Saying too much is asking to be loved

Earlier today, in this post, I wrote about the discourse of the analyst being contingent on the analyst saying very little, and what the analyst does say being a sort of noting or calling attention to something the analysand said.

Sticking with that theme, I want to use the following text from Bruce Fink’s Lacan on Love.

Lacan suggests that we in fact admit that we are lacking in some way whenever we open our mouths to say something. As infants we opened our mouths to convey that we were lacking in food, nourishment, warmth, or attention, and we learned to speak to express our wants in such a way that they would be less at the mercy of the interpretations of those who cared for us, for our caregivers could not always figure out what it was we wanted and their ministrations often left a great deal to be desired. All speech is a request or demand for something we are missing, or at least to be heard and recognized as missing something, as lacking in some respect. Ultimately as Lacan puts it, all speech constitutes a demand for love. Whenever we speak, we are unconditionally asking to be heard (Lacan, 2015, p. 356), we are asking for our request to be recognized, we are asking to be responded to, we are asking to be loved.

This is one of the reasons why psychoanalysts must not speak too much during sessions, and should even avoid presenting themselves as the authors of the little they do say when possible, preferring to reiterate and punctuate the analysand’s speech. They must not reveal much about themselves, for when they do they are essentially asking or even begging (Lacan, 2015, p. 370) to be loved, which puts the shoe on the wrong foot, as it were; this is one of the main reasons why self-disclosure is such a bad idea.¹

What I think is very fascinating here is that Fink is calling attention to the much of the same stuff Miller was, albeit using different language.

I read this as Fink suggesting that many therapists enjoy self-disclosure too much, and their desire for their own enjoyment is often what drives their self-disclosure.

Chances are these therapists will reject this, and say they self-disclose because they believe the self-disclosure will be “helpful to the client”. I’m in agreement with Fink, I’d say that self-disclosure is far more often than not something that is done so that the therapist can experience the enjoyment (Jouissance) of being loved by the patient.