ABSTRACT
There is a gap between subjective destitution and gay sçavoir. Gay sçavoir is not the speaking being’s natural state and it is not inscribed on the entry ticket into an analysis. Bipolar disorder, a category barely used some decades ago, is a common psychiatric diagnosis today. This raises the question of the distinction between mood fluctuations in relation to the structure of the subject and Lacan’s notion of gay sçavoir. The affect of mania is transitory because the conclusion of analysis is not equivalent to the unknotting of structure. Rather, the end involves a new combinatory of knots and it is in this area that gay sçavoir may be situated. The analysand’s jouissance in speaking can be connected with the passions of being that Lacan distinguished: hate, love, and ignorance. Thus the jouissance of speech is coupled with the passion for ignorance, and it is to this that the analyst’s gay sçavoir responds.
