Enjoy your Stress! Using Lacan to enrich transactional models of stress

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1 Article Enjoy your Stress! Using Lacan to enrich transactional models of stress Organization 17(3) The Author(s) 2010 Reprints and permission: sagepub. co.uk/journalspermissions.nav DOI: / Martin Bicknell Henley Business School, University of Reading Andreas Liefooghe Birkbeck, University of London Abstract This article reconsiders stress both theoretically and empirically using a Lacanian perspective. It addresses how Lacan s concepts of jouissance and desire may be employed to provide a rich overlay to transactional models of stress that engages with unconscious aspects of appraisal. In doing so, it challenges the dichotomy between stress and enjoyment. Keywords desire, jouissance, Lacan, stress, unconscious appraisal We were told by the Executive Chef of a prestigious restaurant in London that: It s passion. It s passion that kills all of us in here. This quote exemplifies much that underlies this article: whilst the striving for an overbearing perfection may be said to kill us, this chef, and many in his kitchen, still enjoyed dying, again and again, for their passion. Mainstream research has studied the process by which workers are put under such pressure to deliver as stress or even eustress. Yet, whilst thousands of articles have been written on the topic, many fundamental questions remain unanswered. In this article, we seek to use the Lacanian concepts of desire and jouissance (the term is rarely translated in the psychoanalytic literature as it has a broader meaning than its nearest English equivalent enjoyment) to allow some of the richness of the psychoanalytic subject to inform a consideration of stress. In terms of the stress literature, we argue that research would benefit if it better reflected the full complexity of would-be stressed subjects and their appraisal of, and engagement with, external demands and pressures. We argue that Lacan s work provides a particularly fruitful way of doing Corresponding author: Martin Bicknell, Henley Business School, University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading, RG6 6AH, UK. m.j.bicknell@henley.reading.ac.uk

2 318 Organization 17(3) this. In particular, it allows us to recognize how an unconscious interpretation of the desires of those who are significant to us can lead to behaviour that is at the same time both stressful and enjoyable. As such, we conclude that it is far too simple to say particular demands lead to stress and a reduction in well-being, and suggest a new ethics of individual stress based around the imperative: enjoy your stress! (Žižek, 1992). To supplement our theoretical account, we also illustrate the complex and entwined nature of enjoyment and stress through an interpretation of field data. We commence our development by considering the context of our study. We then consider our research approach and discuss our field data. We close by reflecting more generally upon the role of Lacan within stress research. Contextualizing our research In this section, we explain the context and origins of this work within the stress literature and address the question of how, conceptually, Lacan might be employed as part of an investigation into stress in the workplace. Central within this development is the idea that appraisal could have an unconscious element to it and that Lacan provides a route through which this aspect can be explored. Furthermore, the enactment of fantasy that may follow unconscious appraisal allows us to reconsider the strains (the immediate response to stressors) and negative longer term outcomes (see e.g. Cooper et al., 2001) that are typically studied in the stress literature. A review of the history of stress research (e.g. Cooper and Dewe, 2004) and broader discourses of stress (e.g. Newton et al., 1995) reveals a number of enduring themes. One which has an important bearing on this work is the supposed positive nature of stress although we must acknowledge that many researchers (see, e.g. Sulsky and Smith, 2005: 3 4) reject any notion of beneficial stress. That said, the idea of positive stress goes back a long way but still has force and profound impact. The work of Yerkes and Dobson (1908) that sought to explore the link between arousal and performance is still regularly generalized from its original context to argue that there is an optimum level of stress. Selye s (1956) work on the general adaptive syndrome and eustress is likewise generalized to suggest stress can be good for performance. Selye (1976) used the term eustress for a process that leads to a positive (survival enhancing) outcome. In this original sense, eustress arises when increased endocrine activity prepares the stressed subject for fight or flight. However, much of the literature seems to talk of eustress much more generally as good stress (Cooper and Dewe, 2004: 28) though, outside of endocrinology, there is little theory on how, precisely, this leads to better performance. That said, problems with this discourse have been discussed in the critical literature for some time. Over thirteen years ago, Newton et al. (1995: 1) talked of the subjectifying nature of such discourses and the underlying implication that workers must seek to become stress-fit. Yet despite this and many more recent articles (see review in Bicknell and Liefooghe, 2006), the good stress discourse thrives. For example, Newsweek s journalist Mary Carmichael (2009) asserts even when it s extreme, stress may have some positive effects, while Sky News (2003) indicated that according to the new research 77% of the UK s workers believe stress at work leads to greater job satisfaction. Academically-informed stress management texts also talk about learning to thrive on good stress. Williams and Cooper (2002: 39) indicates how endocrine responses to stress act to sharpen the mind [thereby allowing us to] move into a zone where the ideas flow and the barrier that has held us paralysed and unable to act is blown away, while Elkin (1999: xxv) talks of how the right amount of stress sets a beautiful tone. We must thank one of the anonymous reviewers for drawing our attention to these somewhat unbeautiful quotes.

