In the argument for the NLS Congress, Patricia Bosquin-Caroz states that repression and truth appear as antonyms.^[1] Moreover, truth emerges through the return of the repressed and manifests itself at the point of encounter with the real, often linked to the threat of castration. In repression, such encounters are mediated through the symbolic, which allows the subject to articulate something of this truth.

But what becomes of the subject’s truth in the case of foreclosure? Jacques Lacan famously formulates that what is foreclosed from the symbolic reappears in the real.^[2] Here, truth does not return through symbolic formations but irrupts in the real itself, for example in hallucinations. In his reading of the Wolf Man case, Lacan suggests that the hallucination emerges at the point of encounter with the threat of castration that could not be symbolized. Grigg mentions, such an encounter with signifiers in the real leaves the subject, Sergei Pankejeff, speechless.^[3] One may therefore suppose that truth in the case of foreclosure remains present but unspeakable: not articulated through the symbolic formations of repression, rather emerging in the real outside the usual regulation of the unconscious.

Furthermore, in the case of foreclosure truth is not hidden, as it is in repression. In revisiting the case of Schreber and his writings, Jacques Lacan emphasizes that truth may appear directly within the very structure of the delusion. Schreber’s delusional constructions emerge in relation to an encounter with the threat of castration, particularly when he finds himself in the position of father. In the text of Schreber’s delusion, Lacan notes that one can find a truth that is not concealed but explicitly formulated by the subject himself. Schreber appears to access his truth in a more direct way, as he himself proclaims: ​“Enlightenment rarely given to mortals has been given to me” yet this truth is not uncovered but constructed within the delusion itself.^[4]

1. Bosquin-Caroz, P.,“VARITY: Variations of Truth in Psychoanalysis,” presentation of the NLS Congress Theme, 2026, p. 4. ↑
2. J. Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book III: The Psychoses 1955–1956, ed. J.-A. Miller, trans. R. Grigg, New York: Norton, 1993, p. 13. ↑
3. Grigg, R., ​“Signifiers in the Real: from Schreber to the Wolf Man,” Psychoanalysis Lacan Vol.4 Papers, (Lacan Circle of Australia), p. 3. Available at: https://lacancircle.com.au/psychoanalysislacan-journal/psychoanalysislacan-volume‑1/signifiers-in-the-real/ ↑
4. Schreber, D.P., Memoirs of My Nervous Illness, trans. I. Macalpine & R. A. Hunter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988, p. 167. ↑