The analytic approach

Human functioning has little to do with the neurophysiological model, which reduces psychological illness to a bodily suffering that can be measured, quantified and assessed by a questionnaire. Within that discourse, the psychological fact becomes a strictly biological trait, often a neurodevelopmental one.

Yet psychological suffering is not simply a malfunction of that complex machine, the brain. Psychological suffering cannot be prevented. It cannot be trained away. It does not show up on a brain scan. It is a fact, and it imposes itself. It is not a whim, it is something unbearable. It acts in spite of oneself. It is felt. It is lived.

So it has nothing to do with the brain.

Here is what some analysands have said:

“I suffer from something I keep repeating. I have felt it before in my life.”

“I always make choices that leave me dissatisfied.”

“I can't cope with my children any more and my relationship is suffering.”

“I have reached the limit of what I can take from my manager at work. I can't go back.”

“I have no desire left. I don't sleep any more. I feel drained.”

When suffering persists and stops you from living your life, it is urgent to come and speak, within a specific setting where speech is received with respect and dignity, over a time that is not fixed in advance but is the time it takes to put one's suffering into words.

When you come to speak, you are received as the subject of your own story.

Rather than treatment aimed at mental and behavioural re-education, the analytic orientation promotes speech and free association. From there, lasting solutions emerge, in line with a desire that has been decided.