3 Bicknell and Liefooghe 319 Yet juxtaposed to this and despite opposing voices (e.g. Doublet, 2000; Wainwright and Calnan, 2002), the academic literature, together with numerous lay accounts (e.g. HSE, 2006; Unison, 2007), continually portrays work stress as a major and increasing threat to psychological and physiological well-being. How does this threat stand in relation to positive face claimed of stress? In exploring this, we must engage with another enduring theme of the literature: the transactional approach to stress. Early work on stress, as Sulsky and Smith (2005) demonstrate, had its roots in physiological or behavioural studies and considered stress in terms of a stimulus-response model. It has long been recognized (e.g. Lazarus and Launier, 1978) that such models fail to provide insight into, and indeed divert attention from, the complexity of the processes by which stressors have an impact. Most recent attention has thus been on stimulus-organism-response models. Such models recognize a much more intricate transaction between the would-be subjects of stress and their environments. McGrath (1976) then Lazarus and Folkman (1984) elaborated particularly influential versions of such models when they emphasized the notions of appraisal and coping. Appraisal, as Lazarus and Folkman indicate, first occurs when a potential stressor is perceived. Secondary appraisal, or coping, occurs when the subject decides what to do about it. According to Lazarus (1999: 75, emphasis as original), appraising: has to do with whether or not what is happening is relevant to one s values, goal commitments, beliefs about self and world, and situational intentions. The word relevant and the concepts considered to be relevant are worthy of discussion for they imply the need to take the stress response from the purely objective to domains where the subjective matters. They thus provide a link to the social world. Indeed, Lazarus goes on to recognize that whilst appraising involves cognition, its extreme complexity and even its potentially unconscious nature (Lazarus, 1999: 81 85) must be considered if we are to deepen our understanding of individual stress responses. Yet, despite this, Cooper and colleagues (Cooper et al., 2001: 12) more recently have argued that the transactional approach: Points to three important themes a dynamic cognitive state, a disruption or imbalance in normal functioning, and the resolution of that disruption or imbalance. The essentialism is noteworthy. There is, in this account, a normal functioning; there is an objectively identifiable disruption; and there is a presumption that imbalance per se should be avoided. A failure to challenge this essentialism, especially when set alongside psychoanalytic thought, may justly be said to prevent us from engaging with the full richness with the subject of stress and her or his engagement with a multifaceted environment. As Binswanger (1947, translated and quoted in Frie, 1997: 199), who was a psychiatrist and one-time collaborator of Heidegger, asserted: In every psychology that makes the human being into an object,... we find a fracture, a rift through which it is apparent that what is being scientifically studied is not the whole person, not the human being as a whole. Henriques et al. (1998) in their classic text, Changing the Subject, noted the unproblematic way the cognitive subject has limited psychological research. Their attack on positivist psychology still has extant relevance and, we argue, there is more to be done in terms of putting the fully human subject back into research. Like Binswanger, we talk of the need to take a more anthropomorphic view that specifically acknowledges the subject s development and what, psychoanalytically, has made the subject the unique person she or he currently is. The contrary view, whilst not wrong, is limiting. The material cause of human suffering in stress may well be important, but any attempt to provide a purely objective account of it will overlook much. Understanding endocrinology or the general adaptive syndrome (Selye, 1956) only explains a particular person s reaction to stressful demands partially. Furthermore, the imaginary (see e.g. Janis and Mann, 1977a, 1977b) and socio-political (e.g. Newton et al., 1995) nature of stressful demands are often overlooked. Similarly, stress models

4 320 Organization 17(3) abound with many questionably dichotomies where, for example, causes of stress are simply considered to be present or absent (Lazarus and Folkman, 1968) rather than being more or less proximal to the appraising subject; the subject is presumed to either have or lack control (Karasek, 1979) rather than contingent and partial control; and where suffering and well-being are seen as mutually exclusive. Thus, in order to allow the richness of the subjective world of feelings and desires to be incorporated, a problematization of the transactional models as they stand today using the notions of unconscious appraisal lies at the heart of this article. How then can stress researchers employ psychoanalytic thought to re-cast the subject of stress by incorporating this complexity better? Lacan s version of psychoanalysis seems to us to offer an especially rich potential. It is to this we now turn. In the context of the foregoing critique of the mainstream stress literature, the value of Lacan s work in the arena of stress can be seen initially in his subtle treatment of the subject. For Lacan, the subject is dynamically and contextually situated and is influenced historically and contemporaneously by social factors and discourses. By adopting this more subtle view, we not only address the limitations discussed above but also avoid some of the problems of post-modernism where subjects