Famil, says Lacan, shows us the metaphorical function of the family , that is, the phantasmatic signification attributed to the desire of the Other, to the lack of the Other. This idea is amplified in a formulation from the “Note on the Child”, which emphasizes the irreducibility of a transmission from the family, namely : the object α, which differs from a universal transmission. Lacan attributes to the family a residual function in the evolution of society. This conception of the family responds to the “failure of utopian communities” , that is, the failure to form an extended collective with One...

On the poster concocted for our next Congress, Family and Its Discontents, we can notice the cutting of the signifier dis-con-tents (mal-aise, in French), which indicates a caesura that emphasises the inherent discomfort in the structure of the family itself. The dis-con-tent, not considered as a simple dysfunction, but as a structuring residue, a remnant without apparent value – a waste, a secret, a cut within the language, a danger. The French word aise refers to what is nearby and, de facto, innervates the bonds that one and the other try to build to make family. Everything, within the family,...

Having worked for many years as a consultant in an elementary school, I have experienced the perpetual conflicts that oppose the institution of school with the institution of family. The failures and difficulties of children oscillate from one side to the other of these two institutions (the major formative contexts from ages of six to ten), each time trying to identify a clear target that is the cause of difficulties, problems, and failures. I have met hyper-protective families, incapable of throwing their children out into the world and allowing them to experiment and to be challenged. In Italy, the family...

Patience! Our translators are working on it!

The child now occupies the function of residue – the remainder of the sexual non-rapport between the parents. Residue indicates the position of object a that the child occupies in the construction of the family, as well as the irreducible dimension of this function, between a waste object and a precious object. This echoes J.-A. Miller's text , in which he defines the family in terms of the Name-of the-Father, the Mother's Desire and the objet a. In recent decades, France has seen a significant increase in the number of single-parent families. In 1990, they accounted for 12% of all families....

Patience! Our translators are working on it!