Memory, language, and subjectivity: cure in analysis as a work of remembering, narrative production and elaboration of a subjective position

Abstract

This article aims to analyze some of the ways in which, in Freudian-based psychoanalysis, the processes of subjectivation are irremediably related to an articulation between memory and language. To this end, we chose the idea of "healing" in psychoanalysis as a guiding thread for our analyses, as we believe we can find, in the symptom's healing process, the emergence of the articulation between memory, language, and subjectivity production processes in a very elucidative manner. To operationalize this work, we conducted systematic theoretical reviews and sought to weave relations between concepts coined at different moments of Freud's theoretical production, aiming to outline his conception of memory and how it relates to subjectivity and language. Our analytical journey shows that, although Freud did not explicitly formulate a theory on how language fundamentally operates in the constitution of subjectivity, all the elements for such a reading are present in his work. From Freud onwards, healing in analysis will be a process of producing singular modalities of subjectivity. This is because the entire process of healing in psychoanalysis requires a subjective rectification of the individual in relation to their symptom, and this rectification is only possible insofar as there is a fundamental relationship between memory and language.