The subject of psychosis and transference: Toward a new ethic

This dissertation redefines transference and theorizes the field and function of 'ethics' in the psychoanalytic treatment of psychosis.; In the first chapter, I present my theorization of the 'body of the psychotic' from a Freudian-Lacanian psychoanalytic (versus medical) perspective.; In Chapter 2, I suggest a way to re-conceptualize 'transference' that follows from the new understanding of the body of the psychotic, as well as from the consequences of the psychotic's "foreclosure." I isolate the stakes of the transference-impasse reached with the psychotic by both Freud and Lacan, and thus open the way for a redefinition of transference that will serve the psychotic.; In Chapter 3, I theorize the structural difference between the dream and delusion, and suggest a way to 'treat' delusion via the symbolic work of the dream. I redefine transference strictly in terms of 'knowledge': transference defined as a 'desire for unconscious knowledge'. I argue that for the analyst to enter the psychotic's experience requires a "reversal" of transference, thus modifying the usual analytic positions.; Chapter 4 serves as preliminary to the discussion of 'ethics' that will be the substance of my final chapter. In this fourth chapter I address Deleuze's claim that psychoanalysis "botches the encounter with the psychotic," and then demonstrate that Deleuze's concept of the "Body without Organs" is key to understanding what is at stake in the psychotic's experience.; In chapter 5, I show that the installation of transference depends upon the isolation of the field of ethics: an 'ethics' derived from the psychotic's singular knowledge (savoir) of the 'moral Law' (Kant). I argue that the 'rupture' of delusion by dream opens the 'field' of ethics, and thus marks the threshold the psychotic must cross to inaugurate her journey toward becoming a desiring subject.; Finally, in Chapter 6, I extend these theoretical concerns to an analysis of clinical material that explores the difficulties involved in the 'installation of transference' in the first phase of treatment with the psychotic.