PROPOSAL TO THE AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYTIC ASSOCIATION 1999

EXTENSION OF PSYCHOANALYSIS TOWARDS SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH TEAMS

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

(goto abstract)

E-1-1 Circumstances for the Goals

PLAN is a group management technique whose 'combination of Psychology and Sociology' includes very close links with Psychoanalysis. It adds or distinguishes itself from the latter, by aspects of three factors which they share:

Factors of Distinction:

E-1-1-1 Analyst factor

As a product or an extension, or a mode of Psychoanalysis, PLAN offers a specific approach for selecting its practitioner. The analyst who operates beside the group may be a lay person, an associate, a psychologist, or a psychoanalyst. As long as an introductory training and distant support system are provided by a specialist of PLAN, it allows applications of its method in a large variety of cases.

E-1-1-2 Cybernetic factor

PLAN addresses the specific issues Information Technology and its social effects. Especially with teams (scientific) whose work is related to concepts and models, the 'computing of representation' (aka Cybernetics) imposes new ways of psychological reflection. PLAN participates in the assimilation and control of this new tool. It manages also its effects on the hierarchial order (that research teams share with the industrial working complex that PLAN addresses in parallel).

E-1-1-3 Morality and Ecology factor

Psychoanalysis' precise handling of Morality is articulated by PLAN to specific collective Moral Entities (re: E-3-1-1 ); it facilitates an access in productivity control to an External Object defined by Freud (re:E-3-1-4  ). In the case of scientific research teams, this represents support for an essential quest of Ethics which have only been, heretofore, inchoately realized in the current attempts to relate Moral and Ecology.

E-1-2 General Goals - application to Non-abnormal Knowledge

When Freud considered possible neuroses of collectivities (Apdx.01 ), he saw them related to a pathology of knowledge (distinct from individual causes). Leaving to the Great Figures the charge of therapeutics (nonetheless a difficulty (Apdx.01 ), he saw the mechanisms of these neuroses as integral with social memory. Following the model of individual Psychoanalysis which may investigate normal thought processes (after their psychopathology), PLAN also extends its goal toward normal collective thinking (scientific programs, models and systems). CYBEK will offer PLAN to Universities for the development of their research programs (in addition or as alternative to the usual brain storming techniques, which are inert in regard to Cybernetic issues).

Amongst research in psychology, sociology, biology, development of genetics, economics, and even exploration of physics or mathematical theory etc., new approaches, strategies and systems will be reported.

CYBEK of New York is promoting and developing PLAN in its application in the North American culture (after its foundation and theorization in France 1985-1995).

PLAN offers a Psychoanalytic view to trained or lay agents who assist groups when they adjust their production to an Environment that includes effects of Cybernetics.
These teams will be interested in the extension of the social Morality integrating Ecological necessities. They will proceed through an analysis of the Collective Knowledge where scientists operate.
After an introduction provided by CYBEK's training program, a scholar associate of the teams, or an independent observer, (or one of CYBEK's delegates) will be able to perform PLAN's analysis with CYBEK's support.

CYBEK seeks a grant which will be employed in two directions.

1) Presentation and Promotion
CYBEK will present PLAN to Universities and Scientific teams involved in research projects. Towards this end, a promotional program must be funded.
Dr. William Theaux (Psychiatrist and researcher in Psychoanalysis) will be able to describe the theory and develop the practice of PLAN.
Pr. Charles Weatherford (Chairman of physics, Florida A&M State University) will serve as consultant and will foster adoption of the program within the University network.

2/)Editing
a) Due to the specificity of PLAN's origin in France, a needed English editing of W.Theaux' French presentations and work will be done by Ms Carole Van Chieri.
b) The foundation of an Internet tool and a Web site page for PLAN has been set by CYBEK. It will be formatted and updated in order to enhance 1) the University presentation, 2) the email program for training and/or support which is an integral part to PLAN's practice.

 3) Subsidiary direction:

- This program will constitute a base for the actual industrial implementation of scientific research projects.

- Dr. William Theaux's French background will favor contacts with French speaking Universities.

This chapter describes two sets, of former and recent backgrounds. Then, complements to PLAN's background are continued in Preliminaries (E-3, below).:

E-2-1-1 PLAN's former background finds in Sigmund Freud a mandate for an extension (namely a "bridging" (Apdx.01 )) of his original Psychoanalysis.

Appendix 01 present two excerpts from CIVILIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS, and MOSES AND MONOTHEISM, where Freud calls for what can be understood as a 'sociology', except for the fact that--for the treatment of what Freud calls "neurotic civilizations (Apdx.01 )"--an element is missing in order to enable such a social science .
Consequently Freud's request could not be pursued.

