Introducing the work of Moustapha Safouan

In 1981, four years after the foundation of the Freudian School of Melbourne, we find in the third volume of the Papers of the Freudian School of Melbourne an introduction by Oscar Zentner to two seminars held in the School by Moustapha Safouan at the time, one entitled On Symbolism, the other On Jokes: The only way the Freudian School has of presenting Dr. Safouan is to make quite clear something we said at our last Homage to Freud in September, when we knew that Dr. Lacan had died. We said at the time that when a real analyst dies the School does not make a single minute of silence. The School produces a work and today’s seminar is really this confirmation. 1 Today, it is Moustapha Safouan we pay homage to, a real analyst who has died, and the Symposium is a response to this loss: We don’t stay silent, but we work; a work produced from transference.