From Hallucination to Fiction: The Invention of Meaning in Psychosis

Abstract

Taking their inspiration from a case history, the authors explore the effects of a writing workshop led by a professional writer for patients in a psychiatric hospital. This workshop allowed different modes of transference to unfold: transference to the analyst-therapist, transference to the writer who led the workshop, and transference to the other members of the group. The writing activity created conditions in which there could be a movement from hallucination to delusion-a delusion expressed in fiction through the act of writing. Psychotic patients "invent" a writing that remains unfinished and that relates to the experiences of persecution. Writing thus makes it possible for them to tolerate language, through its transformation into writing.

The Lacanian Act and Passage À L’acte: A Case History of the Subjective Effects of Crime on the Criminal

“…In addition, we recall Lacan's first discussion of criminality in his doctoral thesis, in reference to case of Aimée, which he locates in the register of psychosis and which involves "self-punitive paranoia" (LACAN, 1987) as well as his discussion of the case of the Papin sisters. 2 In this view, the criminal act is taken to be the equivalent of a missing symbolic 1 [Translator's note: As noted in Lippi, Lehaire, and Petit (2016):…”