(Mis) Understanding Freud With Lacan, Zizek, and Neuroscience

THE PALGRAVE LACAN SERIES
SERIES EDITORS: CALUM NEILL · DEREK HOOK
(Mis)Understanding
Freud with Lacan, Zizek,
and Neuroscience
RobeRt SamuelS
The Palgrave Lacan Series
Series Editors
Calum Neill
Edinburgh Napier University
Edinburgh, UK
Derek Hook
Duquesne University
Pittsburgh, USA
Jacques Lacan is one of the most important and influential thinkers of
the 20th century. The reach of this influence continues to grow as we
settle into the 21st century, the resonance of Lacan’s thought arguably
only beginning now to be properly felt, both in terms of its application
to clinical matters and in its application to a range of human activities
and interests. The Palgrave Lacan Series is a book series for the best new
writing in the Lacanian field, giving voice to the leading writers of a new
generation of Lacanian thought. The series will comprise original mono-
graphs and thematic, multi-authored collections. The books in the series
will explore aspects of Lacan’s theory from new perspectives and with
original insights. There will be books focused on particular areas of or
issues in clinical work. There will be books focused on applying Lacanian
theory to areas and issues beyond the clinic, to matters of society, politics,
the arts and culture. Each book, whatever its particular concern, will
work to expand our understanding of Lacan’s theory and its value in the
21st century.
Robert Samuels
(Mis)Understanding
Freud with Lacan,
Zizek, and
Neuroscience
Robert Samuels
Writing Program
University of California, Santa Barbara
Goleta, CA, USA
The Palgrave Lacan Series

ISBN 978-3-031-13326-8 ISBN 978-3-031-13327-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13327-5
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Dedicated to Madeleine and Sophia
Contents
1 I ntroduction 1
2 F
reud’s Project 7
3 Neuroscience and the Repression of Psychoanalysis 29
4 Moving
from Freud’s Five Principles to Lacan’s Four
Fundamental Concepts 63
5 The
Desire of the Analyst and the American Repression
of Psychoanalysis105
6 Zizek and the Empty Unconscious131
7 Misunderstanding Psychoanalysis from the Left159
8 Conclusion: Still (Mis)Understanding Psychoanalysis185
I ndex191
vii
1
Introduction
The main argument of this book is that psychoanalytic theory and prac-
tice is structured by five threshold concepts, yet these principles are
rarely understood—even by psychoanalysts themselves. In examining
the original meanings of the pleasure principle, the primary processes,
the unconscious, transference, and the reality principle, I hope to pro-
vide a stable and clear ground for this important discipline. I will also
focus on the many ways these core concepts are distorted and repressed.
While the psychoanalyst must remain open and unbiased during treat-
ment in order enable the uncensored free association of the patent, this
analytic position is determined by a clear understanding of the theory’s
key concepts.
I will argue that in his early Project for a Scientific Psychology, Freud
develops a narrative of human development that will continue to shape
his work throughout his life.1 I consider this unpublished text to be the
blueprint and key to psychoanalysis because it presents his five central
concepts in one complete system. Freud’s early work is also important
because it aimed to ground psychoanalysis in neurology; however, Freud
also introduces a vital challenge to the brain sciences.2
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 1

R. Samuels, (Mis)Understanding Freud with Lacan, Zizek, and Neuroscience, The
Palgrave Lacan Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13327-5_1
2 R. Samuels
Book Outline
Following this introduction, Chap. 2 offers a close reading of Freud’s
Project for a Scientific Psychology in order to define the original meanings
of the pleasure principle, the primary processes, transference, repression,
and the reality principle. One of the main arguments of this chapter is
that Freud’s basic theory is often misunderstood because his central con-
cepts are counter-intuitive and threatening to our own egos and views of
society and the mind.3 Moreover, I stress the close relation between psy-
choanalytic theory and practice as a way of indicating that any misunder-
standing of his original principles results in deviations in treatment.
To help elucidate how these basic psychoanalytic concepts have been
misunderstood, in Chap. 3, I read closely Mark Solm’s The Hidden Spring:
A Journey to the Source of Consciousness.4 With this sustained attempt to
combine psychoanalysis and neuroscience, we see how Freud’s insights
are often distorted and repressed by the new brain sciences. Even though
Freud did begin his work as a neurologist, I posit that his anticipation of
neuroscientific thinking actually goes against the main arguments of con-
temporary brain scientists. Moreover, throughout this book, I will claim
that psychoanalysis provides the most effective and realistic scientific
understanding of the human mind.
Chapter 4 examines Lacan’s The Four Concepts of Psychoanalysis.5
Although Lacan also looks at transference and the unconscious, his con-
ceptions of the drives and repetition distort some of Freud’s central prin-
ciples. Furthermore, he often confuses the pleasure principle with the
primary processes as he replaces the reality principle with the concept of
repetition. Most importantly, Lacan conflates the primary processes with
the unconscious as he downplays repression and focuses on how the
unconscious is structured like a language.
Chapter 5 looks at Mitchell Wilson’s The Analyst’s Desire in order to
show how a contemporary psychoanalyst misunderstands Freud’s and
Lacan’s basic insights.6 In stressing the role played by the analyst’s desire,
Wilson reveals why so many analysts resist the analytic process itself.
What is so instructive about this work is that is demonstrates how psy-
choanalysis can be repressed within psychoanalysis.
1 Introduction 3
In Chap. 6, I read Slavoj Zizek’s The Sublime Object of ideology as an

effort to repress the content of psychoanalysis.7 In his desire to combine
Marx, Lacan, and Hegel, we shall see how Zizek ends up producing a
cynical theory of cynicism as a new form of behaviorism is equated with
ideology and contemporary social practices.
Chapter 7 examines the book Intersectionality and Psychoanalysis to
explore the conflict between identity politics and psychoanalytic prac-
tice.8 My main argument is that psychoanalytic treatment is centered on
the neutrality of the analyst and the free association of the patient, and
this open discourse is narrowed and limited by a concern for issues con-
cerning race, gender, and class. My point is not to dismiss these vital
social influences; instead, I hope to show how any and every social factor
can be voiced in the analytic process.
Method
This book focuses on close readings of specific primary texts in order to
examine the actual words and ideas of the authors under consideration.9
I do not provide a survey of the field; instead, I concentrate on clarifying
Freud’s key insights, and then I look at some of the ways these concepts
are being misunderstood by influential theorists and practitioners.
Throughout this work, psychoanalysis is seen as a universal discourse that
addresses subjective, cultural, and historical differences. As a product of
the Enlightenment, Freud’s theories apply the scientific method to every-
day experiences and thoughts, and this entails taking an unbiased per-
spective in relation to material evidence.10 Thus, while Freud is often
attacked for being unscientific, I posit that his method is actually more
scientific than many other current approaches to human subjectivity.11
While my book does focus on Freud’s main concepts, the goal is not to
say that Freud is always right or even that he fully understands the impli-
cations of his own theories. Since it took him a long time to discover free
association and analytic neutrality, his practice often lags behind his the-
ory, and yet his central concepts are also shaped by his clinical experi-
ence.12 Moreover, Freud often uses concepts and metaphors borrowed
from biology, chemistry, and physics in order to represent symbolic ideas,
4 R. Samuels
and so it is necessary to translate many of his representations from the

hard sciences back to rhetoric, psychology, and linguistics.13
In grounding my understanding of Freud’s concepts through a reading
of his Project for a Scientific Psychology, I hope to show how at the start of
his career, Freud often treated psychological processes as biological struc-
tures, while he understood neurology from the perspective of linguis-
tics.14 It is therefore vital to treat his ideas as metaphors that have to be
translated from one discipline into another discipline. As we shall see in
the following chapters, many people reading Freud today, simply take his
biological metaphors literally as they try to base psychoanalysis on the
new brain sciences. This attempt to make psychoanalysis more scientific
actually ends up having the opposite effect.
Notes
1. Freud, Sigmund. “Project for a scientific psychology (1950 [1895]).” The
Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud,
Volume I (1886-1899): Pre-Psycho-Analytic Publications and Unpublished
Drafts. 1966. 281–391.
2. Miller, Norman S., and Jack L. Katz. “The neurological legacy of psycho-
analysis: Freud as a neurologist.” Comprehensive psychiatry 30.2 (1989):
128–134.
3. Goldberg, Arnold. Misunderstanding Freud. Other Press, 2004.
4. Solms, Mark. The hidden spring: A journey to the source of consciousness.
WW Norton & Company, 2021.
5. Lacan, Jacques, Jacques-Alain Miller, and Alan Sheridan. The four funda-
mental concepts of psycho-analysis. Routledge, 2018.
6. Wilson, Mitchell. The Analyst’s Desire: The Ethical Foundation of Clinical
Practice. Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2020.
7. Žižek, Slavoj. The sublime object of ideology. Verso Books, 2019.
8. Belkin, Max, and Cleonie White, eds. Intersectionality and relational psy-
choanalysis: New perspectives on race, gender, and sexuality. Routledge, 2020.
9. Schur, David. “An introduction to close reading.” Harvard University:
Second Version.[Online] (1998).
10. Stockholder, Kay. “Lacan versus Freud: Subverting the enlightenment.”
American Imago 55.3 (1998): 361–422.
1 Introduction 5
11. Von Eckhardt, Barbara. “Why Freud’s research methodology was unsci-
entific.” Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought 5.4 (1982): 549–574.
12. Steiner, John. “The aim of psychoanalysis in theory and in practice.”
International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 77 (1996): 1073–1083.
13. Yovell, Yoram. “From mechanism to metaphor—On Freud’s struggle
with the biology of the mind.” Journal of the American Academy of
Psychoanalysis 25.3 (1997): 513–524.
14. Stengel, Erwin. “A Re-Evaluation of Freud’s Book” On Aphasia”. Its
Significance for Psycho-Analysis.” International journal of psycho-analysis
35 (1954): 85–89.
2
Freud’s Project
This chapter argues that Freud’s early Project for a Scientific Psychology
presents the blueprint for psychoanalytic theory and practice.1 By intro-
ducing the core concepts of the pleasure principle, the primary processes,
transference, the unconscious, and the reality principle, Freud’s text lays
the foundations for everything else that would follow in this field. In fact,
one can judge the interpreters of his work based on their (mis)under-
standing of these threshold concepts.2 As we shall see, it is vital to define
each principle separately while one also integrates them into a shared
structure. From this perspective, much of Freud’s later work and the work
of other psychoanalysts is a fleshing out of this unpublished text
from 1895.
The Pleasure Principle and the Death Drive

