Speaking Body

In this episode of Speaking Body, I read a Substack piece reflecting on thinking publicly, revising ideas, and appreciating listener feedback. I situate the essay in summertime observations and my immersion in Stephen Batchelor, then revisit my claim that Batchelor reframes Buddhism as ethical practice rather than a metaphysical or ontological system. Drawing on Lacanian aphorisms about the impossibility of a “metalanguage,” I argue both psychoanalysis and secular Buddhism prioritize changing one’s response to subjectively experienced reality over fidelity to ultimate truth claims. I critique endless ontological theorizing using Batchelor’s “poisoned arrow” parable and examples of theory as defense in Lacanian analysis, then highlight Batchelor’s focus on removing reactivity through practice. I close by linking Batchelor with Freud’s aim of transforming misery into common unhappiness, emphasizing that practice can alter our relation to unavoidable human suffering.00:00 Welcome and Format00:30 Why Think Publicly02:11 Zucchini and Setup03:46 Key Questions Ahead04:59 Metaphysics Lacan Meets Batchelor08:57 Ontology Endless Questions10:33 Poisoned Arrow and Theory Defense13:54 Ethics Practice Over Answers16:07 Freud and No Cure

For the first time, Neil reads a written piece aloud to promote the Speaking Body Substack (speakingbody.substack.com) and to improve his writing by hearing it spoken. The piece, titled “The Intersection of Psychoanalysis and Secular Buddhism” with the subtitle “An Ethics That Resists the Seductive Feeling of Being Certain,” describes his long academic life shaped by school calendars and his current summer-like mode of slower research and reflection. He discusses discovering secular Buddhist Stephen Batchelor via the Ezra Klein Show and reading After Buddhism, focusing on Batchelor’s ethics of uncertainty, curiosity, and resisting the tyrannical pull of certainty. Neil connects these ideas to Lacanian psychoanalytic formation, plans a new cartel exploring Lacanian praxis and theology, and intends to share biweekly dispatches.00:00 Welcome and Setup01:09 Why Read It Aloud02:14 Piece Title and Structure02:30 Summer Mode Reflection04:40 Discovering Secular Buddhism05:32 Ethics of Uncertainty06:29 Three Key Bullet Points06:59 Lacanian Connection and Plans07:48 Dispatch Format and Footnotes08:20 Closing Thanks and Goodbye

Show Notes:In this episode of The Speaking Body, Neil speaks with Sam McCormick, professor of communication studies at San Francisco State University and host of Lectures on Lacan. What begins as an interview quickly becomes a wide-ranging conversation about Lacan, teaching, fatherhood, clinical practice, and psychoanalysis as a lived experience.Neil and Sam discuss what it means to read Lacan seriously without turning Lacanian language into empty jargon; the difference between knowing how to do something and knowing how to deal with what cannot be mastered; the place of the real, the end of analysis, the role of the analyst, and the importance of uncertainty in clinical work. They also touch on the question of making psychoanalysis more accessible, the meaning of payment and the body in analytic treatment, and the possibility of bringing Lacanian work into broader conversations beyond the clinic and the classroom.Table of Contents: 00:00 Welcome and Setup01:02 Why Sam McCormick01:57 Scheduling and Ditching the Plan04:25 Neil Leaves Academia07:42 Live vs Asynchronous Teaching10:51 Fatherhood Leads to Lacan16:25 Knowing How to Deal18:57 Sam Introduces Lectures21:37 Building a Global Community28:13 Seeing Suffering Everywhere31:45 Psychoanalysis as Experience33:39 Certainty and Repetition Loops36:19 Discourse Theory and Mastery42:45 Neurosis Psychosis and Not Knowing46:33 Analyst as Little a48:13 Trash and Sainthood49:52 When Analysis Ends50:45 Draining Jouissance52:57 From Knowing to Desire55:43 Hysteric Trap of Insight57:50 Threshold of the Real01:03:20 Why Teach Lacan01:05:19 Access and Affordability01:07:17 Psychoanalysis in Streets01:09:00 Why the Fee Matters01:14:56 Teleanalysis and the Body01:19:37 Being Versus Having01:22:31 Miller on Existence01:29:22 Littoral Zone and Borders01:32:20 Closing and Next Steps

Neil Gorman hosts a short solo episode of The Speaking Body Podcast, continuing his argument that psychoanalysis is oriented by not knowing, privileging the unknown because it generates desire and questions, unlike other therapies that rely on the practitioner knowing. He extends this by distinguishing judging from noticing: judging is tied to knowing and aims to assert conclusions or make something happen, which can stop the process, while noticing involves highlighting what stands out without knowing the outcome, proposing observations to see what they provoke. Using clinical examples, such as a patient repeatedly claiming they want to stop procrastinating, he contrasts forcing an insight through judgment with naming patterns or inconsistencies to see what response emerges. He invites feedback via speakingbody.substack.com and mentions ways to support the show.00:00 Welcome and Setup00:21 Recap Not Knowing01:43 Science and Ethnography Link02:35 Judging Versus Noticing04:23 Noticing in Practice07:15 Procrastination Case Study09:23 Knowing Versus Proposing11:08 Listener Feedback and Contact11:34 Core Takeaway Summary12:16 Thanks and Support the Show

