Lacan insists on the end of therapy enlists the patient in becoming alive in the symbolic. People often think that some kind of cure involves living in the real - yet the real is something we never know. We always live in a symbolic world. The Bible, for instance, reflects an ancient cosmology; our current knowledge of the universe reflects truer facts - but is still lived out in a symbolic way.
How to describe this? I know that there are people who equate what they know about themselves, their ego, as who they are. They fail to acknowledge - sometimes violently resist acknowledging that there is more to themselves, but observers discern that these people are seemingly unaware of how their judgments of others are actually projections of their own personality that they refuse to admit. Frank, for instance, might say that Pam is easily provoked, while those around Frank might think to themselves "you should talk." Frank is not seeing the person, Pam; he's using Pam to, if only he could see it, reveal his own "easily provokedness."
Prayer is a dialog. Often we discover God is silent - listening, we hope. We grow silent too. Our pain cannot be articulated. I burst out in anger at God. How abusive I am, meek sheepish me. God's distance is intolerable. Like Job I find no comfort from friends - who all seem to be auditioning to be God's PR representative here. If I know they're faking, surely God knows. They should talk. I should talk. (those last two sentences will provide a difficulty in translation: they proffer an imperative but are meant to be understood in the opposite sense: They should shut up; I should shut up.)
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