An Introduction to the Transference Unconscious

David Hafner

doi:10.7565/landp.v6i1.1566

Abstract

This paper explores the evolving definition of the term ‘unconscious’ in late twentieth century French psychoanalysis: structuralist, real, and enunciative. Each hypothetic definition of the unconscious employs a rather different reading of Freud’s discovery of the divided nature of subjective reality, adopting different approaches to the question of trace permanence and strangeness. The paper argues that an assessment of the sequence of Lacanian theories of the unconscious should be understood against the backdrop of discontinuous progress as conceptualised by French historical epistemology.

Highlights

My specific concern in this paper is the transmission of Freud’s hypothesis of the unconscious through the work of Lacan
“We could call it unconscious, signifying that the intentional content which translates it into consciousness cannot manifest itself without a compromise with the social demands integrated by the subject, that is to say without a camouflage of motives, which is quite precisely the whole delusion” (Lacan, 1933)
Just as I have supposed that emotive and instinctive reactions are buried within the unconscious, hidden from consciousness by the vast development of those reactions which are associated with intelligence, so do we find that the organ of the emotions and instinctive reactions strong ego” (Fink, 2014)

Summary

Introduction

My specific concern in this paper is the transmission of Freud’s hypothesis of the unconscious through the work of Lacan. We know that three vicissitudes are possible: either the affect remains, wholly or in part, as it is; or it is transformed into a qualitatively different quota of affect, above all anxiety; or it is suppressed” (Freud, 2001g) In opposition to this searching for an anatomical notion of depth that would correlate to the conjecture of the unconscious, the Lacanian perspective argues that the unconscious appears in a liminal space, insofar as it manifests itself at the surface level of speech and language, in a clockwork-like system of words and syllables uttered by a person, sometimes against his or her will, sometimes without awareness.. What we teach the subject to recognize as his unconscious is his history” (Lacan, 2006d)

Ineradicable Permanence

Llanguage and the Mystery