For Freud, the fundamental driving force behind the human mind is the
pleasure principle, which he paradoxically defines by the goal of avoiding
all unpleasure:

8 R. Samuels
So far, however, we have only given an incomplete description of the con-

tent of consciousness. Apart from the series of sensory qualities, it presents
another and very different series-the series of sensations of pleasure and
unpleasure. And these we must now interpret. Since we have certain knowl-
edge of a trend in psychical life towards avoiding unpleasure, we are tempted
to identify that trend with the primary trend towards inertia. (373)
Here Freud posits that pleasure is defined by a law of mental inertia—

indicating that we are driven to use as little mental energy as possible, and
so we seek to return to a lifeless state of inanimation: “What I have in
mind is the principle of neuronic inertia, which asserts that neurones tend
to divest themselves of quantity” (357). This concept of neural divest-
ment will later result in Freud’s theory of the death drive, which is the
logical conclusion to the pleasure principle.3 The goal of life is then para-
doxically to escape life itself.
Feud adds that the only thing preventing us from the realization of
total inertia is the desire caused by internal unmet needs:
From the very first, however, the principle of inertia is upset by another set
of circumstances. As the internal complexity of the organism increases, the
neuronic system receives stimuli from the somatic element itself-
endogenous stimuli, which call equally for discharge. These have their ori-
gin in the cells of the body and give rise to the major needs: hunger,
respiration and sexuality. The organism cannot withdraw itself from them
as it does from external stimuli. (356)
Competing with the drive to eliminate all stimulation and tension, we

find the internal demands of the drives and unmet needs. Since these
desires cannot be removed by a reflexive fight or flight reaction, they have
to be dealt with in another way.
As a core principle of psychoanalysis, desire is the central force coun-
tering the death drive of the pleasure principle: “The neuronic system is
consequently obliged to abandon its original trend towards inertia (that
is, towards a reduction of its level of tension to zero). It must learn to
tolerate a store of quantity sufficient to meet the demands for specific
action” (357). The need to have sex, to breathe, and to eat are therefore
2 Freud’s Project 9
posited as primary counter-forces, which make possible the storing of

energy to perform a specific action in the external world.4
In starting with Freud’s initial theory of the pleasure principle, we see
that most of psychoanalysis can be explained by a single narrative of
development. Freud argues in the Project that the first way humans are
able to satisfy the law of inertia and our internal desires is by hallucinat-
ing a scene of satisfaction; when this primary process fails to achieve its
goal, the next stage is to cry out for help so that someone else can make
the unpleasure go away through a process of transferring responsibility.
Eventually, one has to accept the reality of dis-satisfaction, and so the
reality principle replaces the pleasure principle. In moving from the plea-
sure principle to the primary processes to transference to the reality prin-
ciple, Freud articulates four of the five key concepts. The fifth concept
revolves around the fact that people lie to themselves about their own
desires and fears, and in this act of repression, the unconscious is born.5
It will be my argument throughout this book that if one does not
understand these fundamental concepts, one will not be able to think in
a psychoanalytic manner. Moreover, it is vital to trace some of the ways
these core notions are distorted and misunderstood. In fact, the misun-
derstanding of psychoanalysis sheds light on the process of repression
itself since ultimately what is being avoided is the reality of our own minds.
What Is Consciousness?
Freud’s first radical move is to posit that humans have an automatic abil-
ity to satisfy the pleasure principle through hallucination: “I have no
doubt that the wishful activation will in the first instance produce some-
thing similar to a perception-namely, a hallucination” (381). Within the
context of the primary processes, the desire to fulfill the pleasure principle
results in the confusion between the memory of a similar scene of satis-
faction and the perception of the external world.6 According to this logic,
our minds automatically seek to replace unmet needs with the memory
of a past event. It is then this confusion that defines for Freud the origins
of consciousness and thought itself.
10 R. Samuels
To clarify this connection between thought and hallucination, we can

look at perhaps the most famous argument in Western philosophy, which
is Descartes’ “I think, therefore, I am.”7 What is important to note is that
right before he makes this affirmation, he argues that even if he does not
know if he is awake or dreaming, what he knows is that in both states, he
is thinking. In fact, Descartes posits that we never know for sure if we are
dreaming or awake, and so on the level of pure thought and conscious-
ness, there is no distinction between reality and an imaginary fictional
world.8 Moreover, what Descartes does not say is that on the level of
dreams, we do not control our own thinking, and so not only are we
prone to avoid reality, but we also do not have mastery over our
own minds.9
For Freud, dreams are clear evidence of the hallucinatory nature of the
primary processes and the most basic mode of consciousness: “Ideas in
dreams are of a hallucinatory nature; they awaken consciousness and
meet with belief. This is the most important characteristic of dreams. It
becomes obvious at once in alternate fits of sleeping and waking. One
shuts one’s eyes and hallucinates, one opens them and thinks in words”
(401). From this perspective, whenever we dream, we hallucinate since
we confuse internal thoughts with the perception of the external world.
In what he will later call the “omnipotence of thought” in animistic cul-
ture, Freud stresses that our “primitive” minds function by eliminating
the difference between the inner and outer worlds.10
While dreams and hallucination may appear to be extreme mental
states, Freud insists that the primary processes structure our thoughts and
memories: “we might turn back to the nature of the primary process and
point out that the primary recollection of a perception is always a hallu-
cination and that it is only inhibition on the part of the ego which has
taught us never to cathect… in such a way that it can transfer cathexis
retrogressively …” (401). From this radical perspective, our primary way
of thinking and recalling memories relies on the primary processes and
the hallucinatory repetition of a previous event. In fact, Freud adds that
the goal of dreams is the fulfilment of wishes through hallucination:
The purpose and meaning of dreams (or at least of normal ones) can be
established with certainty. Dreams are the fulfilments of wishes-that is, pri-
mary processes following on experiences of satisfaction; and they are not

recognized as such, merely because the release of pleasure (the reproduc-
tion of pleasurable discharges) in them is slight, since in general they run
their course almost without affect (i.e., without motor release). But it is
very easy to prove that this is their nature. And it is for this very reason that
I am inclined to infer that primary wishful cathexes too are of a hallucinatory
character. (402)
In arguing that the fundamental way we satisfy the dictates of the plea-
sure principle is through the hallucination of scenes of satisfaction, Freud
offers a new way of thinking about thought and consciousness. It turns
out that at the foundation of what makes us different from all other ani-
mals is our ability to confuse memories with perceptions.
This fundamental confusion structuring consciousness in the primary
processes is also related by Freud to the essence of human emotions: “In
a word, the affective process approximates to the uninhibited primary
process” (415). The key then to our emotional reactions is that they are
determined by the same processes that we find in dreams and hallucina-
tions, which concerns their ability to suspend reality testing through a
process of unintentional symbolic associations: “The connections in
dreams are partly nonsensical, partly feeble-minded or even meaningless
or strangely demented. The last of these attributes is explained by the fact
that the compulsion to associate prevails in dreams, as no doubt it does
primarily in all psychical life. Two cathexes that are simultaneously pres-
ent must, so it seems, be brought into connection with each other” (400).
This automatic compulsion to associate different representations that
occur at the same time provides the foundations for our access to lan-
guage and symbolic thought.11 As a fundamental mode of rhetoric, meta-
phor, and poetry, the connecting of two separate things through their
shared temporal presence provides the possibility for creative thought
and imagination.12
As Lacan will later claim, what defines the essence of symbolic lan-
guage is that one signifier represents the subject for another signifier, and
we find this same logic in Freud’s theory of associative thinking.13 In fact,
Freud provides a direct example of this structure: “The knight who fights
for a lady’s glove knows, in the first place, that the glove owes its
12 R. Samuels
importance to the lady; and, secondly, his worship of the glove does not
in the least prevent him from thinking of the lady and serving her in
other ways” (407). The core idea here is that the glove acts as a signifier
that is related to the signifier of the lady. Here we find the root of Lacan’s
claim that the unconscious is structured like a language, but in Freud’s
example, it is not a question of the unconscious since there is no repres-
sion. Instead, Freud is pointing to how consciousness itself is structured
like a symbolic language.
This same logic of symbolic association and metaphoric substitution is
used by Freud to define neural structures and the very possibility of mem-
ory itself: “We can then assert that memory is represented by the facilitations
existing between the neurone” (361). By positing that memories are consti-
tuted through the connection between different neurons, he is treating
these memories as if they are signifiers connected in a network of associa-
tions. What most contemporary neuroscientists, however, do not accept
is this idea that neurons as signifiers have no inherent presence because
they are defined in relation to other signifiers; likewise, memories are not
stable representations since their meaning is determined by their relation
to other memories, and the same structure applies to thought itself.14
In an insight that anticipates structural linguistics, Freud affirms that
signifiers are defined by their difference to other signifiers: “It is therefore
more correct to say that memory is represented by the differences in the
facilitations between the neurons” (361). Here we see how memories are
open to constant revision and distortion because they are not self-
contained or permanent, stable representations; as a system of networked
differences and associations, the primary processes function through sub-
stitution and displacement.15 Our minds, then, have an automatic poetic
essence since our memories are structured through metaphor (substitu-
tion) and metonymy (displacement). Freud explains this associative net-
work in the following manner: “Every neuron must in general be
presumed to have several paths of connection with other neurones--that
is, several contact-barriers. It is on this that the possibility depends of the
excitation having a choice of path, determined by facilitation” (363).
Here Freud anticipates the foundations of modern linguistics, computer
science, and neuroscience since he defines the fundamental processes of
differentiation, association, and substitution in a network of connections,
but what he adds to these structures is the key mutation of hallucination

