Our presentation will focus on the research collective CERFI (Centre d'Études de Recherche et de Formation Institutionnelle), founded in 1967. Emerging from the militant student movements that sprang from the struggles for Algerian independence in France and inspired by the experience of institutional psychotherapy at the Clinique La Borde, CERFI set out to explore forms of political militancy that would address capitalism's co-optation of the unconscious. We will present a series of projects in which CERFI was involved, ranging from the programming of childcare and educational equipment, to its participation in urban planning processes, to its research, modes of internal organisation and publication activities, to show how the group explored analytical principles beyond the clinical setting.
In particular, we will discuss the ways in which CERFI transformed every situation into an analytical possibility, starting with every bureaucratic and organisational procedure in a given institution, or the exploration of collective programming as a permanent analytical process, or even the very basic idea of holding weekly meetings without an agenda as an analytical rhythm and as a void that might be filled. We will suggest that by bringing analysis into militancy, CERFI was in fact committing itself to an idea of analytical militancy, anywhere, everywhere, and ultimately by other means.