Entry 31: Some Thoughts On JA Miller's 'Docile to Trans'
(this is entry 31 in my psychoanalysis blog here, posted to my main blog for easier access due to the relevance of the text I am responding to)
"But you have to be familiar with the place, as I am and as Guattari once was, to allow yourself such profanity." - J.A. Miller
It is fitting that my last two blog entries in the psychoanalysis section are centered around the unethical practices of Lacan as JA Miller's recent essay, which describes Lacan's abuse of Miller, could easily fit right into each of the above entries.
That is, Miller has - to a lesser extent of course - joined the dissident ranks with the likes of Guattari, Green, and Laplanche. However, juicy psychoanalytic drama aside, as folks on twitter have pointed out, more importantly the text also covers trans culture and wokeness.
Though the text set out to mainly to respond to Paul B. Preciado's lecture turned Semiotext(e) book 'Can the Monsther Speak,', what is more important is that the piece acts as a junction for significant divergences within the history of psychoanalysis and an important lesson in 'what psychoanalysis is' or 'what it should be today.'
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The history of divergences in psychoanalysis and what psychoanalysis 'is' or 'ought to be' essentially amount to two parts of the same discussion which I will attempt to cover.
Haunting JA Miller's text is an inherited and neurotic resentment for May 68 which - as psychoanalytic theories of embodiment, whether Nietzschean, Freudian, or something else might suggest - is nothing more than a sublimated rivalry between himself and Felix Guattari.
To be preicse, 'nothing more' sounds too polemical, reductive. What we should say is that some of the subtext of Miller's text can be interestingly explored and framed by looking at Miller's relationship to Zizek, Lacan, and Guattari.
So what's the Guattari connection?
Let's start with the text and then move beyond it:
Preciado's book is published by Semiotext(e), the main publisher of Guattari's work, which was of course founded by Guattari's personal friends Sylvère Lotringer.
Miller mentions that his grandson - a supposed woke-scold who lectures Miller on gender - names his favorite book as In Search of Lost Time. As any good Freudian knows, if someone takes the time to include a fact or detail in speech or writing, it has some sort of significance to the text (even if it is itself insignificant and the purpose is to detract and distract...), so one must conclude (especially if one is a good Lacanian) that the inclusion of this book is not insignificant. Though it is a well known text, and even if Guattari himself came to love the book through Lacan, my first association is that it is Guattari's self-admitted favorite book of which he wrote on at length in most of his works.
The Proust book stands in as a signifier for Guattari, just as Preciado does.
Both are treated with a modicum of disdain in the text, just as Guattari is treated in general by the psychoanalytic and philosophical community alike, which we will get to in a moment.
Zizek makes a similar move to Miller in his short text First As Tragedy, Then As Farce, where he claims to respond to 'post-Hegelian neoliberal' Antonio Negri (pg. 52-60) but does so by mainly putting DeleuzoGuattarian language in scare quotes.
"egalitarian-emancipatory 'de-territorialization' "(pg 129)
"radical nomadism...the standard post-Hegelian matrix of productive flux...nomadic 'molecular' ...'molar'... "(139-141).
Of course Negri, a friend and co-author of Guattari (Communists Like Us), utilized Guattari's conceptual language, but the language Zizek mocks in these moments is more readily noticed as Guattarian, not Negrian. I can imagine Zizek or his editor suggesting Ziz respond to a more contemporary thinker who is carrying the Guattarian torch, rather than Guattari himself who Zizek thinks too lowly of to even respond to (which we will show in a moment).
Again, as is the nature of the (Lacanian) signifier, one name stands in for another, even right down to the level of phonemes: Neg'ri' really means another '-ri,' - Guatta'ri.'
Three disdained authors all stand in for Guattari.
But why?
As is now common knowledge (myth or legend will also suffice) – and I will spare the details as they are already fully documented elsewhere (Intersecting Lives, Lacan Was a Phase in My life, Anti-Oedipus Papers, etc.) - Felix Guattari, esteemed by the master, was set up to be the next Lacan – set up to carry his torch. Unfortunately, at the 11th hour Lacan retracted his support and opted instead for his son-in-law Jacques Alain-Miller who was is in good standing with the then influental Maoists. JA Miller of course would go on to be Slavoj Zizek’s ‘psychoanalyst’ and teacher. In fact, what Lacan did to Guattari is mirrored by what Miller did to Zizek: As the story goes, Guattari was going to publish a text in a journal whereupon Lacan convinced him to publish it in his journal only to then reject the piece leaving Guattari with nowhere to publish it (part of what prompts Guattari to link up with Deleuze, and the rest is history...); Zizek was told he was to be published by Miller only for Miller, at the last minute, to reject the piece causing Zizek to look elsewhere.
In classic Lacanian arrogance, in his text JA Miller imagines an interlocutor so that he may respond to the imagined position. Let us do the same with Zizek here.