as the prototype of consciousness.16 Just as genetic evolution revolves
around mutations as coding errors, the confusion between the perception
of the external world and internal mental representations (memories)
defines the possibility of thought and consciousness.
It is important to stress that in order to decode Freud’s Project, one has
to realize that he is treating biology, psychology, and linguistics through
the same set of concepts. In other terms, he does not differentiate between
the brain and the mind since he sees neurons as both physical and mental
elements. In fact, we shall see that his work anticipates much of contem-
porary neuroscience and computer science because his structural model
equates neural hardware with representational software.17 However,
Freud goes beyond the new brain sciences by defining consciousness
through the combination of associative thinking and the confusion
between memories and perceptions.
Freud insists that psychoanalysis is the only science that can define
consciousness because the other sciences are unable to account for the
relation between physical and subjective experiences:
According to a modern mechanistic theory, consciousness is no more than

an appendage added to physiologico-psychical processes, an appendage
whose absence would make no difference to the course of psychical events.
According to another theory consciousness is the subjective side of all psy-
chical events and is thus inseparable from physiologico-mental processes.
The theory which I have here propounded lies between these two. According
to it consciousness is the subjective side of a part of the physical processes
in the neuronic system-namely, of the perceptual processes (co-
processes). (372)
For Freud, then, only psychoanalysis allows us the ability to link subjec-
tive consciousness of the mind to the mechanical structures of the brain.
The paradox of this focus on subjectivity is that Freud also states that we
have no personal awareness of how our own consciousness works.
In examining the hallucinations of psychotics, primitive belief systems,
and dreams, Freud reveals the ways our minds generate a fundamental
confusion between reality and imagination in order to avoid unpleasure.
14 R. Samuels
Moreover, since we cannot control these processes, the sense of intention-

ality is only an illusion created by our egos, which themselves are defined
by their ability to radically misrecognized and repress both internal and
external reality.18 Dreams, then, play an important role in analytic prac-
tice because they provide proof of the primary processes, which them-
selves serve to structure the foundation of our mental life. It is not only
that hidden truths are displayed in our dreams—what we discover in our
recounting of these representations is that we are not in control of our
own minds, and our thoughts are fundamentally symbolic and poetic. It
is due in part to the automatic nature of the primary process that Lacan
says that the subject of the dream is always missing or barred.19 What we
find in psychotic hallucinations and the dream state is the same uninten-
tional tendency to project internal mental representations onto the exter-
nal world. Freud then uses his understanding of psychosis and dreams to
posit that the infant hallucinates the object of desire, and so one of Freud’s
great leaps of thought is to draw this analogy among dreamers, psychot-
ics, and infants.20
Although it would be easy to dismiss hallucinations as extreme states
disconnected from our daily lives, Freud’s wager is that our ability to
imagine a reality that does not actually exist is both the greatest strength
and the greatest weakness of humans. On the positive side, we are able to
anticipate the future and create alternatives to the current world, but on
the negative side, our mental freedom can result in a loss of reality and
rationality. Since Freud defines thought itself as experimental action, he
shows how humans can not only satisfy their desires and the dictates of
the pleasure principle on an imaginary level, but they are also able to
project themselves into the future as they re-interpret their past.21
Transference and the Demand

Freud posits that when the hallucination of satisfaction fails to quell the
desires of unmet needs, the initial reaction of the infant is to cry or
scream. We shall see in the following key passage that this “specific action”
forms the foundation of social morality and communication for
psychoanalysis:
Experience shows that the first path to be followed is that leading to inter-
nal change (e.g., emotional expression, screaming, or vascular innervation).
But, as we showed at the beginning of the discussion, no discharge of this
kind can bring about any relief of tension, because endogenous stimuli
continue to be received in spite of it and the tension is re-established. Here
a removal of the stimulus can only be effected by an intervention which
will temporarily stop the release of quantity in the interior of the body, and
an intervention of this kind requires an alteration in the external world
(e.g., the supply of nourishment or the proximity of the sexual object), and
this, as a “specific action”, can only be brought about in particular ways. At
early stages the human organism is incapable of achieving this specific
action. It is brought about by extraneous help, when the attention of an
experienced person has been drawn to the child’s condition by a discharge
taking place along the path of internal change [e.g., by the child’s scream-
ing]. This path of discharge thus acquires an extremely important second-
ary function--viz., of bringing about an understanding with other people;
and the original helplessness of human beings is thus the primal source of
all moral motives. (379)
As a core principle of psychoanalysis, when the baby’s cry is interpreted as

a call for help by caregivers, the fundamental relation between the self
and the Other is established.22 In this transference of responsibility, it is
now the Other who must satisfy the unmet need. This theory explains
why Lacan insists that the subject’s demand to the Other is actually a
demand for love, recognition, and understanding.23 After all, the care-
giver has to recognize the crier and understand what the cry means.
Moreover, by saying that this specific action is the primal source of our
moral motives, Freud posits that our individual helplessness makes us
dependent on other people, and this dependency drives social morality
and communication.
The true meaning of transference in psychoanalysis thus relates to this
fundamental relationship between the helpless subject and the respond-
ing Other. As Lacan posits, one reason why the patient may fall in love
with the doctor is that the doctor is seen as being able to satisfy the
patient’s demand for love, knowledge, and recognition.24 In fact, an ana-
lytic treatment begins with this demand, but eventually, this type of
transference has to be overcome. Transference is then a necessary obstacle
16 R. Samuels
to the task of analysis because analysis starts with a demand for help and
ends with the growing independence of the patient, and it is this goal of
separation that is often refused by contemporary analysts and
therapists.25
As we shall see, Freud develops his theory of analytic treatment by
moving away from his initial practice of hypnosis.26 One reason for this
change in technique is that Freud found that he could get people to
change when they were under hypnosis, but this change would only last
a short amount of time, and many people could not be hypnotized at
all.27 Freud also found that the less he interpreted, the more people were
able to discover on their own the causes for their psychological issues. By
remaining neutral, Freud enabled the process of free association, which in
turn allowed the patient to encounter the reality of their own repressed
thoughts and feelings.28 In placing the onus of responsibility back onto
the patient, Freud was able to reduce the role played by transference as
the patient gained a stronger sense of independence. However, Freud still
had to deal with repression and the various other defenses blocking free
association, and so he had to develop his theory of the unconscious,
which we will see was first produced through his clinical interaction with
hysterical patients.29
The Unconscious
For Freud, hysterics posed a problem for doctors because their symptoms
did not make anatomical or cognitive sense:
Every observer of hysteria is at once struck by the fact that hysterical

patients are subject to a compulsion, which is operated by means of exces-
sively intense ideas. An idea may emerge into consciousness with special
frequency, without the course of events justifying it; or it may be that the
arousing of this neurone is accompanied by psychical consequences which
are unintelligible. The emergence of the excessively intense idea has results
which, on the one hand, cannot be suppressed and, on the other hand,
cannot be understood: releases of affect, motor innervations, inhibi-
tions. (405)
In this definition of hysteria, the key aspect of symptoms is the compul-

sion to think excessively intense ideas that cannot be understood and do
not seem to match the manifest cause. While the subject is aware of the
strangeness of these thoughts and feelings, they remain incomprehensible
for both the patient and the doctor: “They are ideas which produce no
effects in other people and whose importance we cannot appreciate. They
appear to us as intruders and usurpers and accordingly as ridiculous”
(405). While other doctors simply dismissed or demonized these hysteri-
cal productions, Freud sought to understand them by seeking out their
hidden causes.30
By listening to the words of these neglected and dismissed subjects,
Freud shows that he is willing to follow the truth where ever it takes him,
and what he discovers is that the reactions of these hysterics make sense
if one realizes that they are based on an understandable cause that has
been hidden through a process of substitution and displacement:
Before the analysis, A is an excessively intense idea, which forces its way into
consciousness too often, and each time it does so leads to tears. The subject
does not know why A makes him weep and regards it as absurd--but he
cannot prevent it. After the analysis, it has been discovered that there is an
idea B which rightly leads to tears and which rightly recurs often until a
certain complicated piece of psychical work directed against it has been
completed by the subject. The effect of B is not absurd, is comprehensible
to the subject and can even be fought against by him. (406)
The key move here is to seek out the reason for unreason by returning to
the symbolic network of the primary processes. In treating memories and
thoughts as signifiers, Freud is able to trace the movement of symbolic
substitution and displacement.31
This theory of the formation of neurotic symptoms shows why Lacan
insisted that the unconscious is structured like a language since it is clear
that Freud is using the main principles of modern structural linguistic
before this discipline was developed. In fact, the following passage shows
Freud’s logical and rhetorical approach to the structure of mental repre-
sentations and memories: “B stands in a particular relation to A. For there
has been an event which consisted of B +A. A was a subsidiary circum-
stance, while B was well calculated to produce a lasting effect. The
18 R. Samuels
production of this event in memory now occurs as though A had taken

