Can we consider a black hole as another form of lack? It can seem paradoxical as by definition a black hole is not empty. On the contrary, it is so full of matter that nothing can penetrate it nor escape from it. A black hole is a region of spacetime exhibiting such strong gravitational effects that nothing – not even particles and electromagnetic radiation such as light – can escape from inside it.
I observed this particular mode of jouissance in one of my patients. I had noticed that he would begin exploring one idea, a thought, a memory or most often a bodily sensation, slowly turning around it and building to a crescendo until the intensity became intolerable; and then he would cry and express angst and despair. He would need some time to calm down before he could leave the session. I gave these moments imaginary/metaphorical names like the “black hole” or “the void and the vertigo.”
We need to extract something from the black hole, via the construction of a fiction in which the excess of jouissance finds a meaning and a legitimization in the fantasy that allows a knotting between the body, jouissance and language.