Amongst the more recent factors which have intruded on the collective awareness, 'Ecology' and 'Environment' present two new instrumental criteria for diagnoses of pathology in Civilization. Unlike in Freud's time, Religion and War are no longer the sole clinical signs of trouble in the memory of "archaic inheritance" (Apdx.01 ); vast Geodynamic and Genetic life spaces now participate in the semiology of civilizations. Added to this, the phenomenology of interactivity cannot be eluded from our self-awareness, when it is remembered to our mind by the presence of the Cybernetic apparatus .
This panorama constitutes an integral system of references and data, which allows a resumption of Freud's research in the collective sector.

Noticeably also, Psychoanalysis' classical requirement for a demand from the client side appears to be concurrently fulfilled at this collective level. In fact, community quests for an understanding of Ecology look for a model which would combine in their knowledge sociology, psychology, and biology. PLAN's promotion of Psychoanalysis addresses this request .

E-2-1-2 The second historical background for PLAN finds in Jacques Lacan a dissidence which began with his attempt to reduce Psychoanalysis into Cybernetic mechanics . In spite of their ambiguity, Lacan's early essays on THE PURLOINED LETTER and THE LOGICAL TIME have presented immense usefulness. They set prime anchors for Psychoanalysis before electronic computing begin to obviously interfere with the mechanisms of Psyche.

In the present rising awareness, Artificial Intelligence, and even Genetics profile individual treatments based on a certain logic of Code, that the logic of Meaning (aka Psychoanalysis) will confront. Within a larger spectrum, when this issue is contemplated at the level of the relationship between human Industry and Ecology, the Lacanian platform is still effective to assist the above said 'ecological sphere' in treatment for neuroses of civilization .

E-2-1-3 Lacan failed however, in sustaining his project--and the lesson from this failure constitutes a third background component: the re-establishment of the Lacanian formula, "Psychoanalysis is Cybernetics", into its reciprocal "The Ideal of Cybernetics is Psychoanalysis" restores the formula's potential towards Sociology. Instead of reducing the fact that humans exist into the emergence of Cybernetics, PLAN deduces that, since Cybernetics exists with social effects, these social effects imply a human setting in a dyad with Cybernetics.
As with this sophism, the specific group symptom in the functioning of the Lacanian institution has effectively constituted the practical object for a reversion . In this recovery of meaning, the use of Lacan's intuitive formulae can gear the endeavor of investigating Group-Psychology in the Freudian prospect.

We shall describe as a recent background the agents of the current management of PLAN.

E-2-2-1 Dr William Theaux attended the University of Paris and had gained degrees both in Medicine and Psychiatry when he underwent Psychoanalytical investigation (Lacanian then Jungian). His professional goal has been collective application of treatments directed towards Ecological effects. Later, he parted with his base of training, once he felt ready to advance his own investigations.

An Association, UNEFPE (UNE Fonction PsychanalytiquE), was created in Lyon/France in 1985. Its principle was to implement the factual Psychoanalysis in compliance with established traditional social organizations ('Association' - French Law of 1901). The setting of a technique (Analyse Plurielle in French, PLural ANalysis, PLAN in English) resulted. Thus grounded in realism, UNEFPE experienced its analysis, of which several reports are published in various editions .

E-2-2-2 Fifteen books and articles are listed (Apdx.04 ), published by UNEFPE, L'ECRITURE, OUTRIGGER PRODUCTION. A basic coverage of Ecology and Economy is currently available in French edition at the Main Branch of the New York Public Library. In English, three videos have been produced: THE SETTING OF PLURAL ANALYSIS, PSYCHOANALYSIS AND CYBERNETICS, and PSYCHOANALYSIS AND ECOLOGY. Most of Theaux' works in English have been written for the World Wide Web since he established United States Residency in 1995.

E-2-2-3 In 1997, CYBEK of New York was created, providing a USA partnership with UNEFPE. It included a department which regards the Freudian insight into the 'archaic inheritance' as in depth as Genetics does, inasmuch as it relates Freud's 'transmitted qualities'  to a logic of Code (that PLAN integrates in its theory).

Then a step in PLAN's setting was acheived when CYBEK set the base for electronic communication and support for group-management and analysis: The analyst's role in PLAN, formerly assigned only to a Psychoanalyst in UNEFPE, became possible, with CYBEK's training and support, for lay people.

Since PLAN has produced outstanding results, they must be mentioned in order to appreciate the span and potential of its technique - but also to identify it in regard to Psychoanalysis.

Emerging from its background, PLAN made important information available: the fundamentals of its technique address a form, which represents a legislative ruling of a typical scientific object.