are seen to lack agency (Newton, 1998 contra Heenan, 2000). Furthermore, value may also be seen in terms of Lacan s negative ontology. Whilst there is no consensus as to what exact aspects of existence and existing Lacan negates in his work, he frequently presents ideas and concepts in reference to what is absent and lacking. Furthermore, Lacan s ontology also negates simple either/or positions; he frequently rejects dichotomies. Often this is done through reference to topology. In a topological space, we can say points are connected, but we cannot distinguished different types of connection or quantify them in terms, say, of closeness. This is dramatically illustrated using the device of the Möbius strip (glibly, a band with a twist). If we look at a small part of the band, we see two opposing faces. It is only when we draw back and see the whole structure that we realize that the two apparent faces are, because of the twist, connected and that the structure actually has only one surface. What appeared locally to be an opposite is, from a different perspective, on the same side. The negative ontology thus helps us address problematic dichotomies such as the presence or absence of stressors or even the division between stress and well-being. So far in our development, we have indicated that stress research misses much by failing to focus fully on the subject s subjectivity (including unconscious aspects of that subjectivity) within the context of the stress transaction. We have indicated a number of aspects of the Lacan s approach that could enrich our thinking. We therefore propose to continue our development by attending to unconscious elements of appraisal using the Lacanian conceptual system. However, we have still to explain how exactly this may be done, but before doing so, some words of caution are appropriate. These cautions have generally applicability to organizational studies as well as being specific to this research. We begin our caution by recalling that Lacan s aim was to develop and enhance the field of psychoanalysis and we should, therefore, consider the issues that arise when attempting to use this framework in an organizational context. Parker (2003, 2005a) provides a strong note of caution when noting that the Lacanian subject is not the same as a psychological or organizational subject. Thus, any attempt to reverse engineer a Lacanian reading onto existing theories of organizational engagement, including transactional models of stress, are inherently problematic. This, to be explicit, means that we cannot use Lacan to provide a truer model of the stress transaction. But does that exclude us from using the framework? In answering this question we must, like Lacan, attend to language which to us means to consider stress discursively. Many unconnected definitions of stress exist in the literature (see, e.g. Doublet, 2000: 82 84) and, as has already been indicated, there remains much contention. Stress, in other words, is a contested discourse.

5 Bicknell and Liefooghe 321 Lacan (at least in his early work) emphasizes language s role in relation to structure and recognizes no fixed meanings to words. He describes this visually in Écrits (2006: 414) by noting that there is a bar separating the signifier (S) from the signified (s), S_ s. He also indicates that possible meanings, which must always be seen contextually, may slip around under the bar. For example, the meaning of stress when used in the pub may be different to that used when trying to persuade our bosses that they are demanding too much. Lacan does not, however, consider language to be wholly fluid. Just as an upholsterer uses buttons to ensure that the stuffing or filling does not slip around under the covering fabric, so we, when using language, employ special signifiers (referred to by Lacan, in Seminar III, , using the French term for upholstery button, as: point de capiton) that bind sets of words (signifying chains) and meanings together. These have a special place in Lacanian analysis as they are considered to reflect the subject s psychoanalytic structure. For example, success might bind together the manner in which many other words (e.g. promotion, motivation, acceptable performance, work satisfaction, networks of contacts, organizational citizenship behaviour, etc.) are understood by particular workers. We, in this article, wish to update the upholstery so that stress (as signifying fabric) can be fixed to a different reading (as signified filling). We thus talk about our work as a re-upholstering or re-quilting of the stress discourse. However, whilst we might provide a richer reading of the stress transaction, we cannot claim it to be a more complete truth. Lacan s negative ontology helps us explore this assertion. As Zupančič (2000) reminds us, concepts developed within a framework based on a negative ontology cannot be bounded, since negating a bounded concept will, in an infinite space, always lead to an unbounded one. Lacan frequently suggests we focus on what is missing thereby allowing taken-for-granted presumptions to be challenged and new readings made. This indeed is the basis of our approach. But these reading have no essential quality to them if, as is likely, the negation is unbounded. They, in turn, must be seen in a revised context and be re-interrogated again and again as we consider what is still missing. Lacan was, in a number of areas (see, e.g. the development of the Graph of Desire in Écrits: Lacan, 2006: ), strongly influenced by Hegel (especially in the reading by Kojève, 1969). Hegel (e.g. Science of Logic, 1969) emphasized that history and thought advances in a continuing dialectic cycle as synthesis follows thesis and antithesis (although not generally using these