There’s a slightly bleak and apologetic note to Mari Ruti’s writing here on pg 156 of The Call of Character. There’s a much nicer way of framing this: through therapeutic work we can begin to craft our own symptom rather than grapple with what spontaneously emerges. Once you understand the work something destructive is doing for you, it becomes possible to find other ways of scratching that psychic itch:
In this context, it is useful to recall that a symptom is at bottom a method of binding energy that has no other place to go. This implies that to the extent that we are able to devise an effective way of discharging our excess energy, we might be able to dodge the most voracious of symptoms. Many high-achieving individuals, for instance, are successful in part because they have found a suitable outlet for the surplus of energy that courses through their bodies and minds. Consciously or unconsciously, such individuals understand that they have a choice between pathology and achievement, that the less they are able to pour their tension into their accomplishments, the more likely it is to erupt in painful symptoms, obsessions, neuroses, and addictions of various kinds. This may seem like a sad state of affairs, and it may also be an addiction of sorts, but it is arguably one of the least destructive means of processing anxiety.
Once you cut through the mystification, there’s a deeply affirming message buried at the heart of Lacanian theory and practice: frantically looking for something to complete you is getting in the way of enjoying the many things you do have in your existence. There is a great deal of enjoyment to be had in existence, if only you can prise yourself out of the struggle to find some final resolution to it all. Ultimately I think it’s quite similar to what Bollas says in quite a straightforward mode: “I am telling the patients to stop looking so hard, give up the effort to see direct evidence of the meaning of being, and get to what one can know by simply relaxing and talking”.
Mark Carrigan 