Samuel Beckett et l’invention de l’écriture sérielle
Samuel Beckett and the Invention of Serial Writing

Summary/Abstract: Creativity does not specific only the history of the disciplines of spirit. It also defines normality itself to the extent to which normality is given to man who, at best, to use a term coined by the creator of psychosomatic medicine, Viktor von Wiezsäcker, is stricken by normopathie. After a defining meeting with Freud, he published a research in Die Kreatur magazine demonstrating that, as long as it is to be found “exiled on earth”, in its minor and pathological meaning, the “creature” is synonym with suffering. For psychoanalysis, in its major opposite meaning, the therapeutic one, the following is implied: how much creativity so much normality. Given this context, the major theoretical and practical plus that Lacan brings in addition to Freud is represented by the possibility of treatment for psychosis using what he coined as the “substitute”. His seminar titled Le Sinthome is entirely focused on the manner in which James Joyce could “substitute” his psychosis through the recursive act of his own creativity. The recursion to creation can substitute the recurrence of psychosis. In this paper we argue the importance and function of the substitute in Samuel Becket’s case – he was, for a while, Joyce’s personal secretary. After a schizophrenic episode followed by an analysis with Wilfred Bion, Beckett managed not only to find substitution in and through his work, but also to provide some important indications for the therapy of this serious condition.

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