TY - JOUR
T1 - Studium and Punctum in psychoanalytic writing
T2 - Reading case studies through roland barthes
AU - Amir, Dana
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2018 N.P.A.P.
PY - 2018/2
Y1 - 2018/2
N2 - This paper focuses on the link between Roland Barthes’s reflection on photography and the essential characteristics of psychoanalytic case studies. The case study, like the photograph, seeks to take hold of something nearly intangible. It attempts to capture in time, space, and language something whose dynamic presence remains elusive. The attempt to capture this object often strips it of its essence. Case studies may be accurate on their face while giving us the unpleasant sense that they have “deadened” their object in the process. This paper attempts to clarify what is dropped from the picture that the psychoanalytic writing is trying to take. The relation between the “cultural context” (the Studium) and the freedom to puncture and undermine this context in psychoanalytic writing is discussed through a fresh reading of Georges Perec’s “W, or the Memory of Childhood” and through clinical vignettes by Ronald Britton and Michael Eigen.
AB - This paper focuses on the link between Roland Barthes’s reflection on photography and the essential characteristics of psychoanalytic case studies. The case study, like the photograph, seeks to take hold of something nearly intangible. It attempts to capture in time, space, and language something whose dynamic presence remains elusive. The attempt to capture this object often strips it of its essence. Case studies may be accurate on their face while giving us the unpleasant sense that they have “deadened” their object in the process. This paper attempts to clarify what is dropped from the picture that the psychoanalytic writing is trying to take. The relation between the “cultural context” (the Studium) and the freedom to puncture and undermine this context in psychoanalytic writing is discussed through a fresh reading of Georges Perec’s “W, or the Memory of Childhood” and through clinical vignettes by Ronald Britton and Michael Eigen.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85041575045&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1521/prev.2018.105.1.51
DO - https://doi.org/10.1521/prev.2018.105.1.51
M3 - Article
C2 - 29364076
SN - 0033-2836
VL - 105
SP - 51
EP - 65
JO - Psychoanalytic Review
JF - Psychoanalytic Review
IS - 1
ER -