'Oranges and Lemons': art, therapy, subjectivity

Recent developments in the theory and practice of psychoanalysis have identified Creative Writing as a means of understanding subjectivity through what the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan has called suppléance, a stand-in which helps the ego cohere and in some cases prevents subjective dissolution, as may have been the case with Joyce. Following on from my own previous theoretical and creative research in this area, the story ‘Oranges and Lemons’ addresses the question of the mechanism of suppléance from the concept of art therapy by contrasting the symbolic dimension of language with the imaginary dimension of art making. In doing so, it confirms that suppléance arises out of the need to overcome an anxiety which veils the shadow of Das Ding, hence also the threat of subjective dissolution. Further, ‘Oranges and Lemons’ suggests that there may be different structural types of suppléance and that as an organising principle suppléance may be both a temporary or permanent device.