</i>,</b> then it becomes possible to do and say no matter what in the name of </div><div>a liberal profession of psychoanalysis. Indeed, if one does not hear the irony and warning in<b> <i>’s’autotorize’</i></b></div><div>then one begins to go places that not even angels dared to go before. This is why, in the lack of</div><div>any diploma, health agency, or cultural tradition, there has to be, nevertheless, some kind of structure, </div><div>so the field does not dissolve into chaos, each professional improvising an analysis till they die or go crazy.</div><div>So, I asked what those more necessary laws are by which those practicing analysis can found an analysis, not simply</div><div>manage one according to the conventions of their culture or legislative and juridical systems. It seems</div><div>nobody in this list is asking this primary question and simply assuming it is a question, in the first instance, of local</div><div>and national laws, or inversely, someone ‘'authorizing themself’. If this more fundamental question of the Law is not asked, </div><div>the rest becomes just gossip.</div><div><br></div><div><blockquote type="cite">2-- For more than 20 years I am amazed of the differences between the statute of<br>psychoanalysts in France and many other countries. These differences render logically<br>impossible the praxis of psychoanalysis in most countries. Psychoanalysts believe they<br>act as analysts although they are just representants of the discourse of the master<br>and of the university. I am, by exchanging we all of you, experimenting the (vain?) possibility to port the discourse of the analyst in your country.</blockquote><br></div><div>2’ – ‘Your country’ ? – as I have a double-nationality, I have practiced analysis in France for 15 years, and in the U.S. 20, </div><div>while currently setting up a framework in Germany. As a consequence, I have discovered this impossibility of analysis to be something </div><div>intrinsic, and not something relative to such and such a culture or geography. Indeed, the impossible becomes a lot more effective to deal with,</div><div>in this way, since it makes room for a Clinic of the Real. In fact, I believe it was Freud who said there were three impossible professions: Education, </div><div>Government, and Psychoanalysis. </div><div><br></div><div>No doubt, each country has its own exceptionality, but the impossibility is itself structural – not conventional,</div><div>and again, I repeat, I know many associations and would be analysts in France, that, in spite of a generally</div><div>better set of legislated laws, are nonetheless no better off. In fact, I think if you or others care to ask why Vappereau</div><div>left France, we may begin to get some insight into the problem. One should even ask why Vappereau coined special</div><div>names for the two Apostles of psychoanalysis in France, Miller and Melman, and why he viewed them and their</div><div>Associations as creating an impossibility to the practice of psychoanalysis in France today. I am not inventing this, it is written</div><div>in black and white in Vappereau's articles. I am not sure if I agree with him or not, I am just saying, for Vappereau</div><div>Lacanian analysis had become impossible in France for very different reasons than in the U.S.( If I left</div><div>France in 2000, it was also because I found a kind of sclerosis had set in after the 90s.)</div><div><br></div><div>Until then, I would pose back here in the U.S., if the structural basis of an association is set up precisely, it is no more difficult to </div><div>work in the US than it is in France: there are different sets of impossibilities each requiring a particular judo move.</div><div>Just to be clear, people do not need a license in the US to practice psychoanalysis and you do not need to worry about getting </div><div>sued, on the condition that the psychoanalytic structure people are working within is set up properly. If it is not, if it remains</div><div>at the level of someone trying to do a job, getting insured, and analyzing others, I would propose there is something a lot more worrisome than getting sued, </div><div>since any analyst with such liberal conditions on the verge of becoming ‘bat crazy’ – I have met more than my share both in France and the U.S. and Germany. </div><div><br></div><div>To conclude, If people would like to get in on the irony of the word play in French of <i style="font-weight: bold;">s’autotorize – </i>it is there, in the </div><div><b>s’auto-tort-ize</b> = to do oneself harm. A whole generation of future analysts is coming along, and if this wordplay is not heard, </div><div>and it becomes simply a question of people either authorizing 'themself’ or getting diplomas and licensed, then there is surely no hope for the US </div><div>or France.</div><div><br></div><div>In saying the above, please forgive me if it sounds too direct; with more time and a better medium, it could be better put.</div><div><br></div><div>Until then, </div><div><br></div><div>Scully R.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><br><br><blockquote type="cite">On Nov 26, 2025, at 12:01 AM, Jacques B. Siboni via The-lacanalyst <the-lacanalyst@lutecium.org> wrote:<br><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">Dear Scully Robert<br><br>I am not so sure I catch all of the implications of your answer. It leads to two<br>considerations<br><br>1-- There is absolutely now warranty in the practice of psychoanalysis; and the fact<br>the analyst has a MD, or PhD or no university diploma does not make a difference.<br>An analyst gets authorization only from himself (and a few others, namely his<br>analysands). When he receives authorization from university or Health Dept or<br>organization, and he believes he is acting by this means, he is a fraud.<br><br>2-- For more than 20 years I am amazed of the differences between the statute of<br>psychoanalysts in France and many other countries. These differences render logically<br>impossible the praxis of psychoanalysis in most countries. Psychoanalysts believe they<br>act as analysts although they are just representants of the discourse of the master<br>and of the university. I am, by exchanging we all of you, experimenting the (vain?) possibility to port the discourse of the analyst in your country.<br><br>Of course in France there are some analysts belonging to a subsidiary of the IPA,<br>they use the same rules than in the US. Here we speak of the Freudo-Lacanian approach<br> of psychoanalysis.<br><br>Very best<br><br>Jacques<br><br>On 11/25/25 3:47 PM, Jacques B. Siboni via The-lacanalyst wrote:<br><blockquote type="cite">Dear friends and colleagues<br><br>I had a very interesting discussion with Aviva, which pinpointed<br>the major differences between psychoanalysis in France and the USA.<br><br>I wish to have you opinion on this.<br>Let's put it this way, you are licensed by the state as psychiatrist,<br>psychologist, social worker etc. You spend the evening with a very good<br>friend of yours and he says he cannot carry on and he is going to kill<br>himself. You do your best to help him change his mind and you go to<br>sleep without telling anyone. The next<br>morning you hear he is dead, unfortunately. My first question is<br>can you be sued? due to the fact you, when you are in your office,<br>try to cure people and have got a license to do so.<br><br>I imagine (and hope) that you can argue that what happened that evening was totally<br>PRIVATE and was independent of your profession.<br><br>In France situation of psychoanalysis is close to this one, it is a PRIVATE<br>relationship between two humans. I mean, not only in the evening but in your<br>office as well. No one has the right to intermix with it.<br>There is an analyst and an analysand who agree to use a certain apparatus<br>aimed to facilitate a work of speech (Freudian talking cure). The fact that<br>you might be a licensed psychologist<br>or psychotherapist of psychiatrist does not make a difference as long as<br>the process with your analysand is analytic and not therapeutic. We know<br>some people did kill themselves when in analysis with Lacan or other<br>analysts but of course they were not sued.<br><br>When we talk about lacanalysis we mean this. Because Aviva says that even in the<br>case of a private practice with a patient she can be sued. Of course in<br>the regard of psychoanalysis it is a nonsense.<br><br>I'd love to have your vision of this scheme as it seems to be a thorn in the<br>side of psychoanalysis in your country.<br><br>All the very best<br><br>Jacques<br><br>PS can you meet on Friday 5 at 1400 UTC?<br><br><br></blockquote><br>-- <br>The-lacanalyst mailing list<br>The-lacanalyst@lutecium.org<br>https://lutecium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/the-lacanalyst<br></blockquote><br></div></body></html>