terms as such) and then becomes a new thesis that in turn suggests another antithesis and thus starts off another cycle of synthetic resolution. Attending, in Lacan s negative ontology, to what is missing within a contextualized truth fits very well with this idea as indeed Evans (1996: 42 43) indicates. Thus, in summary, any use of Lacan must acknowledge his position in relation to truth and understanding. We cannot use Lacan to create a new essentialization of stress. However, we can interrogate the norms of such phenomena and processes in a manner that highlights ways of opening, rather than foreclosing, understanding. In other words, we can see the status of a Lacanian interpretation of stress as a re-upholstery of a dominant academic discourse. However, such a re-upholstering is not without intent. There is an opening, liberating and ethical element to it as we will explore later in this article. Our research Having described the context we can now become more specific about the work reported in this article. Our over-arching interest is to enrich thinking about the stress transaction by incorporating psychoanalytic ideas from Lacan so as to allow more of the complexity of the would-be subject of stress to be incorporated. In this section, we will refine our general concern into a specific research question. We then provide an account of those aspects of the Lacanian framework that we intend

6 322 Organization 17(3) to employ and how they address our concerns. We conclude with a description of the fieldwork undertaken and the manner in which data were interpreted. Lacan allows us a mechanism of considering unconscious appraisal by reflecting on how we interpret the desires of those who are significant to us and how this interpretation is inculcated in our response to stressors. As such, a response may be both stressful (in the sense of being a strain) and be enjoyable as an enactment of an unconscious fantasy. We have already identified the need to reflect the full complexity of the subject, including his or her unconscious, back into the stress transaction. We also have proposed to give due regard to Lacan s rejection of the either/or by noting that stressful demands cannot simply be said to be positive or negative. Enjoyment and dis-enjoyment we may perhaps say stress need not be mutually exclusive. Thus, when considering how Lacan helps problematize the stress transaction, it would appear relevant to consider what he has to say about enjoyment, or, more specifically, the Lacanian concept of jouissance. We can also challenge the very idea of appraisal. This can be helpfully explored using the very specific conceptualization Lacan has of desire. Desire, in Lacan, can be considered as that which answers the unconscious question: what do those who are important to me, really want of me? We are now at a stage where we can provide a much more specific formulation to our general research interest. In the rest of this section, we thus consider how the Lacanian notions of desire and jouissance can help us to re-quilt the academic discourse of stress so as to incorporate more of the complexity of the would-be stressed subject. To do so we must explain, for those unfamiliar with the details of his work, the specific manner in which Lacan uses desire and jouissance. Before we can do this, however, we need to lay some groundwork by considering how the Lacanian subject comes to know of the world. This requires us to say something about identification and what is known as the Other. Before proceeding we should re-emphasize a caveat already given. Lacan s work is often considered complex, dense and intricately self-referential. Lacan s negative ontology means that terms are often not used in their everyday sense (we will italicize words when we specifically need to highlight this), they are given many different shadings, and there is, according to Rabaté (2003: 22), an endless task of re-reading or Nobus (1998: vii) a progressive destabilization of knowledge. Even more problematically, it means that the meanings we may ascribe to his work, even when drawing upon the considerable collective experience of practitioners, must be treated circumspectly as they are only part of a potentially limitless negation. This can make initial attempts to use his work seem both daunting and abstract. However, for us, this is not so much a difficulty, but rather an indication of the manner in which it may be appropriate to engage with his work. We have talked of re-upholstering the discourse of stress as part of a continuing process of challenge. So perhaps we can think of stabilizing meanings temporarily so that disruption and thence progress albeit only one step within a dialectic cycle can be made. What follows, should thus be seen in this context and not as an essentialization of Lacan. We start by considering identification, the other, and the Other. One of the key points we need to bear in mind when problematizing the stress transaction is the way the subject relates to the environment. How does Lacan address this? Importantly he tells us that the subject sees the world from a very particular place that arises in and from the self images with which we identify. He importantly indicates that this is a dynamic process dependent on context. Part of the dynamic character of identification can be appreciated through the fluidity of language and meaning that underpins the Lacanian framework. Identification, in this sense, thus has a symbolic character and the symbolic aspect of the place from which the identification occurs which is a form of what is known as the Other (note the capital letter) is important in regard to an appreciation of how we identify with historic or contemporaneous social discourses.

