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Frederique Stref, Auckland (2026)

21/12/2025

I am so grateful for the privilege of translating the texts of Rudy Goubet Bodart and Christian Dubuis Santini.
Their writing obliges me to slow down, to listen more closely to what a sentence demands, to what a concept resists.
Translation, in this sense, is not a technical exercise but a form of apprenticeship: it teaches me where my English still falters, where it opens, where it can be tightened or allowed to breathe. I progress through this work, not by accumulation, but by exposure.
I thank them both for this opportunity, which is a space of transmission, and for the trust implied in allowing their words to pass through my hands.

Christian Dubuis Santini
Goubet Bodart

21/12/2025

"The Impossible School of Psychoanalysis

In Notes towards the Definition of Culture, T. S. Eliot remarks that, more often than not, there is no other choice than heresy if one is not to lose faith, that is to say, schism appears as the only way to keep the spirit of a religion alive. Is this not precisely the only solution in light of what is happening today with a so-called psychoanalysis that retains nothing of psychoanalysis but the name?
Lacanian teaching, having laid bare the religious structure of Capitalist Discourse, leaves room for only one possible salvation of what deserves to be saved from our Freudo-Lacanian heritage: a new “heresy” that would claim the unbearable, subversive, revolutionary core of the real of the unconscious, as uncovered by Freud. What is at stake is preserving the fact that society proceeds from repression and not the other way around; that the responsibility of the subject is always engaged; that logical rigor, ethical exigency, access to the discourse of the analyst, and so forth, all come at a price, namely, first clarifying the unconscious of which “I” am (is) the subject.
If the unconscious is indeed a knowledge without a subject, a knowledge that does not speak itself, a saying that does not know itself, it is not for all that to be conceived as the site of some immemorial wisdom hidden in a secret depth. The unconscious is in everything I do insofar as I have been able to transmute it into a saying; and if it is indeed structured like a language, it nonetheless remains a clever bricolage made up of fantasies and symptoms that cover over the void of the fundamental inconsistency of both the subject and the Other.
Freeing oneself from the stupid injunction of the superego to jouissance presupposes being able to grasp the death drive that traverses our fantasy, in order to fight the death drive with the death drive itself, this appearing as the only possible means… it being understood that indeed, “there is no other entry for the subject into the real than fantasy” (J. Lacan, Ornicar? 29).
Fantasy thus constructs the jouissance of which we are structurally deprived by attributing it to the Other (here lies the root of racism, manipulation, exploitation, and so on).
What the subject discovers in analysis is its alienation in fantasy as the “engine of psychic reality.” For psychoanalysis, die Realität is psychic reality; insofar as it is the division of the subject, there is no other, no revelation of a beyond of reality that would not itself be fantasy. Psychoanalysis is the reality of the subject alienated by its fantasy.
“The grace of going each time further, more naked, in naming the same half-light object that amply figures us, this is, to the letter, to take up life again.”
(René Char, Fenêtres dormantes et porte sur le toit, Gallimard, 1979)
The difference between the subject of philosophy and the subject of psychoanalysis lies in the logic of fantasy.
An analysis carried through to its logical end makes it possible to grasp:
• that the formula of fantasy, $a, is valid not at the outset but at the end of an analysis;
• that the reconstruction of the fundamental fantasy as such consists in a reversal of the drive into fantasy proper;
• that the analytic act is required in order to obtain this reversion from $D (demand) to $a (fantasy).
Through the difference in writing between demand and fantasy, psychoanalysis brings to light the gap forever carved between “desires”, that is, demand insofar as it concerns “the service of goods”, and desire.
The “matheme” of fantasy, $a, thus reads:
• $, the subject of the unconscious, represented only by the fissures of discourse insofar as it is an effect of that discourse,
incommensurable (both smaller and greater) with
• the object, which is no longer anything but a “symbolic” object, that is to say, itself a signifier.
The lack in the Other being radical, abyssal, impossible to fill, the subject can ratify the fact that its desire is at stake in everything that happens to it; it can no longer, from then on, consider itself an “object” of the Other.
As Samuel Beckett puts it, “Everything that happens, happens in words,” which does not, however, exclude signifying equivocation.
P.S. It is only from this point onward that acts (in their psychoanalytic sense, not to be confused with acting out or passage à l’acte) become possible: acts as effects of language, impossible to calculate.
N.B. The subject does not, for all that, abandon its dream of realizing the jouissance of the Other, and in this it is right, since sexual life rests upon this belief in a possible jouissance, but it will no longer be entirely taken in by it.
(To be continued…)"
original text in French by Christian Dubuis Santini
translated by Frederique Stref

