Philippe Kong Interview | Alex Gilbert #269

Philippe Kong is a psychoanalyst.

What’s bipolarity?
Philippe Kong: Bipolarity is an American invention, rooted in their DSM. They seek to frame mood as having two distinct phases—bipolar, binary, if you will. Human mood, in their view, is reduced to these two states, though they attempt to quantify its degrees. The real issue, of course, lies in treatment. But fundamentally, it’s about a manic phase and a depressive phase—minus, plus. Bipolar. Manic-depressive.

What’s the French definition of manic depression?
Philippe Kong: It doesn’t align with the American view of bipolarity. In their framework, bipolarity falls under personality disorders. In France, however, we think in terms of structure rather than personality traits. That’s the fundamental shift the Americans made with the DSM, diverging from the CIM (International Classification of Diseases) and from differential clinical analysis, as we approach it in psychoanalysis.

For us, manic depression belongs to neurosis, whereas melancholy is placed within psychosis. Melancholy—well, if we go back to 1917, to Freud’s Mourning and Melancholia, he differentiates between the normal grieving process and pathological grief. Freud is concerned with pathos, while Americans focus more on symptomatic, observable manifestations. Our perspectives on mood fundamentally differ.

Mood is visible—it appears in depression or mania, in euphoria or melancholy. It can be observed, even quantified. But when we speak of structure, we refer to the very core of the human being, to what internally drives their experience. Freud, therefore, begins with pathos, with mourning. Freud is remarkable—still profoundly relevant today. The Americans should really read him.

What does Lacan say about bipolarity and/or manic depression?
Philippe Kong: That’s not how Lacan approaches things in his teachings.

What about Paul-Laurent Hassoun, who linked the manic phase to the primitive festivity after the father’s murder?
Philippe Kong: He was my doctoral advisor. That’s interesting because here, he approaches it from the perspective of madness. Mania is an act, an overflow—something that drives one to act out, even murderously. It’s about the subject being suddenly propelled beyond themselves, compelled to cross fundamental boundaries and prohibitions—”Thou shalt not kill,” for example, the sanctity of life.

In this view, the manic phase is not simply a personality trait or a diagnostic category but an act—an act of madness. It is not that the phase itself is manic, but rather that the act is manic. That’s a crucial distinction. It’s not just a mood fluctuating between plus and minus, between depression and mania. Here, mania is understood as a transgressive act, an overflow that pushes the subject to go beyond.

Does psychoanalysis distinguish between a manic act and obsessive thought ?
Philippe Kong: You’re asking a question that is already centered on structure. Obsessive thought—meaning a way of being in the world. There are three fundamental ways of being in the world that define your structure: neurosis, psychosis, or perversion. So, you mentioned obsession—what else did you say?

Doesn’t psychoanalysis resist the DSM’s shift by framing mania structurally—within neurosis, perversion, or psychosis—rather than as a pathology or disorder? In this sense, does the manic person truly exist in psychoanalysis?
Philippe Kong: You can’t say “the manic person” in psychoanalysis. The subject in psychoanalysis may have manic or depressive behaviors, you see ? A subject can experience depression, just as they can enter a manic phase. But what’s interesting is to analyze the act—the result of a choice, a forced choice, or an impulsive act that overtakes the subject—rather than classifying it under mood disorders.

This means that the Americans lose the notion of differential clinical analysis. For instance, take a manic, murderous act—someone who acts out in pure madness, committing a crime in a manic episode. Now, is that act intrinsic to the subject, or is it the result of circumstances, environment, and context that left the subject ill-equipped, leading them to this act?

This distinction is crucial when it comes to judgment. In madness, one is not guilty. One remains responsible but is not guilty. There are mitigating circumstances.

France Inter journalist Nicolas Demorand, in his book, Intérieur nuit, says: “I am mentally insane” ?

Philippe Kong: From there, we could go back and make a judgment. I am mentally insane, very well. Who isn’t ?

What makes a disease different from a disability is that it can be cured. For example, Down syndrome is more on the side of disability than disease.
Philippe Kong: Absolutely. It is a question of guilt.