B’s place. A has become a substitute, a “symbol”, for B. Hence the incon-
gruity; for A is accompanied by consequences which it does not seem to
deserve, which are not appropriate to it” (406–407). The hysterical symp-
tom is thus produced through a production of a metaphor where one
signifier substitutes for another signifier.32 In displacing the meaning and
emotional response from one memory to the other, the manifest content
serves to hide the true cause behind a symbolic substitution. The symp-
tom thus has a rhetorical and poetic function since it relies on the role of
symbolic association through the activation of the primary processes.
It is vital to realize that from Freud’s perspective, we have to distin-
guish at least three different levels of symbolism. As we saw above, one
level concerns the way our minds automatically equate different events
and perceptions through the primary process of association. Here, cor-
relation is confused with causation as the occurrence of two events at the
same time and place is treated as an equivalence. Just as metaphors find
similarities in two different things, the primary processes rely on treating
different perceptions and memories as if they are the same thing.33 This
primary mode of symbolism is contrasted to the social mode of the sym-
bolic order, where the relation between signifiers is predetermined by
social consensus and tradition. As Lacan posits, we are born into a social
order that is already structured by a set of symbolic signifiers and rela-
tions.34 Freud adds that on a third level of symbolism, both the social and
personal association between different events is distorted through a pro-
cess of substitution, which he will later call repression:
Symbols are formed in this way normally as well. A soldier will sacrifice
himself for a piece of coloured cloth on a pole, because it has become the
symbol of his native country; and no one considers this neurotic. But a
hysterical symbol behaves differently. The knight who fights for a lady’s
glove knows, in the first place, that the glove owes its importance to the
lady; and, secondly, his worship of the glove does not in the least prevent
him from thinking of the lady and serving her in other ways. But the hys-
teric who is reduced to tears by A is unaware that this is because of the
association A-B, and B itself plays no part whatever in his mental life. In
this case the symbol has taken the place of the thing completely. (407)
In saying that the symbol has taken the place of the thing, Freud is indi-
cating that in the formation of a neurotic symptom, one of the signifiers
in the signifying relationship has been replaced through substitution, and
it is this process that defines repression and the possibility of the uncon-
scious: “We can sum the matter up by saying that A is compulsive and B
repressed (at least from consciousness). Analysis has revealed the surpris-
ing fact that for every compulsion there is a corresponding repression,
that for every excessive irruption into consciousness there is a correspond-
ing amnesia” (407). A key then to understanding the psychoanalytic
theory of the unconscious is to recognize this symbolic structure and the
ways that one memory can substitute for another memory.35
In contrast to neuroscience and other contemporary models of the
human mind, Freud does not define the unconscious by the fact that we
are not aware of how the mind functions or that the content remains
unknown; rather, the unconscious is derived from repression, and so the
central issue is why do we repress certain thoughts and feelings.36 Freud’s
initial response to this question is that symbolic substitution is triggered
by the distressing nature of our own thoughts and feelings: “Repression is
exclusively brought to bear on ideas that, firstly, arouse a distressing affect
(unpleasure) in the ego, and that, secondly, relate to sexual life” (408). In
other words, the reason why we hide things from ourselves is that these
thoughts and feelings make the ego uncomfortable, and one of the things
that causes the most discomfort is the presence of thoughts and memories
of a sexual nature.37 While Freud at this point does not develop his theory
of the moral conscience in the form of the super-ego, it is clear that it is
through the internalization of social norms and laws that sexuality
becomes a source of unpleasure. Since the ego wants to maintain an ideal
self-image, any feelings of guilt and shame have to be repressed through
the creation of a symbolic substitute.38
In order to understand psychoanalytic theory and practice, it is there-
fore necessary to see the relations among symbolism, repression, social
norms, and the super-ego. Furthermore, Freud highlights how what trig-
gers the activation of the primary processes in the unconscious is the
failure of the ego to control our thinking:
20 R. Samuels
Thus it is the business of the ego to permit no release of affect, since this
would at the same time permit a primary process. Its best instrument for
this purpose is the mechanism of attention. If a cathexis which releases
unpleasure were able to escape attention, the ego’s intervention would
come too late. And this is precisely what happens in the case of the hysteri-
cal proton pseudos [first lie]. Attention is focused on perceptions, which
are the normal occasions for the release of unpleasure. But here it is not a
perception but a memory-trace which unexpectedly releases unpleasure,
and the ego discovers this too late. It has permitted a primary process,
because it did not expect one. (415–416)
Freud defines hysteria here as the failure of the ego to block affect, and
this lapse is due to the fact that while the ego is centered on perceiving
the external world, memories of displeasure are allowed to emerge. It is
interesting that he calls this process a lie because it appears to be more of
the ego’s inability to anticipate an upsetting memory.39
Since repression will later be defined as the way people lie to them-
selves in order to avoid thinking about upsetting thoughts, this early
theory of the first lie has to be coupled with what Freud has been saying
about the process of removing particular memory associations from con-
sciousness.40 Moreover, it is important to stress that the unconscious and
the primary processes are two very different concepts. As we have seen,
repression can represent the use of primary processes, but this only occurs
after an act of self-deception, which divides the subject between what has
been conscious and what has replaced the memory of a conscious thought.
Hallucinations, dreams, and delusions are conscious, but they can also be
rendered unconscious through repression.
Since we retain very few memories of our first five years of life, we only
know our infantile experience through a symbolic reconstruction made
mostly out of representations and stories from others.41 From this per-
spective, our past is a black hole filled in by retrospective knowledge. In
fact, Freud insists that one of the important aspects of human sexuality is
that knowledge gained in puberty is used to re-interpret past sexual expe-
riences: “the retardation of puberty makes possible the occurrence of
posthumous primary processes” (416). In other words, childhood sexual-
ity only becomes traumatic after-the-fact when new knowledge is inter-
nalized.42 Due to this lag between infantile sexual experiences

and puberty, the divide between reality and knowledge is only a specific
example of a more general divide between experience and
understanding.
The Defensive Ego of Attention

For Freud, mediating the relationship between our knowledge and our
reality is the ego’s intentions and attention:
Attention consists in the situation of expectation being established even in

regard to perceptions that do not even partly coincide with wishful cathexes.
For it has become important to send out a cathexis to meet all perceptions.
Attention is biologically justified; the question is merely one of how to give
the ego guidance as to which expectant cathexis it is to establish: and this
purpose is served by the indications of quality. (418)
By claiming that attention is directed by concerns for quality, Freud is

indicating that we only attend to things in relation to the pleasure prin-
ciple. He also implies that the ego’s perception of the external world is
not a passive process since one’s interest determines to what one is going
to pay attention.43
Guided by the dictates of the pleasure principle, the ego is primarily a
defensive structure motivated to avoid displeasure and to prevent the
awareness of the primary process.44 What then happens in hysteria is that
the ego fails to control the subject’s own mind, and so automatic thinking
is allowed to emerge. As a derivative of the pleasure principle, the ego uses
intentionality and attention to select what information becomes con-
scious, yet, in neurosis, this structure breaks down as excessively intense
and painful ideas are able to emerge. Furthermore, if we think of the ego
as primarily a defensive structure, then the solution to neurosis cannot be
a strengthening of this internal agency; instead, what is needed is a way
to confront the reality of both inner and outer life, and this form of judg-
ment is centered on what Freud calls the reality principle.
22 R. Samuels
The Reality Principle

In the Project, Freud first develops his theory of the reality principle in
order to explain how one can move beyond the pleasure principle and the
primary processes:
The first of these arises if, while it is in a wishful state, it freshly cathects the
memory of the object and then sets the process of discharge in motion,
where there can be no satisfaction because the object is not present really
but only as an imaginary idea. At an early stage it is not in a position to
make this distinction, since it can only work on the basis of the sequence
of analogous states between its neurones [i.e. on the basis of its previous
experience that the cathexis of the object was followed by satisfaction]. (386)
The central idea here is that we have to learn how to distinguish between
an image of past satisfaction and reality, but this distinction is at first
impossible because our primary processes confuse past scenes of satisfac-
tion with the perception of the external world.45
In order to establish the reality principle through the separation of
memories from perceptions, Freud claims that it is necessary for the ego
to inhibit the primary processes: “Accordingly, it is the inhibition brought
about by the ego that makes possible a criterion for distinguishing
between a perception and a memory” (388). As we will later see, it is
problematic to locate this form of reality testing in the ego because the
ego itself is a defensive structure guided by the dictates of the pleasure
principle. However, the crucial idea for psychoanalysis is this need to
access reality by countering the primary processes. Freud explains this
conflict between the automatic primary processes and the reality princi-
ple in the following personal example: “For instance, it has happened to
me that in the agitation caused by a great anxiety I have forgotten to
make use of the telephone, which had been introduced into my house a
short time before. The recently established path succumbed to the state
of affect. The facilitation-that is to say, what was old-established won the
day. Such forgetting involves the loss of the power of selection, of effi-
ciency and of logic, just as happens in dreams” (414). Freud posits here
that in the state of anxiety, his mind was taken over by the primary
process of symbolic association, which is in conflict with the role of selec-

tion, efficiency, and logic in the reality principle. Furthermore, Freud
reveals here how the primary processes can intervene in everyday life as
anxiety pushes people to make hasty symbolic associations based on past
experiences.46
Freud insists that it takes time to apply the reality principle, and this
need for delay is lost when emotions dominate: “’Reflection’ is an activity
of the ego which demands time, and it becomes impossible when the
affective level involves large quantities. Hence it is that where there is
affect there is hastiness and a choice of methods similar to that made in
the primary process” (415). In this opposition between the primary pro-
cesses and the reality principle, immediate emotions are placed in conflict
with the slow process of reality testing and thoughtful reflection.47
As an Enlightenment thinker, Freud defines reason as the ability to
distinguish fact from fiction, and this principle of rationality not only
structures his view of science, but it also defines his theory of the reality
principle:
The education and development of this original ego take place in states in
which there is a repetition of the craving, in states of expectation. The ego
learns first that it must not cathect the motor images (with consequent
discharge), until certain conditions have been fulfilled on the perceptual
side. It learns further that it must not cathect the wishful idea beyond a
certain degree, because, if it does, it will deceive itself in a hallucinatory
manner. If, however, it respects these two restrictions and turns its atten-
tion to the new perceptions, it has a prospect of attaining the desired satis-
faction. (426–427)
As a defense against the primary processes, Freud defines the reality prin-
ciple as a method for avoiding self-deception.48 He adds that in order to
learn to accept reality, we also have to avoid the pleasure principle’s drive
to escape all tension and unpleasure: “Unpleasure remains the sole means
of education” (428). In pitting education against the pleasure principle,
Freud reveals the difficulty in learning anything new or upsetting.
For Freud, the best way to resist the dictates of the primary processes
and the pleasure principle is to transform our thoughts into speech:
24 R. Samuels
“Thus, thought which is accompanied by the cathexis of indications of

