Merging Clinic and School
Neither a school where people come to learn a theory and then attempt to apply it onto others, nor a clinic where people come to be sick or ‘mentally ill’. Rather, the school and clinic are combined to produce a structure that is at once theoretical yet imminently practical by not separating the two.
Though the traditional terms invented to reflect this dehierarchization of practice and theory are analyst and analysand, it has since been generalized as the second fundamental rule (Ferenczi) and analysis in extension (Lacan).
The question then becomes what can stabilize this heterogeneous field if it does not once again fall back into the strictures (ideology?) that so often pass for schools and clinics?
To respond to this foundational question, PLACE focuses on providing the conditions for both the savant and debutant alike to achieve an analysis through a work in extension.
Courses, seminars, small workgroups, and private sessions are offered to make room for this work.
“Schools have their prejudices just as common understanding has them. One side corrects the other. It is important, therefore, to test a cognition with people whose understanding does not depend on any school … This could also be called the external extension or extensive magnitude of a cognition so far as it is spread externally among humans.”
Logic: A Manual For Lectures, I. Kant
“We will part from the root of psychoanalytic experience posed in its extension, the only possible base to motivate a school. I claim to designate in the threshold of a psychoanalysis in intension the possible initiative of a new mode of access of the psychoanalyst to a collective guarantee through a critique in extension.“
Propositions of Oct. 9, J. Lacan
The current ideology of psychoanalysis persists in the lack of an adequate topology.
J. Lacan
ADMISSION
Though university and grad-students can apply to attend PLACE, the enrollment at PLACE is not limited to university students.
In short, you can attend without having any previous training or background in psychology, psychotherapy, or psychoanalysis. Though PLACE does not award any university degrees, you may attend PLACE in order to achieve credit towards a degree elsewhere or not. Anyone interested in attending PLACE for credit transfers should contact the secretary at PLACE@topoi.net
The School-Clinic instruction begins at the end of September and follows the habitual Fall, Winter, and Spring semesters, with an Immersive Summer session beginning in late June. The majority begin in September, but arrangements can be made to enter at other times. If you do not know what Lacanian analysis is or if you want to simply follow a seminar or course before applying, you may sign up as an Auditor. Auditors may follow a course or cartel for one semester free of tuition.
To apply for the School–Clinic, address the secretary via email or regular mail. You will be recontacted soon. Although it is advised to have an interview with a Trustee of PLACE to become oriented to the School-Clinic procedures, it is not necessary. You will be informed of the dates and times of the cartels, courses, and seminars upon completion of the inscription and reception of the tuition. Since COVID, most of our cartels, seminars, and courses are held online. We may resume in-person meetings, but in each case, the events are available to remote participants via Zoom. Each seminar is digitally recorded and uploaded to the net so that it may be reviewed at a later date.
To keep informed of important events of the School–Clinic sign up on the virtual classroom interface at http://www.lacanlosangelespsychoanalysis.com/classes/ . Once you have established a contact address, you will receive notifications about the scheduling of PLACE courses, workgroups, seminars, and events.
TUITION
The current tuition for the 2026-27 school year is $850. (full-time Adherent) and $450. (part-time Guest) per semester, with 0$ for Auditors for only one semester. This low-cost tuition has been made possible by grants from individuals and foundations committed to establishing a rigorous and open transmission of psychoanalysis. The typical caseload of courses and cartels (work-groups) is one 3-hour course per month with up to 12 hrs. of cartels per week. The typical session work is one to four hours per week.
PLACE is supported both by grants, foundations, and donations from its participants. This economy allows for free tuition for the homeless, recently unemployed, and disenfranchised youth (18-21 years old). Sliding-scale private intensive sessions are made available on a case-by-case basis.
DIDACTIC
PLACE does not have a set time period for the achievement of the title of analyst within its school-clinic. Indeed, not everyone working in the school-clinic has the goal to achieve such a title or to work as an analyst. In either case, people may attend full or part-time, and/or work in a private analysis according to their own schedule and desires. Full-time individual sessions can range from 1 to 4 hours per week, while the extensive instruction in the school-clinic can be 12 hrs. (full time) or 4 hrs (part-time) per week. After a certain period of time, the consequences of the coursework, clinical instruction, and private analysis may be assumed and refined by submitting one’s work to the Pass. This procedure and its objectives are briefly described on this website below in the Sclinic-Catalog.
Seminars are offered once or twice a month, while cartels are once or twice per week. Seminars have a fixed topic set by the instructor, while cartels form around topics decided upon beforehand by those participating in the cartels. You can find typical seminars and cartels on the virtual classroom site at Virtual School+Clinic
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Current Protocols
Important Informational Documents, Forms, and Site:
1) The current association guidelines are reviewed bi-annually (PDF): Association Rules 2022-27
2) The current PLACE School+Clinic Guidelines (PDF): Guidelines 2022-27
3) All new participants please send the PLACE inscription form (PDF) to the secretary PLACE INSCRIPTION (only need to inscribe once)
4) The virtual interface of PLACE containing the seminars, courses, and cartels, at Virtual School+Clinic