Transmission Statement

Overview

PLACE introduces a more just translation of the psychoanalytic theory of Freud in a modern critique and theory of Jacques Lacan. The theory and practice of psychoanalysis in the U.S. has not gone out of fashion, but has become impossible to think. As a consequence, the name ‘psychoanalysis’ provides us not so much with a well-worn tradition of psychoanalytic notables, schools, and institutes, but landmarks an impossibility that has fallen into modern oblivion. It is this different focus of attention – first brought out in an explication of the causes of racism, mental illness, war, and sexuality, then forgotten under the weight of a therapeutic framework and cultural panache – that motivates PLACE.

Why?

Many have discovered that both the dominant (psychotherapy, psychiatry, etc.) and alternative (spiritual healing, mindfulness, etc.) modes of treatment in the field to be part of the problem. Because of this not only – or primarily – do many graduate and post-graduate students come from various universities and institutes to participate at PLACE in a different way, but non-academics, non-doctors, and non-therapists are finding a point of entry as well.

Who?

We are neither a collection of professionals united by a common mission nor a group of people sharing a communal substance, be it medical, therapeutic, economic, political, religious, artistic, or scientific. Rather a common cause is found in what is not working: the current way of doing things. By shifting the focus of attention from the limitations of a representation – doctor, therapist, cultural theorist, 'shrink', social worker, etc. – we differentiate the profession from the analytic act, thus opening up a place for the future analyst.

How?

If a deconstruction of the psychotherapeutic-psychiatric framework is required in order to de-fossilize psychoanalysis from under its weight, a second constructive effort is required in order to go beyond a mere critique of words. Call this constructive effort a topology of the subject as it was first introduced by Lacan. What is not often recognized is that those who are too quickly called ‘patients’ have a practical knowledge of a symptom that is rarely acknowledged within an institutional framework. Yet, for this reason a clinic has always been something like a school. In no longer accepting to work either as patients in therapy or as students in a purely educational role, we bring together both practice and theory. A work of individuals with names is particularly difficult since it makes it necessary to open up a practice of singularity beyond the tendency to exclude and classify subjectivity under the norm and statistics of numbers. Making room for this place of the subject and singularity is just another name for a psychoanalytic practice whose theory, since Lacan, has been achieved in a topology ( topos: Greek for place; a theory of the singularities of place).

To determine a precise response to the questions above it is necessary to look into how an individual and association constructs the consequences of a theory and practice in public – not simply in a communication between experts or initiates, but in including a larger audience of lay practicioners and non-analysts. If you simply ask an expert what it is they do and what they achieve without noticing how they construct and transmit their results, you may just deserve all you get.

Requests for more information are received by the secretary, then referred to the analysts currently working with P.L.A.C.E. Connected information on seminars, conferences, cartels, training analysis, and internships is also available.

Organizational History

P.L.A.C.E. was founded in January of 1998. We are an educational nonprofit 501c3 governed by a board of directors and trustees according to the statutes set by the state of California. P.L.A.C.E. supports itself on the contributions, grants, and endowments from those individuals and foundations concerned with creating a progress in psychoanalytic theory and practice.

Now Accepting Registration For Summer Immersion 2012:

UPDATED SCHEDULE & TOPIC CHANGE: Registration Deadline June. 5, 2012 (Distance participation now available). Begins June 23, 2012.

Category Theory, Sketches, and Diagrams

A constructive introduction to the problem of Structure: 6 Weekend courses (2.5 hours each).

June 23, 30, July 7,14, 21, 28.

No previous technical background in mathematics or psychoanalysis required.

$450 per participant

For more information go to:http://www.lacanlosangelespsychoanalysis.com/classes/

1) A NEW BLOG/GLOB by R.T. Groome providing a site for research and addressing current events in Lacanian analysis/topology is now up at: http://lacanlosangelespsychoanalysis.com/.

2) WINTER 2012 PLACE SCLINIC: Registration until JAN. 5TH Scheduled to begin Feb. Early Registration Advised. Course Description to follow in July at: http://www.lacanlosangelespsychoanalysis.com/classes/

A) Course Title:Part II Hegel's Phenomenology of the Spirit Formalized in a Topology
B) Cartel Titles: To be established in JAN.- first vectorization JAN. 11th.

3) Public School CONFERENCE: From Revolution to Involution – Saturday at 12:00 noon - Feb. 7, 14, 21 – http://la.thepublicschool.org/class/3855

For further information please address your questions to the secretary of PLACE.