E-3-1-1 (Morality) : Governmental laws usually apply to mundane objects, issues, or situations; they are barely seen in their application to explicit scientific objects (e.g. an atom, wave, anatomical organ etc.). However, this is what PLAN revealed; that it was shaped upon the "Association ruled by the Law of 1901", which explicitly addresses the legislation of a scientific object (social association ).
This reflection of PLAN happened in a fashion of 'self-analysis' (i.e. when it underwent its own practice). It was able to reveal a structure of Moralization, dictated by E.Durkheim's Sociological association for the French Republic (thereby shifting Moral Responsibility from individual to Collective Entities - thus ostensibly guarantying the Revolutionary promised freedom for individuals).

A Government which identifies the Moral cause (Personne Morale, in French) with a Scientific object (Durkheim's association) gains a social organ with its possibility to conduct an Ecological Industry. It also solves Freud's major difficulty (the personal authority ) as long as PLAN preserves the Psychoanalytic knowledge of individuality (Apdx.01 ). PLAN was thus giving confirmation of a potential possibility of resuming Freud's research on Collective Memory in the direction of Ecology.

E-3-1-2 (Organization) : Beside such recognition amongst legislative articles, PLAN recognized itself amongst objective elements, such as traditional and modern series of social organizations:
Again in the course of its practice, PLAN recognized itself in the early model of the Western Republic (web ) - an identification which is certainly not exceptional, except, in this case, for a capacity to bridge it with a contemporary model of Democracy . Moreover, in the intermediary period (between the platonic Republic original and democratic present moments), the Roman and Middle-Ages in Europe showed their continuity in a traditional model which is described by Historians as the Art of Memory . As with the Republic and the Democracy, this third social organ for Memory matches PLAN's description.

E-3-1-3 (Models) : These similarities and their identifications, which occurred during the practice of PLAN, have since gained confirmation from specialized scholars. They also support their verifications with the Lacanian algorithmics :
Lacan's essential graphs aptly model PLAN, in regards to Cybernetics, Sociology and Linguistics. This series of algorithms eventually culminates in a representation which integrates an Environmental space - or 'Ecology'. It empowers PLAN's reasoning when it addresses practical ecological and Industrial production issues.

E-3-1-4 (Psychoanalysis) : In specific regard to Psychoanalysis, the critique of the Lacanian usage is addressed inasmuch as PLAN also provides understanding of Freud's Group-Psychology:
Freud's ultimate call (Apdx.01 ) for bridging individual psychology to group-psychology (Apdx.01 ) - 1938 - had echoed his schema of the 'Primary Group' or 'Crowd' - 1921. However this documented project has remained fallow .
PLAN furnishes the experience where the Freudian prospect becomes accessible, for

• PLAN's organized group corresponds to the Ego Ideal's mold,
• its extracted members correspond to the oscillating egos that Freud set for a 'differentiation principle' (re: Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, Chap.XI; Freud.1921),
• its extraction session lodges the Object of the ego,
• and the Environment is represented in the External Object - (see picture )

Universities' specialties also enhance PLAN's results and suggest its application in the Intellectual Research domain:

E-3-1-5 (History) : The most well known unfilled prospect of Freud, in relation to Group-Psychology, aims toward the remembrance of the Primal Scene of the Monotheistic mode of civilization. PLAN authorized, supported and led the strenuous pursuit of his first insight.
It is not possible to separate PLAN's activity in society from its first 'interpretation' in which it assisted in identifying historical figures from legends in the religious history of the Western world - because this result grounds the sociological form with which it integrates the objective manifestation of a social memory throughout Civilization's history :

E-3-1-6 (Memory) : The release of 'memory traces' in our 'archaic inheritance' completes the Universities' collection from Archeology and Egyptology . PLAN even supplemented History at its deepest level, in reflecting the mechanism of memory itself (i.e. 're-collection' in comparison with 'collection'), for it represents the ancient Art of Memory in its contemporary update .
Thus, beside weighing an anchor in the University fields (Archeology, Egyptology), PLAN also reveals Psychoanalysis as belonging to the backbone of Civilization's memory (Art of Memory).

The second important preliminary of PLAN has been enforcing the connaturality of the Freudian Psychoanalysis with an organic site of memory within Civilization . Identifying them, and with them both, its stands in between as part of that Psychoanalytic endeavor started with Freud.

From this rallying point, PLAN assumes its own contribution when it constitutes (by the very group to which it applies) a guaranty at the office of its practice. It opens its analyst function to naive recruits under supervision as well as to professional Psychoanalysts .

On theses premises PLAN develop its practice:

E-4-1-1 The basic of PLAN

PLural ANalysis, aka PLAN - Analyse Plurielle ® in French - is a technique and operation of human inter-relationships which attributes a certain identification to a group, while isolating, in a series, dual interviews, manifesting a specificity which has been linked to Psychoanalysis. It must be made precise, that the group, though identified, is not expressing an 'identity' - but defines an entity to which a behavior can be attributed in its relationship with its environment; in practice it is the case when a group has an object (or an objective, re: below). Also, the dual relationship which is related to the said Psychoanalysis, does not replace it. Psychoanalysis is understood as what history and institutionalization have already established; besides, PLAN defines a relation which 'manifests' or 'represents' this established foundation.