18/12/2025

«Le sujet dont il s’agit, celui dont nous suivons la trace, est le sujet du désir et non pas le sujet de l’amour, pour la simple raison qu’on n’est pas sujet...

17/12/2025

Reading Natalie's letter to Felix in Balzac's Le Lys dans la vallée...

Are we not here in the register of the subject’s positioning in relation to her desire, rather than in the register of a demand for love? The letter is not a supplication. It does not seek recognition as a loved woman, nor even as a woman who might finally be understood. It marks a full stop.
She already seems elsewhere, slightly withdrawn; something has been grasped before being formulated, and this grasp takes on the status of an act. Her words are not an affective reaction; they are an inner positioning. And this position is striking: she does not plead, does not rival, does not offer herself further. She holds her ground.
Félix’s letter, as Natalie receives it, is a saturated letter full of memories, female figures, the dead, the absent. Freud showed that attachment to loss can become a form of jouissance. Félix does not appear to be speaking of a love that has ended, but of a love frozen in place, turned into an inner norm, might this be a libidinal fixation?
Natalie seems to hear something other than the narrative itself: that everything is already occupied, already written, stifled, without air, without any possible tremor.
The place Félix appears to offer her is that of a woman loved through others, measured against ideals, summoned to repair, console, appease, an ideal object of reparation, the lost object that is not relinquished but incorporated into the ego.
She refuses this place without anger. There is a sentence in her letter that resonates like a knowledge of the body: I do not want to die like her. This is not an accusation and it is enough. She does not turn it into a tragedy. She listens to what, in herself, says no.
Might this be an illustration of what Lacan formulated as: “Do not give way on your desire.” “ne pas céder sur son désir”?

If love aims at the One, the illusion of imaginary completeness, desire presupposes separation. Félix dreams of an impossible synthesis; Natalie, for her part, accepts disjunction. She does not seek to be everything for the other. She does not even seek to be loved at that price. Could it be named Love? She chooses to preserve a space in which desire would not be crushed by the ideal, nor sacrificed to fidelity to the dead.
What moves us is the way she withdraws. Without drama. Without a scene. She destroys nothing. She leaves a clear word, then she effaces herself. This withdrawal is not a flight; it is an ethics. She yields neither to compassion that erases, nor to love that demands. She remains faithful to something very simple: not to lose herself.
She marks a limit. She withdraws, not in order to evade the other, but in order not to dissolve into him. This gesture is discreet, almost imperceptible, and yet decisive. It is precisely there that something is at stake.
Freud showed that desire is born of lack; Lacan insisted on the impossible to be filled. Nathalie neither seeks to interpret this impossible nor to soften it. She accepts it. She makes room for it.
In this letter, she embodies a position that Freud and Lacan never ceased to work through: that of not responding to demand, of leaving the other confronted with his desire, without mitigating it or exacerbating it.
What Natalie’s letter shows us is neither a technique nor a moral lesson. It is a subjective bearing. A way of consenting to lack, of respecting the impossible, and of wagering that it is only under this condition that something living may still come into being, that desire may circulate.
And this, perhaps, belongs to an analytic ethics.

