Language and Psychoanalysis (E-Journal)
Not a member yet
104 research outputs found
Sort by
The Location of Anxiety
Get PDFThis essay elaborates an alternative to the Freudian and Lacanian conceptions of anxiety by tracing a middle ground between their accounts of linguistic acquisition and object-attachment. Both psychoanalysts overlook the importance of gestural expression while theorizing the eventual reliance on the symbolic with the onset of the Oedipal period. The essay turns to the folk psychology notion of the “theory of mind,” and a specific experiment called the “false belief task” to offer an alternative to how the encroachment of the symbolic is conceptualized in psychoanalytic history. Rather than framing the onset of the symbolic order as a swift entry into language, the essay proposes rethinking it as a process with a longer temporality and a more complex set of expressive behaviors (language, gesture, embodied expression). The comparative account of Freud and Lacan are supported with references to psychoanalysts and scholars of psychoanalysis such as Julia Kristeva, Elizabeth Grosz, and Donald Winnicott
Therapeutic Mother Tongue and its Implications on the Work of Polyglot Psychotherapists
Get PDFPsychodynamic psychotherapy occurs in the lingual field. At its core, the “talking cure” uses the power of words to transform the psyche. Questions arise when the psychologist using language as a central means for therapy is a foreign-language speaker. Research and personal contributions of polyglot therapists in recent years show, that practicing psychotherapy in foreign languages effects the therapist’s work on many levels; technical aspects, the therapist’s self-perception and role, the therapeutic relationship, therapist’s experience and understanding of language as an element in therapy, and more. The present study interviewed nine polyglot therapists in different stages of their career using diverse and different languages in their practice. Analysis of the data in the context of Winnicott’s construct of potential space (Winnicott, 1971) and current linguistics theories regarding language embodiment (Pavlenko, 2005) brought about the suggestion of the concept of Therapeutic Mother Tongue, that refers to the language of training. Therapists’ experience of Therapeutic Mother Tongue and other languages are explored
Bewitching Oxymorons and Illusions of Harmony
Get PDFWittgenstein’s account of how language bewitches one’s intelligence is a singular achievement in the phenomenology of language. In section 426 of Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein famously claims that the meaning of a word is to be found in the “actual use” of it, and he contrasts this understanding with the projection of a picture:
A picture is conjured up which seems to fix the sense unambiguously. The actual use, compared with that suggested by the picture, seems like something muddied. ... [T]he form of expression we use seems to have been designed for a god, who knows what we cannot know; he sees the whole of each of those infinite series and he sees into human consciousness. (Wittgenstein, 1953, section 426
Infinite Singletons and the Logic of Freudian Theory
Get PDFThe aim of this paper is to advance a formal description of the implicit logic grounding of the psychoanalytic theory. We therefore propose a new interpretation of the logical features of the Freudian unconscious process, starting from the Bi-logic formulation put forward by the Chilean psychoanalyst Matte Blanco. We conceive the universal undifferentiated state of the deep psychoanalytic Unconscious in terms of particular sets named infinite singletons, and we show how they can represent the logical foundations for a formal description of the Primary process. We first disclose some implicit assumptions underlying the common logical language. In doing so, we discover an unexpected presence of symmetry even in the most basic of logical and verbal structures. In the approach derived, we show that infiniteness, not finiteness, is the primary mode of sets, and therefore, of thinking. The pivotal consequence of this model is that the unconscious elements cannot be characterised in the absence of external reality, which produces the collapse of infinite sets and allows for the emergence of linguistic representations. Finally, we discuss how the model could represent a platform to formalise further developments of psychoanalytic theory, in particular with respect to the shift from the First to the Second Topics in Freudian theory
If Japan was a Person: LX learning in Polly Barton’s Language Memoir 50 Sounds
Get PDFThe language memoir has informed a wealth of research on multilingualism. Polly Barton’s book 50 Sounds (2021), in which she narrates her experience of moving to Japan as part of the Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme, is another example of autobiographical writing with rich insight into LX learning. The article examines Barton’s exploration of relationships in and with an LX and reflects on the importance of transferential phenomena in LX acquisition. Parallels between LX and L1 learning during infancy are also investigated. The findings seem relevant for a psychodynamic understanding of LX learning that takes object relations into account and will hopefully result in more research
Writing Lived Experience – A Melancholy Elegy
Get PDFThis paper explores the limitations of language in psychotherapeutic writing about lived experience and how psychanalytic concepts can help us both understand and work through the inevitable loss that results from these limitations. It is illustrated by the author’s experience of undertaking a doctoral research project in psychotherapy where the experience of narrative incoherence was explored through writing. Paralleled to the doctoral research project was the author’s challenges in writing the experience of incoherence. By reflecting on and analysing these challenges, this paper explores the sense of loss that is located at the core of writing lived experience through psychoanalytic concepts including the third position and melancholia. The limitations of language in capturing the fullness of lived experienced is shed light on. Connecting the psychoanalytic concept of melancholia to Romanyshyn’s (2013) writing as elegy, I propose writing lived experience as a melancholy elegy in which what is lost in language can be acknowledged and kept alive in the writer’s psyche. I argue for the creative potential brought by the continuous engagement with the sense of loss in writing lived experience.