What differentiates illness from disability?
Philippe Kong: An ill person can seek treatment, or take action to mitigate their condition. How do we say it? Subjugated? Controlled? In other words, framed within a structure. They can undergo treatment with the hope of a cure. Because I don’t believe in cures. It’s false in his will, which ultimately demonstrates that the closer we get to resistance, the more we remove it, and the more the patient can heal at that moment. So what does he do? He falls into resistance. Resistance to healing. All patients ask to heal, but in reality, no one truly wants to be healed. So, we are far from healing because the very nature of being human is to suffer more than to be sick, I would say. But in any case, people do not want healing. Why did I make this digression? Because in illness, one can do the minimum to make their condition livable, for themselves and for others in society. For me, suffering is when nothing is done anymore, when one doesn’t even try to heal, even if they don’t want healing. There is still an effort to be made. That changes everything.

It’s an ethical problem.
Philippe Kong: Exactly, thank you for the word. It’s a question of ethics. In the DSM-IV, it’s difficult to talk about ethics because we no longer speak of a subject; we speak of a person, of a personality. So, ethics came from your mouth because you are focused on a more human approach—human meaning psychoanalysis or psychology. But the other approach becomes a repertoire. These are no longer clinical categories; they are classifications. That’s the term I would use—classification. We classify personalities, dissect them, and place them into categories. We organize them, you see.

It’s already almost pathological.
Philippe Kong: Yes, it’s already a bit obsessive, isn’t it? It excludes ethics and instead falls into morality—what is good, what is bad, what is right, what is wrong, what is beautiful, what is ugly. Always those three criteria.

A medical appropriation of the other.
Philippe Kong: I told you, it’s especially an appropriation of medical treatment. The issue with classification is its corollary—indexing it to medication that will “correct” this personality disorder. You are too manic? Then you must take this medication. You are depressed? This treatment.

However, in a manic crisis, you’ll prescribe Tercian, Zyprexa, and follow the DSM’s guidelines, without taking the risk of letting someone spiral for months.
Philippe Kong: No, certainly not, because the goal is still to maintain the individual within society, within respect. There is a form—not morality—but law.

Psychoanalysis submits to law, not to pathology.
Philippe Kong: No, not to pathology. It treats pathology, or at least tries to, but not directly by seeking its cure. Healing, and I remind you of this phrase from Lacan, must come as a byproduct («La guérison vient de surcroit »). That is, the subject must decide, not because they don’t want to heal, but because they don’t want to heal, to do something else to make their condition livable for themselves and for others. For example, you should not become a tyrant to those around you when in a manic phase. There are many situations, many examples.

Have you had patients in a manic phase?
Philippe Kong: The manic phase is the most formidable because it is desired, it is hoped for by patients. Because they feel good, they feel strong, they feel powerful, invincible. There is no longer that sense of vulnerability that is intrinsic to the human condition, if you really think about it. It is difficult to communicate with patients or for them to communicate with you. Because they have spiraled into something they enjoy (le ravissement). Something euphoric, but which, in reality, masks devastation (le ravage). The manic phase is never productive of good things.

Does this relate to Marguerite Duras’ book “Le ravissement de Lol v Stein” ?
Philippe Kong: Oh yes, Lol v Stein, that’s something else—it’s a rapture. In Lol v Stein, there is no mania, no depression. There are all those hospitalizations where she undergoes treatment for depression. But if you really look at it, you can’t use the word “depression”; you can’t say that Lol v Stein is depressed. She is psychotic. She is absent. Everything unfolds before her eyes—this rapture, this man, her husband, whom she is going to marry, and before her eyes, another woman arrives at the ball and takes him away. And they leave together, leaving Lol v Stein alone. She is… how do we say it? Absent subscribers? (abonnés absents) She is absent from herself. She is merely a spectator of what is happening. Is that really depression? No, it’s more of a psychotic episode, an emanation of her psychosis. Don’t you think?

She is at the intersection of the psychotic void, as Lacan would say, and the disappearance of her self-image due to depression, as Freudians would put it.

Philippe Kong: She is in that void, captivated by the “aphanisis” at that moment, due to her psychosis. Someone else in her place would not have reacted the same way. There would have been anger, hatred. Against the other person. She is projected, she is in the abyss. She finds herself pushed into the abyss, opening beneath her feet. And she falls into it. But she falls calmly. And as time passes, she becomes increasingly detached from herself, entering a depersonalization. And so, in Lol v Stein’s treatment, when she is in a clinic, she no longer speaks. She is in a state of death.