A short solo episode of The Speaking Body Podcast, building on a previous discussion of psychoanalysis as a clinical practice that does not take up the patient’s supposition that the analyst knows the patient’s unconscious, instead offering curiosity and a position of lack of knowledge. Neil argues this stance is unusual in the U.S. psychotherapeutic marketplace, where many therapies emphasize teaching skills, tools, and expert knowledge, but that the underlying ethic is not unique to psychoanalysis. He compares psychoanalysis to science, where experiments are driven by unanswered questions and results generate further questions, and to ethnography, where researchers enter unfamiliar settings with nonjudgmental curiosity to learn how people live. He references Chris Arnade’s “thick culture/thin culture” distinction and restates it psychoanalytically as unconscious plot versus conscious stage settings, and invites listeners to respond via speakingbody.substack.com.00:00 Welcome and Setup00:27 Recap Key Claims01:50 Lacan and Curiosity03:00 Beyond Psychoanalysis05:08 Science as Not Knowing05:57 Experiments and Replication08:44 Ethnography Explained11:45 Shared Ethic Across Fields12:53 Chris Arnade Example14:41 Thick vs Thin Culture15:19 Closing and Support

In this short solo episode of The Speaking Body Podcast, I (Neil Gorman) try a new format and invite listeners to email feedback about whether they like it. I explain a key difference between how psychoanalysis is practiced versus many forms of psychotherapy, coaching, or other helping relationships: when someone seeks help, they often engage in transference by supposing the helper has knowledge, authority, and power. In many cases, the helper accepts this supposition and provides advice, tools, or a treatment plan, which can be helpful. By contrast, I argue that psychoanalysts do not take up this supposition of knowledge; instead, they adopt a position of not knowing and respond with curiosity, offering hypotheses and questions rather than prescriptions. I close by noting this stance is essential to psychoanalytic work and share where to learn more at speakingbody.substack.com.---Table of contents00:00 Welcome and Format00:37 Big Idea Setup02:02 Psychotherapy Side Explained03:34 Transference and Authority05:32 Helper Model Benefits06:46 Switch to Psychoanalysis07:58 Not Taking Transference09:19 Curiosity Over Knowing11:41 Interpretations as Hypotheses13:02 Continuum Not Binary13:54 Key Takeaway and Wrap15:17 Thanks and Where to Find

In this episode, I announce that I’m rebranding and relaunching my podcast, previously called the Informed Podcast, as Speaking Body. I explain that Speaking Body will be both a podcast and a website (speakingbody.com) that will archive my writing, offer a newsletter, and occasionally include video episodes on YouTube, while keeping the same RSS feed for subscribers.Going forward, I will focus less on applying psychoanalytic theory and more on psychoanalysis and on how psychoanalytic work leaves the consulting room and affects everyday life and subjectivity. While I will sometimes use specialized Lacanian terms (e.g., jouissance, discourse of the master, object a, imaginary/symbolic/real, drive), I aim to restate key ideas in more commonplace language whenever possible.

In this episode of the InForm: Podcast, I speak with Peter Rollins, the man behind pyro-theology, the Wake festival, the Spark retreat, Atheism for Lent, and many more things that can provoke all sorts of interesting experiences and elaborations. I first became aware of Pete's work many years back as I was attempting to build up my own understanding of Lacan. I don't remember exactly how it happened, but I found a video of him discussing Lacanian ideas, in which he explained them in ways I found intelligible and useful. This led me to watch more of his videos, listen to his podcast, and then read his books.  Today, what interests me about Pete's work is the way that he goes about building engaged communities that work and struggle together to acknowledge, experience, and communicate about the lacks and antagonisms that are at the center of human subjectivity (or the human condition if you prefer that language), which is the main thing I speak with him about in this informal but hopefully informative conversation.We do, of course, go in other directions as well; we even tell a few jokes, which I hope you all find amusing. One last thing: near the end of the interview. REFERENCED: 1. Pete's Patreon & his Website2. Todd McGowan's YouTube3. Analysis Laid Bear 3. The Aims of Analysis

On this episode of InForm:Podcast, I speak with practicing Lacanian psychoanalyst Isolda Alverez about the way the aims of the psychoanalytic clinic have changed from Freud's time through Lacans and into the present day.Recommendations: 1. Band: Yo La Tango (Spotify, Apple Music) Album: "And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out" (Spotify, Apple Music)2. Lucifer (TV Show on Netflix, Comic) 3. The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Amazon) 

On this episode of InForm: Podcast, Neil talks with Nathan Gorelick about psychoanalysis, psychedelics, psychosis, delusions, science, & mysticism. The result is a long, hopefully informative conversation. Nathan is Term Assistant Professor of English at Barnard College in New York. He holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the State University of New York at Buffalo, and he has completed the six-year cycle of the Training Seminar in Lacanian Psychoanalysis with Gifric in Quebec City, Canada. He has published widely on the theoretical and historical intersections of psychoanalysis with diverse topics including ecocide and catastrophe fetishism, psychedelic drugs, Continental philosophy, the Haitian Revolution, Islam and Islamophobia, and the theory of the novel. His first book, The Unwritten Enlightenment, sets out a new theory of the relation between literature, ideology, and the unconscious, and is forthcoming early in 2024 from Northwestern University Press.REFERENCED DURING THE EPISODE: 1. Žizek video on ideology 2. Freud's -- Future of an Illisuion, Civilization & its Discontents, Moses & Monotheism, Analysis Terminable & Interminable. 3. Otto Rank -- The Trauma of Birth 4. Éric Laurent -- Guiding Principles for Any Psychoanalytic Act 5. The Lacanian Review #7 "Get Real"