thought-reality or of indications of speech is the highest and most secure form
of cognitive thought-process” (431). We can consider this argument privi-
leging speech over thought as the initial justification for the psychoana-
lytic process of free association. As Lacan insists, the only tool of analysis
is speech, and so it is necessary to determine what occurs when the
thoughts of the primary process are turned into this mode of
discourse.49
However, it has to be stressed that speech alone does not counter the
pleasure principle because our usual way of speaking is driven by the
defensive nature of the ego. To clarify what kind of speech is connecting
to the reality principle, Freud differentiates between practical and theo-
retical thought: “It is interesting to observe how practical thought lets
itself be directed by the biological rule of defence. In theoretical (cognitive
and critical) thought, the rule is no longer observed. This is intelligible;
for in purposive thinking it is a question of finding some path and those
paths to which unpleasure attaches can be excluded, whereas in theoreti-
cal thinking every path has to be investigated” (440). In declaring that
every path of thought has to be examined, Freud opens up the door for
free association and a form of reason that suspends bias. In other words,
analytic practice is based on the modern idea of science, which Descartes
defines as the suspension of prejudice by following truth wherever it
leads.50 Moreover, we see here how modern democratic free speech finds
its home in psychoanalysis.
Notes
Drafts. 1966. 281–391.
2. Meyer, Jan, and Ray Land. Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge:
Linkages to ways of thinking and practising within the disciplines.
Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh, 2003.
3. Freud, Sigmund. “Beyond the pleasure principle.” The Standard Edition

of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XVIII
(1920-1922): Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Group Psychology and Other
Works. 1955. 1–64.
4. Ragland, Ellie. Essays on the pleasures of death: From Freud to Lacan.
Routledge, 2013.
5. Samuels, Robert. Freud for the twenty-first century: The science of everyday
life. Springer, 2019.
6. Freud, Sigmund. “Formulations on the two principles of mental func-
tioning.” The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of
Sigmund Freud, Volume XII (1911-1913): The Case of Schreber, Papers on
Technique and Other Works. 1958. 213–226.
7. Descartes, René. Discourse on method and meditations on first philosophy.
Hackett Publishing, 1999.
8. Malcolm, Norman. “Dreaming and skepticism.” The Philosophical
Review 65.1 (1956): 14–37.
9. Occhionero, Miranda, and Piercarla Cicogna. “Phenomenal conscious-
ness in dreams and in mind wandering.” Philosophical Psychology 29.7
(2016): 958–966.
10. Freud, Sigmund. Totem And Taboo: Some Points of Agreement between the
Mental Lives of Savages and. Routledge, 2013.
11. Freud, Sigmund. “Remarks on the theory and practice of dream-
interpretation.” The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works
of Sigmund Freud, Volume XIX (1923-1925): The Ego and the Id and
Other Works. 1961. 107–122.
12. Chaitin, Gilbert D. Rhetoric and culture in Lacan. Cambridge University
Press, 1996.
13. Lacan, Jacques, Alan Sheridan, and Malcolm Bowie. The agency of the
letter in the unconscious or reason since Freud. Routledge, 2020.
14. Johnston, Adrian, and Catherine Malabou. Self and emotional life:
Philosophy, psychoanalysis, and neuroscience. Columbia University
Press, 2013.
15. Malmberg, Bertil. Structural linguistics and human communication: An
introduction into the mechanism of language and the methodology of lin-
guistics. Vol. 2. Springer Science & Business Media, 2012.
16. Ellmann, Maud. The Nets of Modernism: Henry James, Virginia Woolf,
James Joyce, and Sigmund Freud. Cambridge University Press, 2010.
26 R. Samuels
17. Samuels, Robert. Psychoanalyzing the politics of the new brain sciences.
Springer, 2017.
18. Mills, Jon. “Lacan on paranoiac knowledge.” Psychoanalytic Psychology
20.1 (2003): 30.
19. Fink, Bruce. The Lacanian subject: Between language and jouissance.
Princeton University Press, 1997.
20. Riviere, Joan. “On the genesis of psychical conflict in earliest infancy.”
International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 17 (1936): 395–422.
21. Segal, Hanna. “Phantasy and reality.” International Journal of Psycho-
Analysis 75 (1994): 395–401.
22. Benvenuto, Bice. Once upon a Time: The Infant in Lacanian Theory 1.
Routledge, 2018.
23. Lacan, Jacques, Alan Sheridan, and Malcolm Bowie. “The function and
field of speech and language in psychoanalysis.” Écrits. Routledge,
2020. 33–125.
24. Lacan, Jacques. “The seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book VIII: Transference:
1960-1961.” (2011).
25. Benjamin, Jessica. The bonds of love: Psychoanalysis, feminism, and the
problem of domincation. Pantheon, 2013.
26. Makari, George, J. “A history of Freud’s first concept of transference.”
International review of psycho-analysis 19 (1992): 415–432.
27. Freud, Sigmund. “Remembering, repeating and working-through
(Further recommendations on the technique of psycho-analysis II).” The
Volume XII (1911-1913): The Case of Schreber, Papers on Technique and
Other Works. 1958. 145–156.
28. Leider, Robert J. “Analytic neutrality—a historical review.” Psychoanalytic
Inquiry 3.4 (1983): 665–674.
29. Freud, Sigmund, and Joseph Breuer. Studies in hysteria. Penguin, 2004.
30. Freud, Sigmund. “Fragment of an analysis of a case of hysteria (1905
[1901]).” The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of
Sigmund Freud, Volume VII (1901-1905): A Case of Hysteria, Three Essays
on Sexuality and Other Works. 1953. 1–122.
31. Dor, Joël. Introduction to the reading of Lacan: The unconscious structured
like a language. Other Press, LLC, 1998.
32. Lacan, Jacques. The other side of psychoanalysis. Vol. 17. WW norton &
Company, 2007.
33. Kovecses, Zoltan. Metaphor: A practical introduction. Oxford University

Press, 2010.
34. Miller, Jacques-Alain, ed. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book 1: Freud’s
Papers on Technique 1953-1954. CUP Archive, 1988.
35. Freud, Sigmund. “Repression.” The Standard Edition of the Complete
Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XIV (1914-1916): On the
History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement, Papers on Metapsychology and
Other Works. 1957. 141–158.
36. Solms, Mark. ““The unconscious” in psychoanalysis and neuroscience:
An integrated approach to the cognitive unconscious.” The Unconscious.
Routledge, 2016. 30–50.
37. Brenner, Charles. “The nature and development of the concept of repres-
sion in Freud’s writings.” The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 12.1
(1957): 19–46.
38. Freud, Sigmund. “The ego and the id (1923).” TACD Journal17.1
(1989): 5–22.
39. Freud, Sigmund. “The aetiology of hysteria.” The Standard Edition of the
Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume III (1893-1899):
Early Psycho-Analytic Publications. 1962. 187–221.
40. Boag, Simon. “Realism, self-deception and the logical paradox of repres-
sion.” Theory & Psychology 17.3 (2007): 421–447.
41. Peterson, Carole, Andrea Smorti, and Franca Tani. “Parental influences
on earliest memories.” Memory 16.6 (2008): 569–578.
42. Faimberg, Haydée. “A plea for a broader concept of Nachträglichkeit.”
The Psychoanalytic Quarterly 76.4 (2007): 1221–1240.
43. Freud, Sigmund. “Some elementary lessons in psycho-analysis.” The
Volume XXIII (1937-1939): Moses and Monotheism, An Outline of Psycho-
Analysis and Other Works. 1964. 279–286.
44. Freud, Anna. The ego and the mechanisms of defence. Routledge, 2018.
45. Freud, Sigmund. “Negation.” Organization and pathology of thought:
Selected sources. Columbia University Press, 1951. 338–348.
46. Compton, Allan. “A study of the psychoanalytic theory of anxiety. I. The
development of Freud’s theory of anxiety.” Journal of the American
Psychoanalytic Association 20.1 (1972): 3–44.
47. Deigh, John. “Emotions: the legacy of James and Freud.” The International
Journal of Psychoanalysis 82.6 (2001): 1247–1256.
28 R. Samuels
48. Samuels, Robert. “Science and the reality principle.” Freud for the twenty-
first century. Palgrave Pivot, Cham, 2019. 5–16.
2020. 33–125.
50. Samuels, Robert. “Logos, global justice, and the reality principle.” Zizek
and the rhetorical unconscious. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2020. 65–86.
3
Neuroscience and the Repression
of Psychoanalysis
In the last chapter, I defined the central concepts of psychoanalysis, which

I will now further elaborate by comparing these core ideas to how they
have been often misunderstood by certain scholars in the field of neuro-
science. In reading closely Mark Solms’ The Hidden Spring: A Journey to
the Source of Consciousness, I endeavor to reveal the limits of combining
psychoanalysis with neuroscience.1 One of my main points is to reveal
how psychoanalysis offers a more truthful and realistic understanding of
consciousness in comparison to the new brain sciences.
Natural Feelings
One of the first moves that Solms makes in his effort to explain human
consciousness and the relation between neuroscience and psychoanalysis
is to argue that feelings are natural and a key aspect of consciousness:
“This requires me to convince you that feelings are part of nature, that
they are not fundamentally different from other natural phenomena, and
that they do something within the causal matrix of things. Consciousness,
I will demonstrate, is about feeling, and feeling, in turn, is about how

30 R. Samuels
well or badly you are doing in life. Consciousness exists to help you do
better” (3–4). In equating consciousness to human emotions, Solms seeks
to prove that the pleasure principle defines our awareness, and since he
wants to derive feelings of pleasure and pain from nature and evolution,
he is able to base human subjectivity on biological determinism.2
The initial problem with this formulation is that as Freud argues in his
Project for a Scientific Psychology, the first way that humans seek to satisfy
the pleasure principle is by hallucinating a previous scene of satisfaction.
Through this act of mental imagination, we are able to break free from
the constraints of reality and biology. Moreover, psychoanalysis explains
the origin of consciousness through a fundamental confusion between
perception and memory coupled with an automatic process of symbolic
association, and it is this human ability to imagine a false reality that
produces a gap between our minds and material reality.
This theory of hallucination through the primary processes, then, pro-
vides the key to answering the fundamental question of how we move
from the physical brain to the mental mind.3 As we shall see, for Solms,
it is the biology of feelings derived from natural selection that provide the
missing link, but this solution goes against both psychoanalysis and our
everyday experience. Since we have the ability to imagine things that do
not exist, we are not tied to the reality principle, evolutionary develop-
ment, or biological determinism. Our minds give us a certain level of
freedom and self-determination, even when we are not in control of our
own thinking.4
One of the results of rejecting the psychoanalytic theory of conscious-
ness is that the human mind can be equated with the brains of other
animals: “Since the cerebral cortex is the seat of intelligence, almost
everybody thinks that it is also the seat of consciousness. I disagree; con-
sciousness is far more primitive than that. It arises from a part of the brain
that humans share with fishes” (4). In equating human consciousness and
feelings with parts of a fish’s brain, Solms makes it easier to combine psy-
choanalysis and neuroscience as he also justifies the use of experiments on
animals in order to explain human psychology.5
From a psychoanalytic perspective, we need to insist that humans and
animals experience feelings in a much different way since as Freud stresses
in his Project, human feelings are always being displaced through
symbolic substitution and association (the primary processes).6 Moreover,

human emotions are affected by culture and other social forces, and so it
makes little sense to explain human consciousness and emotion through
the examination of other animals, and yet, this is precisely what Solms
does: “Many readers will be horrified by the animal research findings I
report here, precisely because they show that other animals feel just as we
do. All mammals are subject to feelings of pain, fear, panic, sorrow and
the like” (4). Although it is possible to find basic emotional responses in
different animals, the complexity and variability of human feelings means
that we need to separate the reflexes located in the brains of other animals
from the emotions circulating in the human mind and social communi-
cation.7 Moreover, since humans are less controlled by instincts than
other animals, biological determinism is constantly being subverted by
the diversity of human pleasure.8 In fact, Freud’s initial theories concern-
ing human sexuality reveal that unlike other animals, our desires are open
to constant displacement and substitution.9 Ultimately, from a psycho-
analytic perspective, anything can be the object of sexual satisfaction
because humans are perverse. To reject this theory of sexuality is to reject
psychoanalysis itself.
An Imaginary Unity

