Jean Laplanche, a major figure in psychoanalysis, deeply elaborated on après-coup (or Nachträglichkeit) in his work, framing it as central to the process of psychic development and the constitution of subjectivity. His ideas both extended Freud’s original conception and distinguished themselves from Lacan’s structuralist approach. Here’s an overview of Laplanche’s thoughts on après-coup:
1. Après-Coup as Temporal Reorganization:
• For Laplanche, après-coup refers to the way earlier experiences are retroactively reorganized and assigned meaning in light of later events.
• He emphasized that the subject does not immediately comprehend or integrate an experience. Instead, there is a deferral, where a past event becomes meaningful only when reinterpreted later, often in response to a new, similar experience.
2. The Primacy of the Enigmatic Other:
• Central to Laplanche’s theory of après-coup is his concept of the “enigmatic message”: the idea that the child is subjected to unconscious and enigmatic messages from caregivers (often laden with adult sexuality and unconscious desires).
• These messages are incomprehensible to the child at the time of their reception. It is only through a process of nachträglichkeit (après-coup) that the child revisits these messages, trying to retroactively decode and make sense of them.
• This process highlights the deferred and interpretive nature of psychic life, where meaning emerges only through later attempts to process the enigma of the Other’s communication.
3. General Theory of Seduction:
• Laplanche’s general theory of seduction places après-coup at the core of the relationship between the infant and the adult world.
• According to Laplanche, the child’s psyche is shaped by the adult’s unconscious messages, which are initially traumatic because they cannot be fully understood. These messages leave “cryptic residues” in the unconscious that later psychic work must process.
• Après-coup explains how these residues are reinterpreted and integrated into the subject’s psyche over time.
4. Après-Coup and Trauma:
• Laplanche emphasized the traumatic nature of après-coup. The deferred processing of the enigmatic messages often involves a second moment of trauma, as the subject retroactively encounters the repressed elements of the initial experience.
• For example, an event in adolescence (such as sexual awakening) might trigger the reinterpretation of earlier childhood experiences, revealing their previously latent meanings and reshaping the subject’s psychic structure.
5. Critique of Lacan:
• While Laplanche respected Lacan’s contributions, he diverged from Lacan’s emphasis on the symbolic order and language as the primary structuring forces of the psyche.
• For Laplanche, après-coup is less about the linguistic or symbolic system and more about the interplay between the subject and the Other’s enigmatic messages. He focused on the asymmetry of the subject-other relationship and the unconscious transmission of meaning, rooted in the specific, bodily reality of the human condition.
6. Après-Coup and Translation:
• Laplanche frequently used the metaphor of translation to describe après-coup. The initial, enigmatic messages from the Other are like a foreign language that the child cannot understand at first.
• Through après-coup, the child attempts to “translate” these messages into their psychic structure, but this process is incomplete and leaves residues of the untranslated, which continue to work in the unconscious.
Summary of Laplanche’s Contribution:
• Après-coup is central to Laplanche’s psychoanalytic theory, especially his general theory of seduction.
• It explains the deferred process by which enigmatic, unconscious messages from the Other are reinterpreted and integrated into the subject’s psyche over time.
• Laplanche emphasizes the traumatic, enigmatic, and asymmetrical aspects of this process, highlighting the ongoing tension between what can and cannot be understood.
• His approach distinguishes itself from Lacan by focusing less on linguistic structures and more on the interpersonal and embodied dynamics of the subject’s encounter with the Other.
For Laplanche, après-coup is not just a mechanism of psychic functioning; it is a fundamental principle that underscores the temporal, relational, and enigmatic nature of human subjectivity.
