Language and the Origins of Psychoanalysis

303 Pages·1980·31.694 MB·

by  John Forrester

SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF OBSESSIONS 225
departure, he declared that the mute 'e' of the second syllable
gave him no sense of security against the intrusion, which he
so much dreaded, of some foreign and contradictory element,
and that he had therefore decided to accent the 'e'. This
explanation (an excellent sample of the obsessional neurotic
style) was, however, clearly inadequate; the most that it could
claim to be was a rationalization. The truth was that 'aber'
was< 1wehr'
LANGUAGE
['def
:;~:
theo1
AND THE ORIGINS OF
the t
order
PSYCHOANALYSIS
~~~~ ~p:~
aga1r nitial
JOHN FORRESTER
lette1 s and
had' )duce
the \\"Ord itself, for reasons which will become apparent
immediatel)'.1 For, when he told it me, I could not help
noticing that the word was in fact an anagram of the name
of his lady. Her name contained an 's', and this he had put
last, that is, immediately before the 'amen' at the end. 1Ne
m ay say, therefore, that by this process he had brought his
'Samen· ['semeri'J into contact with the woman he loved ; in
imagination, that is to say, he had masturbated with her. He
himself, ho\.vever, had never noticed this very obvious con
nection; his defensive forces had allowed themselves to be
fooled by the repressed ones. This is also a good example of
the rule that in time the thing which is meant to be warded
off invariably finds its way into the very means which is being
used for \Varding it off.
I ha\'e already asserted that obsessional thoughts have
undergone a distortion similar to that undergone by dream
thoughts before they become the manifest content of a dream.
The technique of this distortion may therefore be of interest
(The actual word will be found below, p. 280.)
1

Language and the Origins of Psychoanalysis
Language and the
Origins of
Psychoanalysis
John Forrester
New York Columbia University Press 1980
Copyright 1980 John Forrester
All rights merved.
Printtd in Gr~al Britain
Library of Congress Cataloging In Publlcutlon Data
Forrester, John.
Language and the origins of psychoanalysis.
Bibliography: p.
I. Psychoanalysis. 2. Psycholinguistics.
3. Symboijsm (Psychology) 4. Philology. I. Title.
BFl75.F65 1980 150.19'5 80- 13755
ISBN 0- 231- 05136-0
Whal I wanl back is whal I was
Before the bed. before the knife,
Before 1he brooch-pin and the salve.
Fixed me in this parenthesis;
Horses ftueni in the wind,
A place, a 1ime gone out of mind.
Sylvia Pla1h, T/,. Eye-mote
since feeling is firs1
who pays any a11en1ion
10 1h e syniax of 1hings
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood appro,es,
and kisses arc a better fate
1han wisdom
lady i swear by all Dowers. Don"1 cry
- the bcsl gesture of my brain is less 1han
your eyelids" ftuuer which says
we are for each olher: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
And dea1h i think is no parenthesis
e. e. cummings

Contents
Preface
ix
Acknowledgrments xii
Notes 01J Tex1s and TrQJ1slatio11s xiv
List of Abbreviations xvi
Aphasia, Hysteria and the Talking Cure I
Hysteria 8
Aphasia 14
The Theory of the Talking-Cure 1.9
2 The Metapsychology of Spcccll 40
Constructing the Machine 40
The Machine Speaks 49
3~boli~ E
Symbolism in Hysteria 66
Symbolism in The /nterpre1ati0t1 of Dreams ( 1900) 70
Universal Symbolism: Approaches to the Problem
(1905-10) 76
The History of the Oedipus Complex. 1897- 1910 84
Myth and Dream, 1910- 1I 96
Jung's Approach to the Symbol 102
Freud's Theory of Symbolism I 11
The Debate Closes: Jones' Theory of Symbolism 122
4 Grammar 131
Symptom as Talk: Talk as Symptom::Symp1om as
Symptom: Talk as Talk 131
The Propositional Structure of eurosis 141
S Philology 166
Philology in the Nineteenth Century 168
A Question of Nerve: Leonardo, Moses and the Problem
of Tradition 180
The Specimen Theme of Psychoanalysis 188
Who were the Philologists? 193
Conclusion 211
viii Contents
Notts 213
Bib/iogrophy 256
lnd~x 282