Based on observations of a therapeutic workshop at a daycare center for psychotics, we discuss in this article the value of creative activities where patients deal with new objects and their possible bonding role for subjects through artistic recognition. The activities carried out in such workshops are discussed, as well as the role of their coordinators. The individual production of psychotic patients is an attempt to release them from their position as object of the Other, characteristic of psychosis. Might such workshops consist of spaces where patients become able to handle excess jouissance in a creative way, based on supporting materials that favor their work on the level of the articulation of the signifier? This type of work is different not only from artistic creation, but also from invention in psychosis. The authors base their discussion on Lacanian psychoanalysis and consider invention with scrap materials based on the letter as material support aimed at the stabilization of the participating subjects.
Therapeutic workshops; psychosis; letter; jouissance