“Ah, I served as a stool for you!”

“Ah, I served as a stool for you!”
Anne Béraud

Much of my analysis, which took place entirely in Paris, was after my emigration to Montreal. It took on another pace: four or five sessions a day, and sometimes six when I had to tear off a piece of the real before leaving for far away. Each time it was a concentrate of: an instant to see, a time to understand, a moment to conclude – all this in a hurry – pushed, pressed by urgency. The redoubling of urgency, inherent in what pushes in the analysis, was duplicated by this particular temporality. No time to lose! In tune with my style, this modality suited me better than a routine of regular sessions intertwined in everyday life. I found there the intensity that inhabited me. After eighteen years of analysis, a moment of pass that was not the end of the analysis unfolded, following this logical urgency. This moment of urgency in my cure highlights the act of the analyst.

The glimpse of my fantasy had allowed me to cross a threshold, reducing the jouissance included in the ravage. The relentless demand to the Other, however, persisted in the form of reproaches. I said in the session: “This dissatisfaction that insists is something that was pushing me…” The cut of the analyst at that moment, like a tripping-foot, produced an echo in the body, outside of meaning. A forgotten statement that had never been mentioned in analysis came back to me: “Climb up on it, you will see Montmartre.” This formula, caught in lalangue, accompanied the gesture of my father making me climb on the stool in the bathroom so that I could see myself in the mirror. The cut of the previous session pushed me literally outside, presentifying the stool and in the same movement, reversing it. “Ah, I served as a stool for you!” exclaimed the analyst. Joy and lightness seized me.

Without the screen of the fantasy being crossed for all that, for a pleasure related to the gaze remained active, it was nevertheless a moment of pass, with the urgency to live in another place.

Translated by Joanne Conway