Laplanche's general theory of seduction

Domain I · Psychodynamic & depth psychology · Jean Laplanche · 1987

What it is

Every human being begins in the "fundamental anthropological situation": a helpless infant cared for by an adult who has a sexual unconscious. The adult's care carries enigmatic messages, "compromised" by the adult's unconscious, which the adult does not understand either. The infant must try to…

Format

• Laplanche defines no phases, session counts or transition criteria. He explicitly subordinates technique to the process ("the cure should precede metapsychology"). He also refuses aims set from outside the process, such as family, institutions, symptom targets or restitutio ad integrum. The…
• Format. Laplanche's frame is classical psychoanalysis: couch, fixed sessions and fee, open-ended. The sources give no session frequency. For a psychotherapist the model can be applied 1–3×/week face-to-face, keeping the frame's constancy and the analyst's refusal. That is weaker than Laplanche's…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Does it involve fasting, a special diet or 'detox'? Have you discussed this with your doctor?
• Does it use a device, heat, cold, water or a physical procedure? Has a medical professional checked that it is safe for you?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• Patients needing a time-limited symptom outcome may be better served by another modality. Say so openly.
• The patient begins to ask what the parent wanted or meant, not only what happened: the enigma of the other's message.
• You find yourself repeatedly steering toward one theme, or the patient begins to speak your vocabulary. Both suggest your messages are filling the hollow.
• Working: the patient's new formulations are idiosyncratic and their own, and more inclusive and less rigid. Warning: the patient's "insights" sound like your theory.
• Your own pull to make the material coherent is the ego's "constraint to synthesis" operating in you. If sessions feel neatly explained, attention has probably stopped floating.

Problems the guide addresses

• Stuck: the same story, the same transference, session after session
• Resistance
• Overwhelm, disorganisation, fragile binding
• Ruptures: the refusal experienced as coldness or abandonment
• Persistent demands for advice, answers, diagnosis or self-disclosure
• Risk, suicidality, abuse disclosures, safeguarding
• Erotic, idealising or hostile transference intensifying
• Non-adherence to the frame: missed sessions, lateness, unpaid fees, contact between sessions
• The patient wants a fast symptom fix, or the referral is externally driven
• The patient adopts the analyst's language: "analytic" compliance

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.