From discourse to behavior, the validity of instance theory

The theme of the 16th AIS congress, "Signs and Realities", directly concerns the central epistemological issue in the semiotic work of Jean-Claude Coquet, who passed away on January 16, 2023: he argued for the fundamental heterogeneity of language, in opposition to many linguists and philosophers, but following Benveniste, who considered that language "... always develops at the junction of nature (phusis) and culture (logos)".

While Coquet's theory of instances is a powerful tool for analyzing discourse and identifying the somatic and cognitive predicates that characterize the type of instance mobilized, it is also extremely useful for calculating the clinical dimension of subjectal positions. In this respect, it enables us to reconsider certain nosographic definitions, such as the controversial definition of the borderline subject, who appears as a crossroads subject briefly experimenting with different positions. Hence the difficulty, for the therapist, of grasping the nature of the instance at the moment "t", in order to adjust to it as best as possible by proposing to the patient that he or she pursue or modify his or her quest for identity: a clinical case will illustrate this type of situation.

Without forgetting the complex issue of psychotherapy evaluation, an itinerary marked, in the best of cases, by stages of progression of the subject manifesting successive enunciating instances tending towards the one that signs the cure.