7 Bicknell and Liefooghe 323 But another part of the place from which the world is seen, arises within us. It the place of the imaginary and is referred to as the other (little o). However, the term imaginary, as it is used in Lacan, must be explained. The framework, as we said, rejects essentialism, yet the imaginary fixes slippery meanings within a structure so as to impose particular and contextual realities. Reality in the Lacanian sense means the truth as seen by the Lacanian subject; it is this sense the very antithesis of reality in the sense of a realist ontology. The other with whom we identify in the imaginary and from where we interpret the world is thus the sort of person we really are or would like to be, the sort of person we feel we ought to be, or even have to be to survive the vicissitudes of our existence. There is a sort of false obligation or necessity in the other as it reflects our personal and contextualized realities. We can now move on to consider the first important Lacanian concept that will inform our requiting of the stress transaction: desire. It should be noted that henceforth we use the term desire in its Lacanian, not everyday, sense. An understanding of desire (the quotation marks indicate that any understanding will be contextual) should, like many Lacanian ideas, be approached from its other side. In this case, desire is neither a demand nor a need (see Écrits, 2006: ). A need is biological or instinctual and is something we wish to have satiated. This need may be addressed to another as a demand. But a demand is more than just a needy cry; it is also a request for recognition a demand for love. For Lacan (we can see his negative ontology coming through strongly), desire is that within the articulation of a demand that can never be satiated, although that does not stop us from trying. Evans (1996: 39) notes furthermore: Desire is a social product. Desire is not the private affair it appears to be but is always constituted in a dialectical relationship with the perceived desire of other subjects. In this sense, desire can be seen as a route to interrogating the unconscious interpretation of the (stressful) demands of the subject s Other. Stressors, as they are considered in much of the literature (Cooper et al., 2001), are demands on the subject. Lacan alerts us to the fact that there is always something more to such demands. This more is, in Lacanian terminology, the desire of the Other and an appreciation of this desire and its impact is central to our task of challenging the stress transaction and of adding substance to an appreciation of the unconscious aspects of appraisal. Turning now to the second concept jouissance Evans (1998: 1) indicated how jouissance is used in a series of different contexts, in each of which it acquires a different nuance. A discussion of these can be found in Evans (1996, 1998), Braunstein (2003) and Miller (2000). That said and as already indicated, it is neither necessary nor possible to cover all these shadings, and, for the purpose of this article, only two are considered. First, Lacan, in Seminar V, (1957) on the formation of the unconscious, contrasts jouissance with desire. Jouissance in this view comes not from an achievement of a hoped-for object but from the relentless pursuit of desire. Thus there is jouissance simply in the attempt to satiate the Other s desire. Second, Lacan presents in Seminar VII, ( ) another angle by considering jouissance in relation to both pleasure and suffering. This is not simply, he indicates, deferred gratification or even the masochist s pleasure in pain, but a view that there is only so much pleasure that a subject can bear beyond that lies suffering. Enjoyment and dis-enjoyment are, in Lacan, never simply opposites. Having introduced these two fundamental notions, we can finally consider how they are inculcated within the stress transaction. Luckily, Lacan provides us with a framework for doing this. He does so in what is known as the Graph of Desire which he develops in Écrits (Lacan, 2006: ). The full graph is developed by Lacan in four stages. Although the stages should be seen as parts of a whole, our temporary limiting of understanding in the way proposed above may be recognized as we concentrate on the third form where Lacan takes us beyond what is said the enunciated to what underlies the spoken words the enunciation. We hear the enunciated demands but we want

8 324 Organization 17(3) to know more and understand the enunciation. We thus ask the Other: by saying these thing, what do you really want of me? What is it that you desire of me? Lacan uses the Italian phrase: ché vuoi? and we will follow his practice. In the Graph of Desire, the answer we provide to the question ché vuoi? is reflected into a fantasy in the sense that it is an ambition associated with an imaginary object. In making this comment, we acknowledge that we are addressing a very specific form of fantasy that applies only to the neurotic. One common form of fantasy is to satiate the Other s desire, or, said differently, to provide that which the Other fundamentally lacks. Lacan in his work on the development of the subject and his discussion of Oedipus indicates that this fundamental lack is the very something we must give up before we can participate in civilized society. Lacan also tell us that the thing once given up can never be reunited with the subject. Thus, he says, the fulfilment of this fantasy is impossible. However, that does not stop the subject from believing in their reality that it could be possible and they certain can enjoy the continual enactment of this fantasy. Thus we can talk of the object that would fulfil this fantasy as ex-sisting. It exists only in the imaginary. Such objects can also be considered to be (im)possible. They seem possible and we strive to find them, but the quest will never be successful. We can never satiate a desire. In conscious appraisal we consider stressors and decide what to do about them; we develop a coping strategy. Unconscious appraisal is different; it is by its very nature unconscious and therefore no cognition is involved and no decisions result for such an appraisal. We simple are unconsciously compelled to act in a particular way. Thus, at the level of the unconscious, instead of an interpretation of stressors as demands, Lacan s work on the Graph of Desire suggests we should reflect upon what is