La metafora all'incrocio tra linguistica e psicoanalisi

Abstract

Metaphor at the crossroads of linguistics and psychoanalysis This paper adopts an interdisciplinary approach seeking to contribute to the discussion with regard to language and the unconscious focusing on metaphor. Based on the analysis of the stereotypical, idiomatic expressions of fear in Greek where the traumatic experience of the fragmented body is deciphered, metaphor is brought forth as the space where unconscious, prelinguistic and intersubjective experiences emerge. This finding questions firstly the psychoanalytically dominant point of view that the unconscious can emerge only in speech inasmuch as such expressions are part of the linguistic system shared by the speakers of a linguistic community, the analyst and the analysand included. Moreover, this finding brings up the issue if metaphor -with its power to invoke this kind of experiences- can be considered as an agent responsible both for the provocation of empathy and the communication between the unconscious of the analysand and the analyst during psychoanalytic session.