The Psychoanalytic Act in the Preschool Space, or How to Be Useful Instead of Right.

Abstract

This contribution examines the position of expert knowledge in the institutional context of an American preschool and a consulting psychoanalyst's refusal to join in its unquestioned dynamic. It interrogates the shift, both theoretical and clinical, occurring if and when the authority of knowledge is supplanted by attention to transference. By arguing that a classroom is the space for the psychoanalytic act and by making a distinction between what it means to be useful rather than right, the author opens a perspective for psychoanalysis in extension that the cared-for children may welcome more than the caring adults.