The technique of PLAN is simple. The fundamental arrangement is made of two domains or spaces which are physically projected as two rooms: one is for the group's session, the other for the analyst. On this topography, a mechanism is applied : the group performs its usual objective while in its group-room, where the analyst never stays except for short entries. These entries have no other function than to invite and extract a member for a consultation in his analyst-room.

This can be simply illustrated through graphs and animated pictures which can be consulted in computer files (on disk . or web ).

Based on its two fundamentals (extracted-sessions - group at work), PLAN shares with classical Psychoanalysis an extreme simplicity in its procedure. For the purpose of an analytic information transmission between two persons, a couch and a chair have sufficed for Psychoanalysis in leading the greatest progress in the modern knowledge of the mind. Since it took this for model, PLAN shows the same simplicity.

 
E-4-1-2 The optional of PLAN

In parallel with Freud's suggestion, when he reminded us that several aspects of his technique were personal and possibly modified for the convenience of another practitioner, the rest of PLAN's technique is made of secondary options. At the present time, they are set as follows:

E-4-1-2-1 A pre-interview is made with the representative of the group (defining its object/goal and its need). Groups consists of 4 to 15 members. An average group of 10 participants requires 3 hours in each group-session (the smaller the group, the shorter it is; and vice versa). Groups can undergo one-time sessions or else be run on regular schedule basis. Preferentially, the sessions are held in the group's usual place of activity.

E-4-1-2-2 During the group-session, extracted members are chosen and invited by the analyst. Members may refuse or ask for this extraction. There is no number or order in the choice of the extraction, which can be repeated with a same member. The group may proceed without extraction, during certain periods of time.

E-4-1-2-3 The extracted-sessions match the Psychoanalytic model in regards with the prospect of its non-directivity and free-association of the thoughts which are delivered by the extracted/visiting members. There is no rule for the duration of the extracted-sessions. The analyst is liable for non-mandatory interpretations. He makes no report for any sessions which are considered as private (there is no report likewise of the group-session by the analyst). However, reports by members, regarding extracted and group sessions are possible.

These rules being liable to adaptation to various situations, the large range of PLAN's options opens it to a wide range of applications, as well as several categories of analysts (as detailed below). The principle of 'privacy' (no information is transmitted from the analyst out of his room) is yet important to be observed; it is a factor which forces a series of consequences that constitutes the phenomena which characterizes PLAN :

PLAN displays three sites of operations. They are described in the general PLAN document; inasmuch as they relate to the common hierarchial power order in all human collectivities. Here follows descriptions which emphasize the Knowledge phenomenon which is added, and typical, with Scientific Teams.

 
E-4-2-1 The meeting of the extraction - psychology site

This is a meeting where the member of the Scientific teams communicates with the analyst. What he will meet is the psychological experience of the absence of memory which makes Scientific Models universal and without time (instead of Ideologies defined as historical).

 
E-4-2-2 The analyst exclusion - memory site

The memory that the analyst represents is not made of historical facts, but natural events (the 'memory traces' that Freud contemplates in the Environment are equivalent with the physical traces in which matter is present in consciousness)

 
E-4-2-3 The group without the extracted - sociology site

Abstraction made of the social imago, when the object of a group is abstract knowledge, the extraction of a member relates to Ignorance (instead of Death in the historical social part). Projection (or introjection) of absence of Knowledge is the necessary hub for evolution (or revolution) of thought and Models in action in Science.

E-4-3-1 Approach

E-4-3-1-1 Presentation

CYBEK will format its presentation in order to fit the potential demand.

E-4-3-1-2 Promotion

CYBEK will be looking for contact with Scientific Research Teams - from Universities or the Public sector. In particular, those which will be seeking to improve their perception and adjustment of their environment - either in regard to the material environment, or intellectual - conceptual and knowledge environment.

PLAN will foster the notion of Collective Behavior as the factual relationship between Knowledge and Ecology. It will address research in Fundamental Sciences as well Scientific goals which associate Sociology and Industry.

Teams which declare a Ecological goal will deserve special attention.

Teams which are involved with Cybernetics (Information Technology) will also be distinguished, especially those which question the human relationship.

E-4-3-2 Application

E-4-3-2-1 Contact

Contact will be made with the relevant sectors. They will be evaluated both by a PLAN specialist and by the University consultant.

E-4-3-2-2 Analysis

Description of PLAN's technique will be public and the cost of its demonstration will be provided by the requestor, as well as its continuation either by a specialist of PLAN or under the support/control of CYBEK's distant training program.

E-4-3-2-3 Report

CYBEK will ask for a sample of the client report of its experience and results.

© William Théaux, 1999