Conversation circle: “An expedition to the pole in summer clothes: psychoanalysis in the face of sexual dissidences”

Abstract

In this presentation, the author shares her theoretical and clinical trajectory in the field of sexual and gender dissidences, responding to an invitation to reflect on Facundo Blestcher’s text about psychoanalysis “going to the poles in summer clothes.” The author problematizes the limits of psychoanalysis in the face of contemporary transformations in subjectivity. Drawing from clinical practice, teaching, and the experience of the Laboratory of Sexuality, Gender, and Psychoanalysis, she proposes an ethical and theoretical shift: rather than asking what psychoanalysis has to say about dissident subjects, we must ask what these subjects have to say to psychoanalysis. She questions the normative use of classical psychoanalytic concepts and advocates for a critical reading of the tradition, which is marked by a cis-heteronormative bias. The presentation calls for an implicated psychoanalysis, capable of rethinking its paradigms in light of intersections of gender, sexuality, race, and class.