As I have been arguing, psychoanalysis provides a realistic understanding
of human consciousness and emotions because it recognizes the roles
played by mental imagination, social influences, and sexual perversion,
and yet Solms wants to repress these defining aspects of analysis in order
to derive human consciousness from natural feelings shared by other ani-
mals. In ignoring Freud’s key concepts, Solms is able to provide an imagi-
nary unification of psychoanalysis and neuroscience: “It could be said
that what unites us is that we have built, sometimes unwittingly, upon
the abandoned foundations that Freud laid for a science of the mind that
prioritises feelings over cognition. (Cognition is mostly unconscious.)”
(4–5). This claim that Freud privileged feelings over cognition is not only
incorrect, but it also reveals Solms’ profound misunderstanding of psy-
choanalysis and the human condition. The first thing to be stressed here
32 R. Samuels
is that from Freud’s perspective, emotions are a form of cognition, and so

it makes no sense to oppose them to symbolic thought.10 As indirect and
unintentional responses, emotions are always based on the cognitive
interpretation of particular social or natural events. Even the biological
response of anxiety has to be triggered by an external cue, which itself is
defined on a cognitive and social level.11
The other major misunderstanding that Solms repeats is the notion
that most of consciousness is unconscious. What he misses in this com-
mon misinterpretation is Freud’s fundamental theory that the uncon-
scious is derived from repression, and so just because we are not directly
aware of something does not make our lack of awareness unconscious.
Experiences can be preconscious or outside of consciousness, but when
we say that a certain mental event is unconscious, we imply that a human
subject has hidden a thought or feeling from self-awareness.12 The uncon-
scious therefore requires a division of subjectivity between the part that
knows and the part that does not know. Furthermore, repression is driven
by the desire to escape feelings of shame, guilt, fear, and anxiety, and so it
does serve to satisfy the pleasure principle but only through a process of
self-deception. Unfortunately, many psychologists and neuroscientists
repress this theory of repression as they equate the unconscious with a
lack of conscious awareness.13
Solms is therefore able to unify psychoanalysis and neuroscience by
eliminating the meaning of all of Freud’s basic concepts. In fact, we can
think of his process of interpretation as an example of the primary pro-
cesses through his use of association, substitution, and displacement.
By claiming that minds are brains, he takes two different things and
equates them together, which enables him the ability to displace the
meaning of one object onto the other.14 As a symbolic metaphor, the
equivalence of the mind and the brain enables understanding at the
cost of misunderstanding since attributes of one entity are displaced
onto the other.15 Of course, Solms does not examine his own rhetoric
because his entire project tends to repress the symbolic aspects of
thoughts and emotions.
One way that this repression of symbolic cognition is achieved is by
turning to a behavioralist theory of conditioning: “For example, when
the trigger of an involuntary behaviour is paired repeatedly with an
artificial stimulus, then the artificial stimulus will come to trigger the
same involuntary response as the innate stimulus” (11–12). Just as behav-
ioralists like Skinner sought to shape human reactions by placing thought
in an excluded black box, Solms affirms that like other animals, human
reactions are defined by linking a reflex to particular cue or trigger.16
However, as I pointed out above, humans are able to transcend simple
conditioning because they have mental autonomy and open instincts.
Also, the things that trigger our responses are often indirect, complex,
symbolic, and social.
The Computer Brain

Like many other contemporary brain scientists, Solms tends to equate
the mind with the brain and the brain with computers.17 This rhetorical
combination of two metaphors allows him to see human consciousness as
an informational processing machine: “the mind (construed as informa-
tion processing) is a function rather than a structure. On this view, the
‘software’ functions of the mind are implemented by the ‘hardware’ struc-
tures of the brain, but the same functions can be implemented equally
well by other substrates, such as computers” (12). While Solms and oth-
ers may want to compare the human mind with a computer, it is impor-
tant to realize that computers, like fish and drooling dogs, do not actually
think.18 Although, you may be able to program a computer and train a
dog, they do not have the type of mental autonomy that Freud ascribes
to the primary processes. In fact, in a book dedicated to defining the
essence of consciousness, it is interesting that Solms basically leaves
thought out of the picture.
In equating the human mind with the brains of other animals and the
information processing of computers, Solms excludes the very things that
makes us human.19 For instance, in the following passage, the human
mind is represented as being centered on encoding, classifying, and stor-
ing information: “Thus, both brains and computers perform memory
functions (they encode and store information) and perceptual functions
(they classify patterns of incoming information by comparing them with
stored information) as well as executive functions (they execute decisions
34 R. Samuels
about what to do in response to such information)” (12). This descrip-

tion leaves out the human ability to imagine things that do not exist and
to interpret experience in a complex, ambivalent, and ambiguous way. As
Freud presents in his Project, thought itself is indirect, irrational, and
unintentional at its core. Furthermore, our perceptions are always filtered
through a symbolic memory network with the processes of association,
substitution, and displacement.
While Freud examined the essence of symbolic thought through his
analysis of his own dreams, Solms’ seeks to interpret dreams as merely an
extension of consciousness: “Dreaming, after all, is nothing but a para-
doxical intrusion of consciousness (‘wakefulness’) into sleep” (16). This
explanation adds nothing to our understanding of dreams as it eliminates
the symbolic dimension of Freud’s theory.20 It is therefore no surprise that
Solms can combine neuroscience with psychoanalysis since he simply
erases the content of Freud’s theories and analytic practice itself.
Like many other brain scientists, Solms is bent on reducing complex
cognitive processes to their biological and evolutionary foundations:21
Because REM sleep arises from the cholinergic brainstem, an ancient and
lowly part of the brain far from the majestic cortex where all the action of
human psychology presumably takes place, he added that dreaming could
not possibly be motivated by wishes; it was ‘motivationally neutral’.
Therefore, according to Hobson, Freud’s view that dreams were driven by
latent desires must be completely wrong. (21)
The argument here is that since the parts of the brain that are activated
during dreaming belong to an early stage of animal evolution, Freud’s
theory that dreams are determined by wishes must be false. In other
words, our primary processes are not driven by the pleasure principle or
our symbolic memory system; instead, dreams are just the random firing
of neurons void of any content or meaning.22 There is thus an underlying
nihilism to this discourse since the main effect is to render meaning and
interpretation irrelevant. We are simply animal-machines programmed
by natural selection and triggered through environmental cues.23
The Pleasure Principle Revised

As Solms eliminates issues of individual desire and cognition from his
understanding of the human mind, he also develops a non-psychoanalytic
conception of the pleasure principle. For instance, in the following pas-
sage, he reviews several current conceptions of human motivation:
If there is one part of the brain that might be considered responsible for
‘wishes’, it is the mesocortical-mesolimbic dopamine circuit. It is anything
but motivationally neutral. Edmund Rolls (and many others) calls this cir-
cuit the brain’s ‘reward’ system. Kent Berridge calls it the ‘wanting’ system.
Jaak Panksepp calls it the SEEKING system – and foregrounds its role in
the function of foraging. This is the brain circuit responsible for ‘the most
energised exploratory and search behaviours an animal is capable of exhib-
iting’. It is also the circuit that drives dreaming. (27–28)
In this re-introduction of desire into dreaming, Solms stresses how the

brain’s reward systems are derived from animal behavior. Although, it is
difficult to know if other animals do actually dream, what we do know is
that humans are the only animals that imagine alternatives to reality
through the use of the symbolic primary processes.24 After all, only
humans have complex symbol systems where one sign can represent mul-
tiple and conflicting references. In fact, one of Freud’s great insights was
to see how our minds have an automatic poetic function that enables
imagination through the rhetorical manipulation of memory-
representations. Not only did Freud argue that the primary processes
treat words as things and things as words, but his analysis of dreams,
jokes, symptoms, delusions, and fantasies is centered on a linguistic
approach to human perception and cognition.25 From this perspective,
consciousness is the result of rhetorical representations.
Unfortunately, Solms has little to say about symbolism, rhetoric, or
linguistics, other than the fact that there is a distinction between the
manifest and latent content of subjective experiences. In fact, he defines
psychoanalysis in the following manner:
36 R. Samuels
Its fundamental assumption was that manifest (nowadays called ‘explicit’

or ‘declarative’) subjective phenomena have latent (nowadays called
‘implicit’ or ‘non-declarative’) causes. That is, Freud argued that the erratic
train of our conscious thoughts can be explained only if we assume implicit
intervening links of which we are unaware. This gave rise to the notion of
latent mental functions and, in turn, to Freud’s famous conjecture of
‘unconscious’ intentionality. (32)
This passage is Solms at his most psychoanalytic, but once again, he fails
to separate the theory of the unconscious from the primary processes. By
focusing on the unconscious intentionality derived from the implicit
missing links of associated ideas, he avoids the issue of why these links are
missing in the first place. There is thus an important distinction that has
to be made between the repression of unwanted feelings and thoughts
and the way our stream of consciousness is shaped by the association of
ideas in a network of substitutions and displacements. When you elimi-
nate the causes of repression, you end up with a purely mechanical model
that eliminates human subjectivity.
At one point, Solms does highlight Freud’s theory of repression, but it
is presented in a confused way and then later removed from
consideration:
He observed that patients adopted a far-from-indifferent attitude to their

