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The Letter, Issue 36, Spring 2006, Pages 62 - 68 GEORGE BEST AND THE NAMES OF THE FATHER [1] Charles Melman Excuse me for speaking in French, but I think it will be easier on your ears! When I arrived at Dublin airport, in the taxi the driver asked me 'Did you know that George Best died? As it happened I did, and during the journey I said to myself: here is a remarkable man who throughout his life tried to be the best. It can be said that for him - as I said to myself in the taxi - it was the name of the father that had determined his whole existence, that he had to go too quickly to the end of the journey to reach his home. I know that during his life he deviated from that path a little but finally it caught up with him. So we have every reason to think that our life is only a journeying towards that place where we are going to finally be at rest. Life is simply a semblance, a preface, while we are waiting to finally rejoin the dwelling place of the father. From this point of view time is linear as Cormac was saying this morning, but we know from psychoanalytic experience that our journey is marked by a different rhythm, the rhythm of repetition. What are we repeating? We regularly repeat the unique failure of our desire every time we are dupes of our desire - since repetition is going to show the failure of that desire. So we already see that time is not linear and that what is really guiding us is an object that is unnamed, that has no name and that we cannot connect up with. Namely, if I am engaged along the path of these repetitions I am a dupe, and I no longer know the meaning or the direction of my life.

The Letter, Issue 66/67, Autumn 2017/Spring 2018, Pages 69 - 74 WHY WAS PSYCHOANALYSIS FOUNDED BY AN EMIGRANT? Charles Melman This paper addresses the question ‘ Why was psychoanalysis founded by an emigrant ?’ It draws parallels between Freud’s position in relation to his father and that of both emigrant and hysteric. It is proposed that the position of the emigrant is fundamentally a guilty one in relation to the father and therefore the problem posed by emigrants is not simply at the origin of psychoanalysis but is still current to psychoanalysis. [1] Keywords: Freud; Psychoanalysis; masochism; emigrant; hysteric; father First of all I will say that we are - all of us - masochists. It’s the very condition of our survival. We are all masochists, which means that we live out our suffering and our problems face to face with God, as a confrontation with the very presence of the real of God, in other words, He who stops us from going too quickly to get to the end of our lives. First of all, he says that our time is His, in other words, what He has prescribed for us. A maniac is someone who wants to go too quickly to the end of his life. If we are masochistic and if that is the condition for our survival, we can’t tolerate the idea that God himself is a masochist because that would mean cutting him off from His power, as if He himself were subjected to another influence.

The Letter, Issue 64, Spring 2017, Pages 83 - 88

Welcome to the archive of The Letter, Irish journal for Lacanian psychoanalysis. Explore hundreds of research articles Overview The Letter Archive is home to an extensive collection of research articles dedicated to Lacanian psychoanalysis and related topics, written by more than 100 dedicated contributors since the launch of the journal in 1994. To view all articles, please click here or keep scrolling through this section to explore recent issues, popular keywords and free-to-read articles. Recent issues Issue 66/67 - Autumn 2017/Spring 2018 Issue 65 - Summer 2017 Issue 64 - Spring 2017 Issue 63 - Autumn 2016 Issue 62 - Summer 2016 Popular keywords Jouissance Anxiety The Other L'Étourdit Language Trauma Transference Hysteria Addiction Psychosis James Joyce Lacan Desire The Real The Symbolic Ethics Psychiatry Knowledge Freud The Unconscious Open access articles A Stranger To Myself Issue 65 Why Am I Anxious? Issue 64 An Incorrect Interpretation Issue 59/60 Inside Bungalow 3: A Psychoanalytic Perspective Issue 58 ‘Blessed are the Pacemakers’: Dementia, Psychosis and The Psychoanalytic Discourse Issue 55/56 What Can We Learn From Freud's Critique of Religion? Issue 47 Love in Plato's Symposium Issue 47 Psychological Object or Speaking Subject: from Diagnosis to Case Re-presentation Issue 46 Freud’s Group, Lacan’s Cartel and The Toric Organisation Issue 45 The Founding Act, the Cartel and the Riddle of the PLUS ONE Issue 44 The Patient as Actor: Notall in the Case Presentation Issue 42 Laytour, Latetour, L'Etourdit Issue 41 Explore the collection

THE LETTER Irish Journal for Lacanian Psychoanalysis is owned by the School of Psychotherapy at St Vincent’s University Hospital, Dublin. The journal publishes the psychoanalytic work of members of the Irish School for Lacanian Psychoanalysis, founded by Cormac Gallagher in 2007. THE LETTER Irish Journal for Lacanian Psychoanalysis Our History Explore hundreds of articles related to Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan Browse by Author Browse by Issue Browse by Keyword Access 30 years of articles with an Annual Subscription to The Letter Archive The Letter Archive is an essential resource for those interested in the field of Lacanian Psychoanalysis. To access the complete archive of the journal, you must have an Annual Subscription. Since 1994, The Letter Irish Journal for Lacanian Psychoanalysis has been a vital resource for those with an interest in the field of Freudian-Lacnian psychoanalysis. In that time, The Letter has published nearly 500 articles by both international and Irish authors, and the archive stands as a testament to the work carried out by researchers, practitioners and students of psychoanalysis, with a particular affinity for the field in an Irish context. With an annual subscription, you can read any of our journal articles online; allowing you to explore the history, theory and practice of Lacanian psychoanalysis anytime, anywhere using your computer, tablet or phone. To see our annual subscription rates that are available for Individuals, Students and I nstitutions , click here . Open Access Articles A Stranger To Myself Issue 65 Cormac Gallagher Why Am I Anxious? Issue 64 Charles Melman An Incorrect Interpretation Issue 59/60 Audrey McAleese Inside Bungalow 3: A Psychoanalytic Perspective Issue 58 Stephanie Metcalfe ‘Blessed are the Pacemakers’: Dementia, Psychosis and The Psychoanalytic Discourse Issue 55/56 Cormac Gallagher What Can We Learn From Freud's Critique of Religion? Issue 47 Cormac Gallagher Love in Plato's Symposium Issue 47 Terry Ball Psychological Object or Speaking Subject: from Diagnosis to Case Re-presentation Issue 46 Cormac Gallagher Freud’s Group, Lacan’s Cartel and The Toric Organisation Issue 45 Tony Hughes Start Reading The Letter is indebted to the work of Cormac Gallagher, as is serious Lacanian psychoanalytic work in Ireland and the English-speaking world. His invaluable translations of Lacan’s work and many papers providing guidance into that work are available free to access on www.lacaninireland.com. The Letter is proud to provide a direct link to this free to access work through the lacaninireland website.

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