Intractability of the "id" to topical treatment: Contingency and place in the structure and some guidelines from ethics of the act

Abstract

The paper focuses on some problematic conceptions of the id which are considered to be naïvely restricted to the topological aspects of the psychic structure. With this aim, some aspects of the conceptions of two different authors are examined: Jean Laplanche and André Green, with the idea of discussing, from certain Jacques Lacan’s guidelines, the place of the id in the psychic structure. The main objective of the paper is to expose the way in which the conceptions of the id with which the psychoanalyst works may have consequences that determine different positions regarding the clinical practice of psychoanalysis. It is considered how other aspects than the mere topological ones are to be highlighted concerning the id, problem that leads to the displacement of the axis from systems-identifications to that of the ethics of the act; for which the reference to the issue of contingency in the psychic structure is extremely relevant. Besides, the importance of this issue in psychoanalysis is analysed taking into account some Freudian arguments, especially the ones in which he examines the reasons that involve the split between the ego and the id in the clinical treatment of the symptom. At that point, it can be seen a particular approach not precisely linked to a categorical topological division between the systems, but related to the fact that the subject acts as a whole unit (which is split). The notion of responsibility plays a crucial role here, given that the topological division does not exempt the subject’s assumption of the effects produced by the existence of the id.