Let us imagine a universe in which Lacan did not pull the rug out from Guattari’s feet. In this universe, Guattari would have been in the position of Miller and thus in the position to be Zizek’s psychoanalyst and teacher. Of course, there is no telling if it is not the case that in this counterfactual universe that Zizek would not still have chosen Miller as his analyst while still rejecting Guattari, but what matters is that there would’ve existed the possibility that Guattari could have been Zizek’s superior in an authority structure (could there a more Lacanian duo of words than 'authority and structure!') of importance to Zizek. That is, the counterfactual lets us rhetorically imagine a possible world in which Zizek was subordinate to Guattari in ranking with the master, Lacan.
Let’s imagine a different counterfactual. Let us base this one on a fact: it is undeniable that Guattari was more blessed by the father / master than Zizek himself. Guattari, analysand and student of Lacan even before it was fashionable (to the extent that he was jokingly called Lacan around La Bourde), had an intimate relationship with the master. Now for our counterfactual: Imagine a universe in which Zizek recognizes this fact. What necessarily comes next from his recognition of this fact? Perhaps the idea that not only did Guattari have a closer relationship than Zizek to his idol Lacan, but that Guattari, from Zizek’s perspective, squandered this. Let us imagine a world where Zizek thinks “It should have been I who was chosen to be Lacan’s torch bearer, I would appreciate it in a way that Guattari did not!” Now, what feelings are thoughts like these often bound up with? We would probably say jealousy or envy, feelings -or psychodynamics, rather - that are commonly associated with betrayal, the word Zizek himself uses to refer to Guattari:
“Deleuze was a mega genius – Guattari, now he is the real traitor here. Like a true Stalinist would say, he should be brought out back and shot” (Žižek. “Ontological Incompleteness in Film” The European Graduate School lecture Dec 1 2012)
Now, considering Zizek would never have been in the place to bear Lacan’s torch, he has settled (as both the Kleinian depressive position, Freudian resolution of the Oedpial complex, and Lacanian castration requires) for the next best thing – having Miller as his analyst.
To get back to Miller's text - this envious or jealous and resentful streak is captured only briefly in the text when Miller writes "But you have to be familiar with the place, as I am and as Guattari once was, to allow yourself such profanity," meaning 'in order to critique Lacan(ianism) you have to had been through it. Interestingly, this is not unlike the inclusivity ritual or signing ethnic or racial groups enact around certain slurs, or the way an older brother draws the line on who can name-call his younger brother; both are name calls 'hey, I can say that to him because he's my family, but I'll beat you up if you say it!' Sibling rivalry anyone?
It is this historical drama that is playing out in Miller's piece. Guattari is an implied signifier standing in for the 'disorder' of hsyeric discourse introduced into and thereby undermining psychoanalysis.
This helps us get to our other point - discussing how the text helps us see 'what psychoanalysis is.'
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Psychoanalysis changed from a medical adjacent therapeutic clinical technique for helping people to a theoretical template for understanding culture. Lacan achieved the latter by making efforts to remove the notion of medical or healing authority from psychoanalysis, making it 'a science of understanding how subjectivity forms' of which the therapeutic benefits were purely secondary, if at all. He did so by bankrupting the value of the training institution by letting anyone in, and making the criteria for graduating analytic training based on immeasurable, individualized, and moving goalposts (which is why Deleuze and Guattari refer to him as 'the first schizoanalyst' which we wills ay more on in a minute).
Over the course of my training I have weighed both the strengths and weaknesses, alternating between the therapeutic and theoretical approach. I have - like most of the Lacanian defectors (Laplanche and Green, among others) - settled on the therapeutic approach.
Regardless, the the purely theoretical approach of listening to a patient on the couch without the intent for caring or curing, or the act of viewing a film through a psycho analytic lens - both being an exercise in how someone understands their own subjectivity, and how their subjectivity might have formed along certain lines - this 'pure' approach is merely an intensified version or extension of the basic therapeutic technique Freud developed.
In other words, no matter how you cut it, psychoanalysis is a way of understanding how people understanding themselves, and how that understanding effects behavior and thought which is measured by the way the person relates to the analyst under certain circumstances (an other, transference).
The question then is a tricky one - is this specific frame and method of listening and deducing one's subjectivity through a careful relationship applicable to trans folk?
The quick and easy answer is yes, but things are rarely quick and easy, and especially not when it comes to psychoanalysis. Here's the longer answer:
I don't think psychoanalysis should try and cater itself to trans folk; Neither analysts nor trans really want each other for who they are (which is one understanding of Lacan's 'there is no sexual relationship'), and so I think psychoanalysis and the trans population are an ineffective match. This is not because of a fault with trans folk, nor a deficit of psychoanalysis, but rather because of a limit or set of limits pertaining to both psychoanalysis and trans people.
My experience is that most trans people do not want or need psychoanalysis because the theory and model is derived from non-trans folk subjectivities and therefore it seeks to achieve different goals than those of trans subjectivities, and it seeks to achieve these goals by means different than those of trans folk.