Would you make the connection between mania, holes, and aphanysis?
Philippe Kong: No, I would make the connection with melancholy. She is in a melancholic phase, if you will, because of the psychosis. She will not disengage from the object. She will, in a pathological mourning, let herself fall into the abyss, until she lets herself die. In normal mourning, when someone takes you, the man of your life, and yet, I don’t know if we can say the man of one’s life, Lol v Stein, her husband. Simply, it’s the event itself. That’s what is beautiful. It’s the event itself that is a rapture, that is to say, a kidnapping. But it’s a kidnapping of herself. Something of her fades away. Something of her is subtracted from herself. And she struggles to recover that part of her being, I would say. You see, I try to make sensitive something that touches her at the most intimate joint of her body and her psyche. At that very place, at that joint, something has been taken from her. And so, she doesn’t fall into depression. She falls into an amputation of her being which makes her let herself die. It’s a form of melancholy. It’s the melancholy that is the structure of psychosis.

Have you seen the films Melancholia, The Story of Souleymane, The Brutalist and Emilia Perez ?
Philippe Kong: I saw Les Olympiades. A little gem. Oh, magnificent, this film. You see, it’s a desperate quest for meaning and a way of inhabiting the space of the city where people are searching, in search of themselves. And then, suddenly, they meet. In any case, we see how one can be fully inhabited in their body and in their mind, and in their living space by a person. And when the person leaves you, to be disarmed, unsubscribed. A bit like Lol v Stein, but in a neurotic way, not a psychotic way. You see, each of the three protagonists never lets themselves drift or lets themselves be disarmed to the point of falling into the abyss, of letting themselves die. Always, there is tension. There is something that comes to animate them. What was invested as an object of love or desire, when the object is no longer there, this investment, this quantum of libido, is reinvested elsewhere. It returns within oneself, and hop, one must find another object. So, in this film, it’s remarkable how all these movements take place. It’s a delight, really. Someone with so few means who manages to show you, to take you. It’s poignant and gripping, this film. The complete opposite of depression, it’s rather hypomania, if you will. They are all hypomanic.

Can you develop that?
Philippe Kong: Mania is this brilliant, sublime phase, where the sun is radiant, where all the signs are aligned, everything seems to go, everything seems beautiful and magnificent, sublime. Whereas hypomania is a phase that is inferior. Hypo, meaning below. But it’s above normal. So, all these hypomanic people, 😉 are neurotic. When something goes wrong, you continue. The drive continues to aim at another object that it will miss again and so on. Whereas in melancholy, the opposite, the extreme opposite of mania, one would let oneself die. We have the example with Lol v Stein. Remarkable. It’s in black and white, but the two actresses, are beautiful and act well. Really remarkable.

You say “for the love that, disillusioned by its affections, transforms our wreck into a rapture unique to each.”
Philippe Kong: Yes. they know their share of suffering. The torments of love, it’s suffering. In love that does not ignore its cursed part, its part of suffering, there is no love without tears. So, that love makes us smile at the heart and delights us. But for each one, these three trajectories that are theirs, that are not ours, well, Audiard manages to echo within us, from this trajectory he chose, to make something echo in us that is personal. That’s what I find remarkable in this film. With little means, telling three stories, suddenly, we are taken and we feel animated in same way. You cry, or you laugh, you smile, or you feel the search for meaning of these young loves.

Le Corbusier’s architecture influence in Les Olympiades, creates hyper-sublimation.
Philippe Kong: Le Corbusier brought order to the world, introduced clear and straight lines, different from the volutes of Art Deco. It’s functional, logical. What happens in Les Olympiades has to do with something like a “Le Corbusier hysterisé”.

Sublimation works with Hysteria.
Philippe Kong: Le Corbusier’s cubic, uncomfortable leather chair has nothing to do with the vegetalization of the Baroque movement. He simplifies and initiates a fresh start. Corbusier aligns more with desire than love. It is metonymic, an extension of desire, not metaphoric. The film expresses this ambivalence, which is not bipolarity but rather a manque-à-être, a désêtre. Yet, at a certain point, things reconnect, and one reaches a state of être-là (being-there). The film concludes with her final words, spoken over his funeral, where he finally says he loves her too. The funeral becomes a metaphor for love—the burning log, the hand checking the fire, ; and another hand grasping it. Lacan’s metaphor of loveIt’s obviously philosophical, Philosophy always have to do with love, from Plato to Spinoza and Heidegger.