Subject Supposed to Desire

The "subject supposed to desire" is a concept that mirrors and supplements the better-known "subject supposed to know," designating a second structural attribution that the analysand projects onto the analyst within the transference. Where the subject supposed to know captures the analysand's presumption that the analyst secretly holds the key to the truth of their symptom and desire, the subject supposed to desire captures a parallel and constitutively ambiguous attribution: the analysand assumes that the analyst desires—desires in a particular way, desires them, or desires something from them. This attributed desire is enigmatic precisely because it cannot be satisfied or named, and it thereby sustains the fundamental analytic question Che vuoi? ("What do you want from me?"). The question opens onto the structure of the Other's desire and keeps the analytic process in motion, preventing the work from collapsing into a simple demand-and-response circuit.

At the same time, the concept does not merely describe an analysand's projection. It also names a properly analytic demand placed on the analyst: that their desire be constituted through training analysis in such a way that it is genuinely distinct from identification, cure-oriented will, or the service of goods. The desire of the analyst—as a structural position rather than a personal inclination—must be oriented toward "absolute difference," which means it does not assimilate the analysand to a type, an ideal, or a normative outcome. In this second register, "subject supposed to desire" names the ethical requirement that the analyst actually inhabit a desire that is not the analysand's mirror or complement, but the asymmetric Other-desire that makes genuine analytic work possible. The concept therefore holds a constitutive ambiguity: it is simultaneously a transference effect (what the analysand attributes) and an ethical imperative (what the analyst must become through la passe).

Within evans-dylan-an-introductory-dictionary-of-lacanian-psychoanalysis-taylor-francis, the concept appears as a deliberate extension of the subject supposed to know, broadening the structural logic of transference from an epistemic dimension (knowledge) to a libidinal one (desire). It lives at the intersection of several canonical concepts: it is a specification of the desire of the analyst (which is the "pivotal point" of the entire analytic field), a correlate of the ethics of psychoanalysis (whose core demand is fidelity to desire oriented toward absolute difference rather than the service of goods), and a concept that implicates both fantasy and identification. Because the analysand's fundamental fantasy ($◇a) is structured around the enigmatic desire of the Other, the attributed desire of the analyst directly activates the fantasy frame—the analysand's question about what the analyst wants from them is precisely the Che vuoi? that fantasy is constructed to answer. The concept thus operates at the hinge between transference as imaginary projection and the Real dimension of the Other's desire.

In relation to la passe and the analysand, the concept also carries an institutional-clinical weight: it implies that the analyst must have traversed their own fantasy and undergone a transformation of desire through training analysis in order to genuinely occupy the position of "subject supposed to desire" in its analytic—rather than merely transferential—sense. Without that transformation, the analyst risks being captured by the analysand's fantasy rather than holding open the space of absolute difference. The concept is therefore best read as a compact articulation of the dual structure of the analytic relation: transference projects it onto the analyst as a demand, while the ethics of psychoanalysis requires the analyst to inhabit it as a properly constituted, non-identificatory desire.

An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian PsychoanalysisDylan Evans · 1996 (page unknown)

The analyst is therefore not only a SUBJECT SUPPOSED TO KNOW but also a 'subject supposed to desire'.

The phrase "not only … but also" is theoretically loaded because it marks the subject supposed to desire as an irreducible supplement—not a replacement or mere parallel—to the subject supposed to know, indicating that the transference operates simultaneously on two axes (epistemic and libidinal) that cannot be collapsed into one another. The deliberate small-caps formatting of SUBJECT SUPPOSED TO KNOW and the scare-quoted 'subject supposed to desire' signal that the second term is a coined extension that inherits the structural logic of the first while opening a distinct analytic dimension centred on desire rather than knowledge.