—– Forwarded Message —–
From: Jacques-Alain Miller <xxxxxxx@orange.fr>
To: Mitra Kadivar <xxxxxxxx@yahoo.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2013 11:05 AM
Subject: Fwd: Let’s not shoot the piano player(In regards the cause of Psychoanalysis in Iran)n

voilà

je vois qu’elle m’invite,
que je suis un père pour elle, etc

je n’ai pas le temps de lire
vous me direz qui c’est, celle-là

comme on m’aime!

à vous,
JAM

Début du message réexpédié :

De: Gohar Homayounpour <xxxxxxxx@gmail.com>
>
>Objet : Rép : Let’s not shoot the piano player(In regards the cause of Psychoanalysis in Iran)
>
>Date : 17 février 2013 09:57:00 HNEC
>
>À : Jacques-Alain Miller <xxxxxxx@orange.fr>

>
>Thank you Dr. Miller.
>Gohar

>
>On Sunday, February 17, 2013, Jacques-Alain Miller <xxxxxx@orange.fr> wrote:

>> Dear Gohar Homayounpour,
>> Thank you for getting in touch with me.
>> I can’t read your long letter just now.
>> I am writing an urgent piece on something else
>> to be sent to Le Oint for publication this Thursday.
>> When I finished (4 or 5 hours ?) I’ll return to “l’affaire Kadivar”.
>> Best regards,
>> JAM

>>
>> Le 17 févr. 2013 à 07:09, Gohar Homayounpour a écrit:

>>
>> Dear Dr. Miller,
>>
>>  Until now I have chosen silence, the silence of the analyst, as an active method of being heard, but to continue to be silent now would be nothing but irresponsible and passive.
>>
>>  The day that Mitra Kadivar was involuntarily admitted to hospital, I was immediately informed through some of the psychiatrists at the hospital who have been in analytic training with me here in Tehran. After I heard the story and their assumption of a psychotic break I directly requested her immediate release. I told them, and I’m quoting exactly: ‘Let us assume you are correct in your assessment. I still want her to be released. Let her be one of the many people out there who has not been treated by you.’ They did not listen to me but my request led to her being treated with outmost respect: i.e. she was transferred to the VIP section. This was only possible due to the efforts of the few psychiatrists there who are friends of psychoanalysis.
>>
>>  Then I saw your first letter, as a subscriber to lacan.com, and although a part of me was delighted to see your continuing effort on behalf of people like Rafah Nashed and now Mitra Kadivar, I wanted to shout ‘But, Dr. Miller, this case is not a political case! This case is different from Rafah’s case, for which I immediately signed the petition last year!’ (This does not mean I do not adhere to the idea that everything is political at some level, and that there has been a long standing animosity towards psychoanalysis in Tehran, an animosity we have all seen regularly since Freud first exhibited on the part of the people toward their own unconscious.) I do acknowledge that a part of the psychiatric community here finally caught a ‘crazy psychoanalyst’, so they thought, and that this was a golden opportunity. Alas they were not going to let go of it easily, or without noise. However this was still not a case like that of Rafah, and, Dr. Miller,
 I wanted to say:
>>
>>  I do understand that due to the unfortunate political situation in Iran and the lack of transparency exercised by the state, it becomes a struggle to decide what to do from your position with events such as what has happened with Mitra Kadivar but I urge you to please do more research, to try to contact a few of us here, to ask a few questions, or we might all end up shooting the piano players. The piano players being our students, analysands and supervisers.
>>
>>  Since the day of my return to Tehran about six years ago (I finished my analytic training in Boston, I was born in Paris and spent all my life outside of Iran), I have tried slowly but surely to bring the cause of psychoanalysis to Tehran. We have held conferences, provided classes both here in Iran and over Skype, provided supervision and analysis again both here and by telephone. Our classes have now extended to other cities such as Mashhad. (You would be interested to know that Mashhad is a highly religious city, and we teach the fundamentals of Freud there. In the last week we taught three essays on sexuality in Mashhad!)
>>
>>  I have attended numerous international conferences, I have published various articles (the last one was ‘The Couch and the Chador’, co-written with Dr.Movahedi, and due to be published in the latest issue of the IJP).
>>
>>  My book Doing Psychoanalysis in Tehran was published by the MIT Press last August, and Julia Kristeva was generous enough to endorse it.
>>
>> All of our efforts here have led to new altitudes reached for psychoanalysis, and this has only been possible due to the efforts of many of our international colleagues, from very different analytic backgrounds, but all sharing the desire for the cause of psychoanalysis here in Iran, among them Dr. Stefano Bolognini, president elect of the IPA.
>>
>>  I am giving you all this information, because if I ask you to do your research on people that should definitely also apply to me.
>>
>>  Dear Dr. Miller, many of us have tried so hard, and we have slowly overcome great obstacles, gradually gained advantages, including permission for the first international psychoanalytic conference in Iran that I was planning to organize for next Februar

>>Dear Dr. Miller, many of us have tried so hard, and we have slowly overcome great obstacles, gradually gained advantages, including permission for the first international psychoanalytic conference in Iran that I was planning to organize for next February. All this until a few days ago I was contacted by telephone, and questioned about this whole Dr. Kadivar issue. I was told that like any other citizen she was sent three letters to her house to appear in court and defend herself (after the complaints against her) which she did not do, telling them ‘Your law is not my law’. This consequently led to her psychiatric assessment and the rest, as they say, is history. I was told that it is us psychoanalysts who have unjustly turned this into a political matter and that it will have consequences for psychoanalysis, starting with him threatening to take my permit away for next year’s conference. I have tried to carry out as much damage control as possible.
 Furthermore, I do not want this mentioned anywhere please, as it will
work against us, and be personally dangerous for me.
 But, dear Dr.Miller, it seems that we have shot the piano player after all….
 You hold the position of a paternal function for psychoanalysis, so I
beg of you to come to Tehran at your earliest convenience, to meet
with different groups and carry out your research.
What are we going to do when we have a real Rafah? I am not saying
that everything should not have been done to have Dr. Kadivar
released, and I can assure you that I did my very best towards that
goal. All I am saying is that this could have been done without
shooting the piano players. That is truly your responsibility towards
this very young child we are nurturing in Tehran, this very young
cause of psychoanalysis.
 In a country where psychoanalysis has been called the enemy of the
state, should we really continue to destroy psychoanalysis from within
psychoanalysis? Between name-calling, inferiority issues, vanity and
misunderstood Lacanian objectives, no one has done more damage to the
spirit of Lacan than some Lacanians.
 I did not want to enter into all of these issues before she was
released, because as at the time releasing her should have been
everyone’s priority, but I believe that continuing to be silent at
this point would be irresponsible toward this precarious desire I have
for my piano players and towards psychoanalysis.
 I thank you and send you my warmest personal regards,
Gohar Homayounpour