not said in the demand. What, in other words, is the desire of the Other? Furthermore, while stressors as demands lead to strains, desires are at the root of an enactment of a fantasy that aims at an (im)possible object. Strains can lead to negative outcomes and lack of well-being. Fantasy enactment leads to jouissance. They can both arise in the same demand and be seen in the same set of behaviour patterns. Thus, overlaying an unconscious level to the stressful transaction, allows us to say that a demand can lead to both dis-enjoyment as a strain or negative outcome, and enjoyment as we unconsciously know that we are living our lives in accordance with the desire of the Other. Field work Having problematized the stress transaction at a theroretical level by moving beyond cognitions, we move on to consider our field data and its interpretation. Lacan s contextualization of truth means that this cannot be seen as hypothesis testing. Instead, we merely lay bare an alternative though hopefully richer reading of stressful encounters. We start by describing the sources of our data. Field research was undertaken by the lead author in two settings. The first study comprised observations (over 200 hours) in three commercial kitchens. We shall give them all pseudonyms as follows: The Excelsior (a top London hotel), Carême s and Escoffier s (both Michelin-starred restaurants). Data comprised observation notes (which, where possible, included verbatim segments of conversation) and transcripts of embedded interviews. In addition, interview studies were conducted in a London fire station. The interviews sought to explore how firefighters talked of stress in relation to their work. Participants knew the interviewer was engaged in academic research into stress at work and would employ a psychoanalytic framework. Finally in this section we must consider the manner in which we interpreted our field data. Whilst never portraying our work as psychoanalysis, we have not, contra Parker (2005b), shied away from providing an interpretation of our interviewees language as if they were subjects

9 Bicknell and Liefooghe 325 in analysis. We have done so with the objective of exploring structure; to understand how our interviewees engaged with the workplace in a structured manner. But, as stated, we are using our interpretations not to reveal the truth but instead to re-quilt discourses of stress. To do this within a negative ontology we do not need a full analysis: a plausible interpretation (or re-signification) of the many possibilities for what is missing is sufficient. This interpretation (of interview transcriptions and field notes) commenced with repeated readings during which we looked for important signifying chains and points de capiton that would help suggest structure. We drew many word maps to help in this arduous process. Through this, and a plausible interpretation of what this could mean in terms of symbolic and imaginary identification, accounts of the Other were developed. Could we suggest symbolic and imaginary places from where the subject seemed to be viewing the world of work? For example, the recognition that some chefs described themselves in ways that could be associated with the metaphor the perfect host helped open many avenues of exploration. The accounts were then considered through the Graph of desire as outlined above. Chè vuoi? we asked alongside the subject. What does the guest really want of me as host? We looked for signifiers that might suggest (im)possible objects (the perfect dining experience) exemplifying answers and that, thus, reflected enacted fantasies. In this article, we have considered only a very small proportion of the data collected. We begin our account and interpretation of data with material gathered at The Excelsior a prestigious London hotel. In our account, we indicate briefly the structuring elements as we saw them and consider how, at the level of the unconscious, they add an overlay to the stress transaction suggesting that enjoyment derived from an enactment of fantasy can stand alongside the strains and tribulations (stresses) of cheffing. As already indicated, the signifier that, for us, seemed most clearly to structure the chefs at the hotel was that of the host. These chefs, in our interpretation, did not merely cook; they lived the fantasy of the perfect dining experience based on food that was beyond mere nutrition. Chè vuoi? Perfect pleasure, because this was the desire of the Other as guest. But whilst perfection ex-sisted, the mundane creations constantly being served merely emphasized and allowed the enjoyment, not of a perfect object (chefs, it may be noted in this regard never eat in the kitchen, they only taste), but of simply going for it. Enjoyment came in the attempts to negate failure. Failure, per se, was not disenjoyable but it is associated with heat, discomfort, long hours, being shouted at, the constant and relentless pressures of service, and so on that is commonly known as stress. It reinforced the fantasy quest of perfection; there was always better food to be cooked... and better still food beyond even that. But cheffing, at this level, is also about production; about breaking the cooking process down into elements so that during service when the guest is physically present food can be rapidly served without compromising quality. The French phrase mise en place and the related signifier being ready reflect this. When reviewing data, these phrases seemed, however, to signify much more than a technicality and had a strong structuring role. They were, for example, applied to people and relations as much as, say, a piece of meat. They were also linked to the host: the chef had to be ready for the guests every desire. Signifiers of pressure were also linked to the signifier service and included not being ready as well as the swearing and exhortations by senior chefs to move your fucking arse!. Our interpretation thus suggested another form of the Other: the perfect Chef. Chè vuoi, chef?. You to be ready. Chefs talked of apprehension going into service yet seemed to relish an almost ritualistic loss of control during service as they did indeed start to shift their arses. Disastrous services were there to be contrasted against the perfect Chef s desire. How else will we become ready other than by first being not-ready? Indeed, quiet services were intolerable (in both words and symbolic actions such as a ritualistic cleaning) and dropped food or demanding diners were not simply a case of heightened

