In couple analysis, it is fundamental to distinguish between separation and divorce – 09/04/2023 – Vera Iaconelli

We began an analysis talking about the tyranny of the boss, the ingratitude of the children, the indifference of the “conje/a”, the evil of the family members and the corruption of the governments. We ask for the analyst’s complicity in the interpretation of our ordeal. He is expected to be the judge who will attest that our ills are caused by the other.

Freud did not join in the fun, as he questioned right away what was the part of the complainant in the suffering that led him to the analysis. Such “insensitivity” could be accompanied by the patient’s noisy departure from the office of the inventor of psychoanalysis. But time showed that they came back and wanted to continue to know more about what, at first, they didn’t want to know anything. Against the patient’s demand, the analyst understands that the direction of an analysis is another, towards separation.

Lacan describes the three human passions as love, hate and ignorance. For those who remain trying to answer their part in their own suffering, appreciation for ignorance is ethically faced at each session. It is a clinic not used to seductive outings. Hence the psychoanalytic approach is often confused with coldness, when in fact it takes the symptom with the greatest dignity, as the most legitimate way the patient found to deal with his unconscious, eternally childish. There is no room for fussiness or imposture. But this is not a humor-free clinic, far from it! Laughing at what until then was a reason for despair is not rare. After all, those who do not retreat from themselves lose their fear of devastation. Ghosts exposed to light turn out to be ill-fitting sheets.

When it comes to analyzing couples, it is essential to distinguish between separation and divorce. Divorce concerns social status, bureaucracy and the materiality of the relationship. Even if there is no paperwork involved, one imagines, at the very least, that toothbrushes will no longer cohabit. Separation, however, occurs elsewhere. It happens in and out of divorces, even in and out of the world of the living. Who does not know a widower who is as or more married to his/her deceased partner?

To separate is to take back what is yours, good and bad. That is why Freud stated that the most difficult griefs are those that reveal the most ambivalent relationships, as the hatred deposited in the other returns to us. Divorces do not always imply true separations, as seen by former couples who remain hating each other for decades or in a kind of limbo from which no one ever leaves completely to establish new relationships. But it is not just the loss of the stricto sensu relationship that causes suffering. Affective relationships contribute to other relationships —such as friends, family, children, stepchildren— and financial and social status. There is time for so much mourning, which depends on the affections committed to each object invested.

In the adorable “A Pior Pessoa do Mundo”, a film by Joachim Trier (2022), the protagonist Julie searches her career, love and motherhood for an answer to her place in the world. But it is in separating from the other’s desire that she has the chance to approach something of her own. In this sense, the recognition of the ultimate separation, which only the glimpse of the death of the other allows, remains the best adviser.

Psychoanalysis understands that we are internally divided, because what is most characteristic of us is what we most insist on not knowing. We seek, through love and analysis, to escape the divorce from ourselves.

PRESENT LINK: Did you like this text? Subscriber can release five free hits of any link per day. Just click the blue F below.