Reference:
Romanyshyn, R.D. (2013). The wounded researcher: research with soul in mind. New Orleans, Louisiana: Spring Journal Books
Heidegger and Lacan: Language as Beyond the Communication
Get PDFLacanian psychoanalysis cannot disregard its debts to philosophy, especially continental philosophy. Lacan’s conception of language is derived from multiple philosophical sources (i.e., Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard) including Heidegger’s philosophy of language and pride of place. Heidegger’s view of language prepares the ground for reversing the relationship between language and human beings, overcoming common sense about language and the communicative model of language. Language is much more than a set of labels; it shapes the human world and structures social relations themselves. In addition, language acts as a social link. The function of language as a social link allows us to think of it in relation to the Law and the very function of this human subjectivity. In reference to the Other of the Law and language, the subject finds her recognition, and this implies that the language is not reducible to communication. The process of technical-scientific domination of Western institutions leads to a reduction of their functions to the formal aspects, which may lead to a reification of the human as well as a state of alienation
The Sexual Throughout the Body of the Tongue
Get PDFIn Fragment 19 of the Harvard Manuscripts, Saussure claims that difference, since it admits degrees, is an uncomfortable term. If anatomy as destiny (Freud, 1912, 1924) is more nuanced than one would like, since it also admits degrees, and anatomical difference does not mitigate the ultimate impossibility of conjugation between speaking beings (Lacan, 1991), how to think of the transit/translation between bodies and where to situate the differences that belong to them? In order to propose an answer, this paper starts from this hypothesis that it is advisable to develop this reflection about sexual difference a couple of feet above the waistline, foregrounding another organ (the tongue), what allows us to critically rethink the entanglement between gender and anatomy in psychoanalysis, in favor of the notion of style
Lou Andreas-Salomé, The Audacity to be Free
Get PDFThe tug of war between love and logic in the discipline of psychoanalysis is nearly as old as the Freudian field itself; and is still heard today in the utterances of our analysands. “I love him, but I know he’s no good for me”. “Then why did you go back to him?” “...good question”. This question of love and its logics are at the heart of writer and director Cordula Kablit-Post’s 2016 film Lou Andreas-Salome: The Audacity to be Free
“Inside or Outside”: The Container Schema of High and Low Barrier Personalities. And Remarks on Covid-19
Get PDFBy relating the exterior-interior model of body boundary awareness to Lakoff & Johnson’s (1999) in-out orientation of container-schematic conceptualisations, this study aims to explore the use of container-schematic imagery in the autobiographical memories of High and Low Barrier Personalities. The results of this study are based on a corpus of everyday autobiographical memories (N =488) and dream memories (N=450). The results demonstrated that, in both memory types, High Barrier personalities used more semantic fields representing concrete and metaphorical container-schematic imagery (Johnson, 1987), suggesting that container metaphors are similar to the Barrier personality construct. The results are discussed also in reference to the social distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic