Urgency in Austria

Urgency in Austria
Sophie Steininger

The Lacanian analytic community in Austria, being founded in 2009, is still young. My involvement in it has become a vital part of my life. Since that moment I began my analysis, stemming from a personal urgency, the existence of the analytic community, the Neues Lacan’sches Feld Österreich – Initiative Vienna, has become to me a matter of urgency, as if my life depends on it. I feel that being part of an analytic community is indispensable for my work as a psychoanalyst, and more than that, the Lacanian discourse in the social community in Austria puts into questions many things that otherwise would go without speaking.

Without really being fully aware of it, I have acted according to this urgency, helping to build and shape and contribute to the Lacanian field in Austria as well as I can, even at great personal cost, financial and otherwise. Something pushes me to move forward, sometimes in spite of myself, and even though the success is in no way guaranteed. This is not like a smart, sensitive, carefully considered career choice, it’s an act of creation of something that is foreign. There is no Other that can guarantee that the Neues Lacan’sches Feld Österreich – Initiative Vienna will continue to work, but there are its members, including myself, and the desire to work, with the help of work-transference, and there is the connection to the NLS that links our initiative to a larger community.