A Lacanian Perspective on Wandering and the Drives in Alzheimer's Disease

Aims - This article addresses the issue of wandering in Alzheimer's disease from a psychoanalytic point of view, taking into account the importance of the spatial dimension in psychic dynamics. Method - After having presented wandering from a behavioral point of view, it is discussed from a metapsychological perspective, making use of A. & G. Haddad's concept of the viatoric drive and as well as J. Lacan's reflections on the wandering of the journey and the wandering of desire. The clinical vignette of Mr. M. in a workshop of therapeutic mediation through art helps us illustrate the unconscious psychic movements at play in walking. Results - Three subjective markers emerge: wandering reveals the subject's difficult in orienting himself in both physical and psychological space, demonstrating a form of excitation that is not supported by the viatoric drive; the wandering of the journey makes it possible to relocate the place of the Other in the Imaginary; the wandering of desire incites the subject to repetition through the play of the drives. Discussion - Neurodegenerative disease is an obstacle to wandering. Art-therapy workshops can help Alzheimer's patients with the reorganization of wandering, where unconscious knowledge would prevail over the excitation of ambulation, thus suggesting, for the subject, the possibility of a structuring elsewhere. Conclusion - Thinking of mediated workshops as places of creation for the subject opens up the possibility of inhabiting one's wandering, considered as expressions of a journey and of desire. (c) 2022 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.