10 326 Organization 17(3) arousal but were part of the very fabric of enjoyable yet highly pressured service. The chefs enjoyed living the fantasy of perfect food and perfect readiness. They did this, in our interpretation, for the Other in its guise as perfect Host. Perfection, however, must in a negative ontology be seen in relation to each and every imperfection. Whereas, a more traditional view might be able to account for some of the reactions as deferred pleasure perhaps arising from a cognitive compromise, the Lacanian perspective shows how the unconscious can tolerate ambiguity and allow discomfort and pressure to stand alongside enjoyment. Interestingly, although this kitchen was generally, for the observer, a pleasure to visit, the strength with which the guest (as local ideology) required certain behaviours could be interpreted outside of a Lacanian lens as the most stringent of concertive controls (Barker, 1993). This was in contrast to Escoffier s, which was a place the casual observer might reasonably describe as unpleasant. It was a place of excessive and continual verbal abuse ( I m fucking well not serving that. It s fucking dog shit ), where the Head Chef was never wrong even when contradicting himself ( but you just have to take the chef s word for it and you have to accept his selfishness. The middle ranking chef saying this ended by asking is selfish spelt with a c? inferring, it may be assumed, the Head Chef to be a cunt), and where pressure was relentless over the entirety of the 16 hour shifts that were commonplace. And where one experienced chef simply refused, during our visits, to do another shift because she could take no more. Yet despite this there was much said of enjoyment. We give just two examples. One chef de partir indicated that she had been there approximately 18 months. When I first came here I thought it was absolutely crazy, doing 18 hour days and all the shouting, but here I am doing those 18 hour days and I m still here [...] [because] you really feel like you re living (the shift form I to you may be noted). A demi (short for demi-chef de partir the level below section leader) talked about the need constantly to strive for perfection and how you really have to love what you re doing or you wouldn t put up with it. Through the Lacanian lens, it would appear that the signifier passion had a broad structuring potential that extended across the brigade. Interestingly, the guest of The Excelsior had little importance here. Instead the idea of neat and tidy mise en place seemed to have a comparably strong structuring capacity, for the desire of the Other appeared to be the perfect dish and the perfect dish comprised neat and tidy components. Process was all. Here, the Other was not the guest but the orderly Chef of their aspirations. They strove to deliver up the perfect dish to this Other acknowledging that being killed in process was a necessary part of the job it s passion that kills of us in here. The stresses of working at Escoffier s mentioned above could be enjoyed because, we surmised, the neatness of each component and each dish was forever compromised. Yet this mad life could be enjoyed since the perfect dish did ex-sist. It merely had to be brought into being. Enacting the fantasy that the perfect components could be cooked and that these would make the perfect dish made even the intolerable enjoyable for the chefs who continued to work there. Some (the chef who left), however, accepted that they could no longer buy into this fantasy. Again traditional approaches might suggest that chefs at Escoffier s make a cognitive compromise by deferring pleasure. A hit is taken now so that, in the longer term, they can move to a better job. But there was talk of enjoyment in the here and now. Lacan can explain this. Moving on, similar observations were made at the fire station. Below we consider Fred who was a watch manager and had been a firefighter for 23 years. The lead author asked him about the bits of his work that stood out as being good, as opposed to being memorable for negative reasons. Ah but they are the good bits as well. They are the good bits. Yeah, although they re very stressful at the time you know, to come away and to come away from an incident that was a successful rescue, knowing you ve been involved in in saving lives as stressful as it is, you know, that s an incredibly

11 Bicknell and Liefooghe 327 boost and some, you know, you are high for days. You know, other people have said that erm, you re buzzing for day s. [...] perhaps for a few days afterwards You re thinking fucking hell well I actually quite enjoyed that and I don t mind if I have to do it again. Fred. The interpretation of Fred s full interview suggested the structuring impact of the signifiers rescue and saving lives which are used in this quote. Accounts made sense if seen in the context of the Other as victim and desire of the Other being the perfect rescue. But, for Fred, the Other could reasonably be interpreted in a different way: that of the professional and experienced firefighter who guards against risk. Standing against these were the hairy bits : unanticipated risk; situations that are frantic, so in your face ; circumstances which had never been encountered before; and the sheer destructive power of fire or the deliberation of suicide bombers. As Fred said of his first hairy job 23 year ago: [There were] guys crawling through a doorway of a house that s alight, and [I was] thinking, bloody hell! they re not actually they re not actually going into there, are they? Fred, it appeared, identifies the glamour with the hairy stuff and himself as firefighter with the glamorous rescuer. Thus the double-edged nature of the pressures of the job was clearly demonstrated in Fred s but those are the good bits. But, we suggest, this was not just a fireman seeing danger and getting off on an adrenaline rush the good stress view. We say that because the desire of the Other (as the firefighter who can effect the perfect rescue) was to effect the perfect rescue and that meant the perfect avoidance of danger. Instead, it was actually the failure to achieve the perfect rescue that meant that the hairy stuff could be enjoyed. This is because the existence of the hairy stuff shows that you were going for it and