Psychoanalysis and Discourse

After a detailed discussion of the significance of translation as a critical concept in psychoanalysis, Patrick Mahony proceeds to a comprehensive examination of 'free association', the cornerstone of psychoanalytic method. Next follows the consideration of free association in its relation to scientific rhetorical, expressive and literary discourse. Mahony then begins a detailed study of certain aspects of the text of Freud's Interpretation of Dreamsand of issues involved in the oral reporting of dreams. Attention is subsequently turned to the analysis of Freud's own writing in general, and specifically to Totem and Taboo. Finally, the author shows how his ideas can illuminate literary classics (by Villon, Shakespeare, Kafka, and Jonson) and the debate about whether there is anything specific to women's discourse.

Introduction. Part One: Discourse and the Clinical Context. Towards the Understanding of Translation in Psychoanalysis. The Boundaries of Free Association. The Place of Psychoanalytic Treatment in the History of Discourse. Freud's Interpretation of Dreams, Semiology and Chomskian Linguistics. Towards a Formalist Approach to Freud's Central Dream. Imitative Elaboration in the Oral Reporting of Dreams: Another Formal Feature of Dream Interpretation. Part Two: Non-clinical Discourse and Psychoanalysis. Further Thoughts in Freud and his Writing. The Budding International Association of Psychoanalysis and its Discontents: A Feature of Freud's Discourse. Kafka's 'A Hunger Artist' and the Symbolic Nuclear Principle. Shakespeare's Sonnet 20 and its Symbolic Nuclear Principle. Ben Jonson's 'Best Pieces of Poetry' and a Comparison of their Symbolic Nuclear Princple. Villon's 'La Ballade des Pendus' and its Symbolic Nuclear Principle. Women's Discourse and Literature: The Question of Nature and Culture. Index.