inferred unconscious intentions; it appeared to be more a matter of being
unwilling rather than unable to become aware of them. He called this ten-
dency variously ‘resistance’, ‘censorship’, ‘defence’ and ‘repression’, and
observed that it prevents emotional distress. This in turn revealed the piv-
otal role that feelings play in mental life, how they underpin all sorts of
self-serving biases. (32)
At first glance, this definition of the role of repression in creating the

unconscious does appear to match Freud’s theory; however, he does not
include the role of guilt and shame in motivating the individual to repress
certain material.26 By simply connecting the unconscious material to feel-
ings, the content of the unconscious and the target of the censorship is
avoided.
Instead of stressing the ethical and moral roots of repression, Solms

emphasizes the connection between unconscious material and bodily
needs: “He concluded that what ultimately underpinned feelings were
bodily needs; that human mental life, no less than that of animals, was
driven by the biological imperatives to survive and reproduce. These
imperatives, for Freud, provided the link between the feeling mind and
the physical body” (33). What is missing from this explanation of psy-
choanalysis and unconscious content is the fundamental conflict between
the social super-ego and the drives of the individual.27
Pleasure and the Unconscious

Even through Freud does base the pleasure principle on the biological
process of homeostatic regulation, it is important to stress that the plea-
sure principle as a law of inertia is driven by the desire to use as little
mental and physical energy as possible.28 The result of this goal is to pro-
duce a biological urge that goes against biology. Instead of humans being
guided by the pure drive for survival, we often engage in self-destructive
acts in order to avoid both internal and external stimuli.29 For examples,
many addictive behaviors are shaped by the desire to escape feelings of
guilt and shame, which results in using pleasure as a mode of release.30 In
this structure, not only are we escaping from the reality of our lives,
thoughts, feelings, and memories, but we are also breaking with the fun-
damental imperative of natural selection. As a science of self-defeating
behavior and thoughts, psychoanalysis is centered on the failures and dis-
tortions of self-preservation, and therefore, it makes little sense to try to
base this field on purely biological or evolutionary grounds.31 However,
the desire for scientific certainty and social prestige often pushes people
like Solms to repress the radical insights of psychoanalysis in order to
return to biological determinism.32
In an example of this quest to reduce all of human thought and behav-
ior to animal instincts programmed by evolution and located in particu-
lar brain regions, Solms returns to Freud’s theories of the drives, the
unconscious, and the pleasure principle:
38 R. Samuels
But here I had stumbled upon a major contradiction in Freud’s classical

conception: he had come to the conclusion that the ‘id’ was unconscious.
This was one of his most fundamental conceptions about how the mind
works. It was clear to me that the part of the brain that measures the
‘demand upon the mind for work in consequence of its connection with
the body’ – the part that generates what Freud called ‘drives’, which are
synonymous with Panksepp’s ‘homeostatic affects’ (which trigger his wish-
ful SEEKING mechanism) – was located in the brainstem and hypothala-
mus. This is the part of the brain that obeys the ‘pleasure principle’. But
how can feelings of pleasure be unconscious? As we saw with Damasio’s
patient, drives such as hunger and thirst and the desire to void are felt. Of
course they are. (48)
In turning to his conception of natural feelings, Solms is able to argue

that consciousness and the pleasure principle must be determined through
biological processes; however, once again, he confuses the unconscious
with a lack of awareness as he reduces the pleasure principle to the func-
tion of homeostasis. In fact, Freud often posited that affects and desires
are at first conscious, and they become unconscious when they are
repressed because of their generation of unpleasure.33 If one does not
accept these fundamental definitions and distinctions, then the specific-
ity of psychoanalysis is lost.
As Freud articulates in his Project, feelings are shaped by the primary
processes, and they are often distorted in the same way as consciousness:
since emotions can be generated through association, substitution, and
displacement, they can be experienced as being excessive or nonsensical.
Yet, Solms ignores this theory and equates emotions with the pleasure
principle and the drives in the id: “Freud got the functional relationship
between the ‘id’ (brainstem) and the ‘ego’ (cortex) the wrong way round,
at least insofar as feelings are concerned. He thought the perceiving ego
was conscious and the feeling id was unconscious. Could he have got his
model of the mind upside down?” (49–50). While Freud did say that
feelings can become unconscious through repression, he stressed how
these emotions are often conscious, but their cause can be unconscious.34
Moreover, the pleasure principle does work outside of consciousness as a
basic biological drive, whereas the ego uses attention, intention, and
selection to repress the primary processes.35
What is so interesting is that in a book dedicated to solving the riddle

of what defines consciousness, Solms’ often equates the human mind
with the brains of other animals. This drive to confuse correlations with
causation may be in part derived from the desire to justify the use of ani-
mal experimentation in neuroscience and pharmacology.36 After all, if
there are no major differences between human consciousness and the
awareness of other animals, we can test our drugs and our theories by
manipulating other species. Of course, what is lost in this process is what
makes humans different, and as I have been arguing, psychoanalysis is the
discipline that is best suited to determine this difference because it is
based on understanding the symbolic nature of thoughts, feelings,
actions, and social order.
We shall see in the following passage that Solms’ privileging of animal
research pushes him to repress psychoanalysis and the symbolic aspects of
humanity:
Antonio Damasio concurs: ‘Decorticated mammals exhibit a remarkable

persistence of coherent, goal-oriented behaviour that is consistent with
feelings and consciousness.’ Neonatally decorticate rats, for example, stand,
rear, climb, hang from bars and sleep with normal postures. They groom,
play, swim, eat and defend themselves. Either sex is capable of mating suc-
cessfully when paired with normal cage mates. When they grow up, the
females show the essentials of maternal behaviour, which, though deficient
in some respects, allow them to raise pups to maturity. (55)
The first thing to stress in this discussion of animal behavior is that we

have no evidence that other animals have the ability to imagine other
possibilities or to hallucinate the satisfaction of their desires.37 What we
do know is that other animals are often preprogrammed by natural selec-
tion to behave in highly limited and predictable behaviors.38 For example,
the mating practices of these animals are often restricted, while huma
show the ability to make any activity a source of sexual pleasure.39 Finally,
for most other animals, the father plays little or no role in caring for the
offspring, and it should be obvious that the social hierarchies of even the
most advanced non-human animals are rigid and contained.40
40 R. Samuels
Are You Unconscious?

One of the more frustrating aspects of Solms’ work is that at times he
does appear to recognize the differences between humans and other ani-
mals, but at other times, he shows a total lack of understanding this dif-
ference, and one of the major reasons for this inconsistency is the way he
defines consciousness and the unconscious. In a very telling passage, he
reflects on his own self-understanding only to repress the fundamental
concept of the unconscious: “Judging by my own case, being awake and
responsive and having conscious experience are more or less the same
thing. As far as I know, I am never awake and responsive but phenome-
nally unconscious” (58). Since Freud defines the unconscious through
the process of repression, it should be clear that it occurs when someone
is awake. Moreover, Freud’s radical conception of consciousness is based
in part on his theory of dreaming and the fact that when we are asleep,
we are conscious of our hallucinations.41 In fact, consciousness itself is a
form of hallucination because it relies on treating internal mental repre-
sentations as he perception of the external world. Perhaps neuroscientists
and philosophers cannot solve the riddle of human consciousness because
they do not want to accept this radical nature of thought.42
A stumbling block for other disciplines concerning the nature of con-
sciousness is the confusion between intentionality and awareness. In con-
trast to Solms, Freud argues that the primary processes shaping
consciousness are not intentional, while the intentionality of the ego
results in the repression of the primary processes.43 In other terms, we can
be aware of unintentional thoughts, and what often happens with the
addition of intentionality is that our attention is restricted to what satis-
fies the dictates of the pleasure principle through repression.44 In the fol-
lowing passage, we see how Freud’s theories are reversed:
Most of moment-to-moment psychological life must occur through non-

conscious means if it is to occur at all […] To consciously and wilfully
regulate one’s own behaviour, evaluations, decisions, and emotional states
requires considerable effort and is relatively slow. Moreover, it appears to
require a limited resource that is quickly used up, so conscious selfregula-
tory acts can only occur sparingly and for a short time. On the other hand,
the non-conscious or automatic [psychological processes …] are unin-

tended, effortless, very fast, and many of them can operate at any given
time. Most important, they are effortless, continually in gear guiding the
individual safely through the day. (81–82)
The main problems with this conception of consciousness is that it