trying to effect the perfect rescue. Enacting the fantasy of the perfect firefighter meant the hairy stuff had to be enjoyed. This can be further seen when the rescue fails and fatalities occur. We did what we could appeared to be an important signifier that was more than just a symbolic justification. We did all we could do to attend to the Other s desire and to be the rescuer. We have done nothing to lessen the respect owing to a rescuer. Even fatalities, by reminding the (im)perfect firefighter of the total destructiveness of fire that can never be conquered, reinforced the fantasy and ensured that its enactment could be enjoyed in the we-did-what-we-could. The conquest of fire and the perfect rescue were (im)possible. Yet Fred, as subject, enjoyably pursued both because it was the Other s (in avatars of both Victim and Conqueror of fire) desire. It seems to us a much more convincing reading than simply suggesting that firefighters get off on danger. Their training, after all, requires them to avoid risk. In these examples, we see how the desires of the Other can provide an unconscious overlay to the strains and negative outcomes upon which a mainstream interpretation of the stress transition would focus. In the unconscious response to the desire of the Other we enact a fantasy that these desires can be satiated. There is jouissance in this. Stress therefore elides into enjoyment. Perfect food or hospitality is (im)possible, as is the rescue and conquest of fire. Yet the stressful attempt to fill such a lack can be enjoyed because it is Other s desire. Conclusion We have provided a theoretical account that shows how laying an unconscious overlay over the stress transaction suggests how stressful demands can be enjoyed even if they also lead to strain and negative outcomes. This, let it be said, is very different to the good stress discourse. We are not saying that some stress is good, we are saying that stress may result in both diminished well-being and enjoyment. That said, we note that Lacan requires us to contextualize truth. We must therefore, emphasize that the enjoyment of stress must be considered in context. Indeed, reflecting on the unbounded nature of a negative ontology, it could more generally be claimed that an academic

12 328 Organization 17(3) inquiry into stress will always be constrained. In other words, nomothetic approaches to stress will always have limits. Yet, despite this, Lacan interpretations can, as our examples show, disrupt (this is the strongest word we would wish to use) the taken-for-granted in a particular context and this, we suggest, should be their prime aim. Finally in this interpretation, we wish in indicate how the consideration of stress in relation to desire and jouissance may allow for a different ethical reading of stress. We start with a common-sense view of ethics. Thinking of stress in the manner of this article allows stress and enjoyment to be sublated. We can have enjoyable stress and stressful enjoyment. Furthermore, a simple judgement can never be made as to what is or is not stress. There is no room for universals and we should not presume to impose a judgement based on partial and contextualized accounts. However, ethics, as used by Lacan, has a very particular meaning and we can consider stress in this sense as well. Ethical existence for Lacan concerns an acceptance of the truth about ones desires. Jouissance, as we have seen, is associated with desire and ethical enjoyment thus arises in ethical existence. Similarly, if stress is the other side of jouissance we can also have an ethical relation to stress: we must enjoy our stress. Furthermore, we can never say that stress is, per se, bad because stress, if we adopt the Lacanian framework, can only be understood in a context. Thus neither a classification of stress, nor its ethical management, is ever possible. Bluntly, any attempt by a person to manage or cure someone else s stress is against a Lacanian view of ethics. That said, from the perspective of critical management studies, as opposed to Lacanian psychoanalysis, there remain more general issues of morality to consider. From such a perspective, we have to consider what happens, say, if through our interactions with others we prevent people from enjoying their stress in their own unique ways. We have to consider what happens if in enjoying our own stress, we cause dis-stress to others? Should a subject be able to enjoy their stress? That is a question beyond the scope of this article. It is helpful to reflect on one last area as we bring this article to a close. Just as our research subjects were embroiled in the desire of the Other, so are we as academic. We may each see the Academy as Other and ask it: ché vuoi? Many of us may be striving after the (im)possible objects of an understanding of, or solution to, society s problems. So, to end with a twist, Lacan s negative ontology should ultimately direct us to what this article does not say, just as much as what it does. As Parker (2003, 2005b) reminds us, the Lacanian clinic seeks to disrupt mainstream attempts to repair deformities by stitching up this gap (Lacan, Seminar XI, 1964, translation 1977: 23). As critical scholars of organizations we should see Lacan as a means of disrupting the glib orthopaedics of stress or, for that matter, other organizational concerns. To draw this article to an open close, our findings are not intended to stitch up stress. Stress is an over-determined affair of an over-determined individual in an environment of plentimaws (Frosh, 2007: 642, drawing on Rushdie (1990) Haroun and the sea of stories). Yet, in accordance with Lacan s negative ontology, our work can be read as an exploration of stress in relation to a gap, indeed as stress qua gap. As such, stress cannot be understood or solved. There may be ways for the subject to enjoy his or her stress, but we can never say how he or she should do this. Notes The authors would like to thank the editors of this special issue and the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful and helpful comments. This article is derived from the doctoral research of the lead author who wishes to acknowledge the effort and valuable comments of his PhD examiners Professor Stephen Frosh and Professor Ian Parker. The research was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number PTA ].

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