This is because psychoanalysis, in addition to being a frustration model that presupposes someone has enough gratification in life to withstand continued frustration (the analyst prohibits action, reflects questions, encourages laborous thinking and the expression of hard to express feeling, etc.), psychoanalysis is in part predicated on the acceptance of things out of one's control, or the idea that there is such a thing as being in and out of control. This acceptance takes various theoretical myths from different sub-schools of psychoanalysis:
- The Kleinian depressive position of accepting appropriate accountability as opposed to paranoically projecting blame;
- the Freudian settling for a stand-in object that is inherently inadequate from the sought after object, such as a woman outside of the family in place of the mother,
- or the Freudian letting go of the already-always lost object in an act of mourning rather than becoming mired in melancholia or mania (the latter being the fantasy that the already-always lost object is able to be recreated if one tries hard enough);
- the Lacanian castration and barred subject, etc.
I call these myths of acceptance because we don't have to subscribe to their contents; don't have to believe them to be true or effective in anyway. They are values psychoanalysis attempts to inscribe into its patients; a frame of acting and understanding.
Additionally, psychoanalysis is about having a relationship - even if it is a simulated relationship that reveals 'there is no (sexual) relationship' - with another person.
Let's be real. Trans folk don't need - or want - a paid simulated relationship with another person where they reflect on their understanding of their self and the historical experiences that contributed to this understanding, they need or want someone to clear them legally to get a surgery or chemical administration to move on with their life.
In this sense, psychoanalysis is inefficient to the needs of the trans folk. Trans folk need or want surgical and chemical intervention to feel less dysphoric. Some psychoanalysts believe that dysphoria can be worked out through the transference. I don't believe this, nor do I see any evidence that this is true. Additionally, the trans folks I have worked with do not tend to express an interest in exploring how their experiences contributed to their own understanding of their self (despite there being some good content worth exploring!). For the folks I've worked with, or continue to work with, it doesn't matter, and in many cases, it feels invalidating or counterintuitive to their attempt at carving out a space for themselves in this world.
Simply put, what psychoanalysis offers and what trans folk need or want are at odds - so bother reconciling the two?
This is not say that I do not believe trans folk seeking psychoanalysis should be turned away - that psychoanalysis should exclude trans.
No, not at all. And rather than elaborate theoretically, let me explain clinically. I have some trans folk currently in my outpatient practice, and have worked with additional trans folk in the past who have cordially and politely left treatment after we came to a mutual agreement about trying something different. I have also worked with a number of trans folk at the hospital I am employed at. With these people I do not make an attempt to foster transference or explore someone's self understanding. Rather, I work to help them solve conflicts through playfully challenging moral prohibitions they have internalized, or work to try and expand rigid thinking about what one needs to do to feel affirmed in their gender.
One AFAB (assigned female at birth) patient who identifies as male fears that if he peruses cis females - the population he is attracted to - that they will feel betrayed or duped and retaliate physically or socially when they discover, when it is time to be intimate, that he is a male without a penis. I suggest perhaps if his life is not truly in danger it does not matter, what does he care anyways? They'll either like him or they won't, and if they don't, fuck it. Can't he handle the feeling of rejection? Why should that fear prevent him from perusing his desired object? etc. Another patient insists he must starve himself to achieve the male body he needs to feel gender affirmed. Surely there are other ways that not cause as much harm and distress? Other ways that do not land you in the hospital? Have you seen most men? Isn't gender in part a set of social performances? etc.
These patient do not want to understand themselves - what contributed to their values, their behaviors, their thought structures - nor do they want to accept - or learn to accept, the unchangable. Nor is their much incentive for them to do so! Rather, they want the world to be different, and though this may cause unnecessary exhaustion or despair at times, there is ultimately 'nothing wrong' with that. Nothing wrong indeed, just may not be suitable for psychoanalysis! And the question then is, is what I am doing with these folks psychoanalysis? Some will say yes, some will say no. Andre Green has a history of saying this kind of work is 'pre-analytic' or 'not really analysis.' I think Miller would agree.
This brings us to a bit from Miller's essay. He writes
"Before trans people, the monster was the hermaphrodite. He too disturbed sexual public order. But hermaphroditism is only a matter of organs. A hermaphrodite is a biological case, a rare one at that. Androgyny, on the other hand, is a creature of myth, a matter of look and lifestyle. An androgynous person is someone whose appearance does not allow you to determine to which sex he or she belongs. This was already the case in ancient Greece or Rome: see Luc Brisson’s Le sexe incertain. It is not as such a sexual identity disorder. Trans is something else again."
Miller is both right and painfully wrong here. I would say to him, 'Yes, precisely - the 'something else again' is the emergent quality known as subjectivity that psychoanalysis aims to study!
This again gets us back to Guattari vs. Miller. This is precisely why Guattari developed schizoanalysis, a process of helping people act on their desire rather than reflect on it. A method of circumventing representation and encouraging action.
With Guattari's distrust of linguistics in mind, the ultimate question is not 'can the monster speak' but 'does the monster want to speak, and if so, under what circumstances?' Does the monster want transference and reflection, or do they want a need met so they can live their life? Yes - not can the monster speak, but can the monster do.
