Lay experts

Abstract

Drawing on the experience of the University of Desire, this contribution questions the possibility of occupying the empty place of desire with a political teaching that does not bypass the jouissance inherent in lalangue. Freud's assimilation of psychoanalytic treatment to a surgical operation offers an opportunity to question the constitution of the operative field of psychoanalysis: if it takes place on the basis of the analyst's desire, this means that the field that unfolds in it is constituted on the basis of a departure from academic knowledge, insofar as analysts, both expert and lay, protect and operate the difference between academic and analytic knowledge. The field of lay expert analysts is thus that of a clinic of the real.