ABSTRACT
It is well known that any successful analysis (rare as those occasions are) culminates in a double murder: first the annihilation of the analysand and her re-birth as a new subject; second, and less interesting, the ritual discarding of the analyst. Once the analysand has become her own cause and author of her own desire, the analyst who occupied, temporarily, the place of the patient's cause of desire can be tossed into the nearest bin. At that point, supposedly, the patient has crossed the threshold not only of the analyst's home for the last time, but her own fundamental (and invariably embarrassing, not to mention shameful if not criminal) fantasies. In Lacanese this is called the “pass” and signals the patient's accession to the status of an ethical subject and, should she wish, an analyst.
