Morel, Geneviève
A clinical encounter with Luc
- 2019.
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During this interview, Luc describes the hassles he is having with his three houses, talks about his family and about his Polish mother, born in a boat while her parents were migrating, and discloses his inability to deal with “all that,” which has led to him ending up in hospital. In his sad story, which is reminiscent of a short story by Belgian author Georges Simenon, we can spot the Aristotelian couple of the “automaton” and the “tyche,” which were taken up by Lacan in his Seminar XI: “automaton” or repetition about the house that punctuates his story as a refrain, and “tyche” (accidental encounter) with the woman who does not fit in the house and causes the persecutory intrusion of the Others. The irreversible tear in the closed world of the house will never be patched up. The unique and ideal signifier of the closed house—which tied together the real, the imaginary, and the symbolic and had, in continuity with the parental dream, upheld reality ever since his childhood—functioned as a sinthome. Once undone, the sinthome can never be formed again, as evidenced by psychosis.