The search for shortcuts through psychotherapeutic solutions has always been part and parcel of the invention of psychoanalysis. The proliferation of psychopharmacology, the current form of relieving anxiety, is shaped like a contemporary symptom. With no time to imagine, dream or fantasize, almost every satisfaction takes the form of a compulsion. Non-analytic solutions satisfy the instinctual drives. But the power of transference to provide a substitute satisfaction for the symptom must be re-invented. Some psychoanalysts have tried to do this through countertransference. In contrast, Lacan deduced from it the real presence of the analyst’s desire.
Psychopharmacology; contemporary symptoms; counter-transference; analyst’s desire