17/12/2025

En lisant la lettre de Natalie à Félix dans Le Lys dans la vallée de Balzac, j’ai été étonnée par la position de Natalie dans sa réponse à la longue lettre confession de Félix
J’en saisi une lettre de rupture brutale définitive où elle interprète l’ingratitude passée de Felix et ramène au présent ce qu’elle perçoit de ses illusions avec une lucidité amère.
Ce qui m’a étonnée n’est pas tant ce que Natalie écrit que d’où elle parle. Freud nous a appris à distinguer ce qui relève du discours adressé et ce qui relève de l’acte psychique. Ici, la lettre ne fonctionne pas comme une tentative de liaison supplémentaire avec Félix, mais comme une séparation symbolique. Nathalie écrit, mais elle n’écrit pas pour Félix au sens de la demande. Elle écrit depuis un point où quelque chose a déjà été incorporé.
Serions-nous ici dans le registre de la prise de position du sujet par rapport à son désir plutôt que dans le registre de la demande d’amour. La lettre n’est pas une supplique. Elle ne cherche pas à être reconnue comme femme aimée, ni même comme femme comprise. Elle marque un point d’arrêt.
Elle semble déjà ailleurs, légèrement en retrait, quelque chose a été saisit avant d’être formulé et prend un statut d’acte. Sa parole n’est pas une réaction affective, elle est une prise de position intérieure. Et cette position surprend : elle ne supplie pas, ne rivalise pas, ne s’offre pas davantage. Elle se tient.
La lettre de Félix, telle que Natalie la reçoit, est une lettre pleine, saturée de souvenirs, de figures féminines, de morts, d’absentes. Freud a mis en évidence que l’attachement à la perte peut devenir une forme de jouissance. Il semble que Félix ne parle pas d’un amour terminé, mais d’un amour figé, devenu norme intérieure, serait-ce une fixation libidinale ?
Natalie semble entendre autre chose que le récit, que tout est déjà occupé, déjà écrit, étouffé, sans air, sans tremblement possible. La place que Felix semble lui proposer serait celle d’une femme aimée à travers d’autres, mesurée à des idéaux, convoquée pour réparer, consoler, apaiser, comme un objet idéal de réparation, l’objet perdu qui n’est pas lâché mais incorporé au moi. Elle refuse cette place sans colère. Il y a dans sa lettre une phrase qui résonne comme un savoir du corps : je ne veux pas mourir comme elle. Ce n’est pas un reproche, Et cela suffit. Elle n’en fait pas une tragédie. Elle écoute ce qui, en elle, dit non.
Serait-ce l’illustration de : « ne pas céder sur son désir » ?
Si l’amour vise l’Un, l’illusion, la complétude imaginaire, le désir suppose la séparation. Félix rêve d’une synthèse impossible ; Natalie, elle, accepte la disjonction. Elle ne cherche pas à être tout pour l’autre. Elle ne cherche même pas à être aimée à ce prix. Elle choisit de préserver un espace où le désir ne serait pas écrasé par l’idéal, ni sacrifié à la fidélité aux morts.
Ce qui touche, c’est la manière dont elle se retire. Sans fracas. Sans scène. Elle ne détruit rien. Elle laisse une parole claire, puis s’efface. Ce retrait n’est pas une fuite ; c’est une éthique. Elle ne cède ni à la compassion qui efface, ni à l’amour qui exige. Elle reste fidèle à quelque chose de très simple : ne pas se perdre.
Elle marque une limite. Elle se retire, non pour se soustraire à l’autre, mais pour ne pas s’y dissoudre. Ce geste est discret, presque imperceptible, et pourtant décisif. C’est précisément là que quelque chose se joue.
Freud a montré que le désir naît du manque ; Lacan a insisté sur l’impossible à combler. Natalie ne cherche ni à interpréter cet impossible, ni à l’adoucir. Elle l’accepte. Elle lui fait place. Elle incarne, dans cette lettre, une position que Freud et Lacan n’ont cessé de travailler : celle qui consiste à ne pas répondre à la demande, à laisser l’autre face à son désir, sans l’adoucir ni l’aggraver.
Ce que la lettre de Natalie semble montrer serait une tenue subjective. Une manière de consentir au manque, de respecter l’impossible, et de faire le pari que c’est seulement à cette condition que quelque chose de vivant peut encore advenir, que le désir circule.
Et cela, pourrait relever d’une éthique analytique.

Frederique Stref

21/12/2025

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