equates the unconscious with a lack of intentionality instead of repres-
sion. Although, it is true that most of our physical and mental processes
occur without our awareness, a lack of awareness is not what defines the
unconscious.
It is important to stress that if a scientist does not define terms cor-
rectly, like consciousness and the unconscious, then it does not matter
what technique is used to detect and explain that notion.45 For example,
in the following passage, Solms refers to an experiment that seeks to
locate the unconscious in a particular brain region: “This shows that the
negative and positive words must have been seen, read and understood
unconsciously. Since reading with comprehension is an exclusively corti-
cal function – a function of precisely the kind that the classical anato-
mists considered quintessentially ‘mental’ – we can only conclude that
cortical functions are not inherently conscious” (83). This attempt to
localize aspects of the unconscious is thus misguided because the uncon-
scious is equated with a lack of awareness and not the process of repres-
sion. In fact, Freud created the category of the preconscious to point to
mental content that was neither unconscious nor conscious.46 As latent
ideas that have the ability to become conscious, the preconscious ideas in
the experiment discussed above do not help us to understand the nature
of consciousness or the location of the unconscious.
Feelings, Consciousness,
and the Pleasure Principle
While Solms seeks to base his theory of consciousness on the experience
of feelings, he relates all emotions to the pleasure principle defined by the
quest for self-preservation: “In short, pleasure and unpleasure tell you
how you are doing in relation to your biological needs. Valence reflects
42 R. Samuels
the value system underwriting all biological life, namely that it is ‘good’
to survive and to reproduce and ‘bad’ not to do so” (96–97). This focus
on biological survival and reproduction is in conflict with Freud’s theo-
ries of the pleasure principle and sexuality. Early on in his work, Freud
realized the human sexuality often went beyond the need for reproduc-
tion; in fact, he used the term perversion to point to the many deviations
in the human sexual experience.47 Freud also developed his theory of
masochism to reveal the ways people find pleasure in suffering, and so it
hard to say that psychoanalysis considers the pleasure principle as a drive
for reproduction or self-preservation.48 Furthermore, it is necessary to
distinguish the emotional responses to internal and external stimuli from
the stimuli themselves, and so the question of what it means to feel has to
be examined.
Since Solms wants to equate feelings and consciousness with a biologi-
cal cause shaped by evolution, he has to reduce the complexity of human
drives and emotions: “If you swapped subjective redness with blueness
there would be no consequences, but if you swapped the feeling of fear
with separation distress (or hunger with urinary urgency), it would kill
you” (98–99). A problem with definition of fear as it relates to self-
preservation is that psychoanalysis often highlights how our fears are
often irrational and inconsistent.49 Since we fear things based on our par-
ticular psychopathology, it is incorrect to claim that humans and other
animals experience fear and different emotions in the same way.
As I have been arguing, what allows Solms the ability to equate the
mind with the brain and humans with other animals is his misunder-
standings of the basic concepts of psychoanalysis. We see this problem in
the following passage: “Emotional needs, too, can be managed automati-
cally, by means of behavioural stereotypes such as ‘instincts’ (inborn sur-
vival and reproductive strategies, which Freud placed at the centre of his
conception of the unconscious mind)” (99). In positing that the uncon-
scious is shaped by the instinctual goals of survival and reproduction,
Solms shows how far his discourse is from psychoanalysis. Not only does
Freud’s theory of the drives represent a break with natural instincts, but
his key concept of the unconscious relies on the principle of repression.50
In fact, Lacan claims that the status of the unconscious is ethical because
it is centered on feelings of guilt and shame, which are themselves
influenced by social and cultural norms.51 Furthermore, guilt and shame

require a certain level of human responsibility and freedom, since as
Sartre argues, we can only be guilty if we can be responsible, and we can
only be responsible if we have free will.52
In basing our drives and feelings on biological evolution, Solms fol-
lows many other brain scientists in the effort to deny free will, and with-
out this concept of human autonomy, it is hard to see how psychoanalysis
is possible.53 In fact, Solms does at times return to the possibility of
human freedom and responsibility: “What does ‘voluntary’ mean? It
means the opposite of ‘automatic’. It means subject to here-and-now
choices. Choices can be made only if they are grounded in a value sys-
tem – the thing that determines ‘goodness’ versus ‘badness’. Otherwise,
your responses to unfamiliar events would be random” (100). It is strange
that Solms wants to ground our feelings of goodness and badness on
values since most of his work seeks to base these responses on a purely
automatic biological determinism. One possible reason for this contra-
dictory discourse is that in his effort to combine neuroscience and psy-
choanalysis, he is forced to equate two opposing theories.
As the following passage presents, a central conflict between biological
and psychoanalytic theories of human psychology concerns the issue of
the difference between the instinct for survival and the drive for pleasure:
“You decide what to do and what not to do on the basis of the felt conse-
quences of your actions. This is the Law of Affect. Voluntary behaviour,
guided by affect, thereby bestows an enormous adaptive advantage over
involuntary behaviour: it liberates us from the shackles of automaticity
and enables us to survive in unpredicted situations” (100–101). From the
perspective of many evolutionary psychologists and neuroscientists, our
actions are determined by the goal of survival; however, according to
Freud’s theory of the pleasure principle, the real driving force is our desire
to escape any sense of mental tension.54 The pleasure principle, then,
conflicts with the reality principle because we privilege escape over the
real, and the main way that we achieve this goal of release is by denying
our own freedom and responsibility. Biological determinism is then a
form of pleasure because it removes the tension caused by guilt and shame
in eliminating free will and responsibility from human subjectivity.55
44 R. Samuels
One of the clearest examples of Freud’s concept of the pleasure prin-

ciple is the experience of addictions. While on one level, we can say that
the addicted person is seeking out a form of pleasure, the result is often
self-destruction, which is in opposition to the evolutionary goal of self-
preservation.56 Although some would say that addicts are driven by purely
biological forces, it should be clear that most people turn to drugs and
other forms of escape in order to eliminate feelings of guilt, shame, and
anxiety.57 By removing free will and responsibility from addiction, the
only solution becomes medication. Moreover, as I argue in Psychoanalyzing
the Politics of the New Brain Sciences, evolutionary psychology and neuro-
science often end up promoting the drugging of all forms of social and
personal conflict.58 After all, if our thoughts and behaviors are deter-
mined by biological forces, then the only solution can be a biological one.
Even though many neuroscientists now talk about epigenesis as a way
of accounting for how the social environment can trigger the expression
of specific genetic material, the main emphasis is usually still on how our
minds and brains are driven by the laws of evolutionary biology.59 In
choosing biology over psychology and sociology, Solms empties psycho-
analysis of its content from the inside. His ultimate investment in biology
and evolution is evident in the following passage:
We have started exploring affect via its bodily forms. This is because they
provide the simplest examples, and no doubt they were also the first to
appear in evolution. I think the ‘dawn of consciousness’ involved nothing
more elaborate than valenced somatic sensations. What I want to show you
now is that human emotions are complex versions of the same type of
thing. They, too, are ultimately ‘error’ signals which register deviations
from your biologically preferred states, which tell you whether the steps
you are taking are making things better or worse for you. (102)
It should be clear that psychoanalysis would not exist if people only did
things that were good for their own self-preservation; in fact, the psycho-
analytic clinic proves that we cannot base consciousness or the pleasure
principle on purely biological foundations. Not only do we often find
pleasure in things that are bad for us, but we ignore emotional signals
that seek to warn us against dangerous behaviors and self-destructive
thoughts.60
As I have been arguing, the complexity of human thought, emotions,

and behaviors demands that we do not equate humans with other ani-
mals, but Solms cannot resist making this type of correlation because he
wants to ground psychoanalysis on what he considers to be scientific
evidence:
In what follows, when I switch back and forth from observations about
animals to observations about humans, I am doing so deliberately. As
Panksepp said when he was accused by colleagues of anthropomorphism
towards animals: he would rather plead guilty to zoomorphism towards
humans. The purpose of his experiments was to determine which brain
structures and circuits reliably arouse the same affective responses, not only
across individuals but also across species. When it comes to emotional
affects, it turned out that seven of them can be reliably reproduced not only
in all primates but also in all mammals, by stimulation of exactly the same
brain structures and chemicals. (Many of them can be evoked in birds, too,
and some in all vertebrates.) Mammals separated from birds about 200
million years ago; that is how old these emotions are. Still, since humans
are mammals, in what follows I am going to focus on these seven types. As
far as we know, these are the basic ingredients of the entire human emo-
tional repertoire. All our myriad joys and sorrows appear to be the outputs
of these seven systems, blending with each other and with higher cognitive
processes. (103–104)
One could interpret this passage as indicating that all of our basic emo-
tions are derived from natural selection and are equivalent to other ani-
mals, yet they become re-interpreted and re-purposed by “higher cognitive
processes.” However, Solms’ goal is to base our understanding of human
consciousness on these emotions, and so he is not just saying that the
origins of our affective responses are biological; rather, he is positing that
human consciousness is a product of natural selection, and in the process,
he is eliminating free will, cultural influence, imagination, and abstract
reason.61
One might ask why would someone who says he is invested in promot-
ing psychoanalysis end up repressing this discipline, and the answer to
this important question revolves around several factors. It is clear that a
driving forces behind his text is that he wants to argue against the notion
46 R. Samuels
that psychoanalysis has no scientific basis. In turning to the theories of

evolutionary psychology and neuroscience, he seeks to ground analysis in
an accepted form of scientific empiricism. However, the problem with
this approach is that it misrepresents both science and psychoanalysis.
Like so many of the other brain scientists, Solms confuses science with
scientism in his effort to produce a totalizing theory that equates scien-
tific theories with reality.62 As a new form of animism, scientism uses the
primary processes to eliminate the difference between our thoughts and
external reality.63 Similar to a psychotic delusion, many brain scientists
rely on biological determinism to argue that there is no difference between
minds and brains, humans and animals, brains and computers, and
nature and scientific theories. The generation of these equivalences rely
on symbolic association, substitution, and displacement, but this use of
rhetoric is itself repressed through a denial of the way language shapes our
perceptions and consciousness. The only way, then, that humans can be
equated with other animals is if you eliminate the way that complex sym-
bolism mediates human thought, perception, memory, consciousness,
behavior, and emotions.
As some of the new brain sciences seek to base all of human thought
and culture on programs inherited through natural selection, all other
disciplines are discredited since they are seen as not being scientific.64 Yet,
if we define science as the unbiased approach to reality using symbolic
approximation, consensus, and probability, we can provide a better
understanding of science as we show that other discourses can also be
scientific. For example, what makes psychoanalysis scientific is that it
takes a neutral approach to the content of free association as it produces
theories centered on predicting defined patterns and responses. After all,
Freud sought to find reason in unreason by tracing the role of symbolic
association, substitution, displacement, and projection in human
thought.65 As a science of symbolic representation, psychoanalysis can
provide testable hypotheses without relying on the reductive lens of bio-
logical determinism.
If the practice of psychoanalysis is to survive, it will necessary to both
critique biological determinism and offer a better understanding of the
essence of science itself. Since the biological model most often leads to
pharmacological solutions, it is necessary to reveal the blind spots of this
discourse. Furthermore, to show that psychoanalysis is indeed a science,

its fundamental concepts have to be clarified as evidence is provided for
the predictive power of this discipline. Although it is hard to perform
randomized trials on psychoanalytic treatment, the key concepts can be
tested if they are clearly understood.66
Nurture and Nature

In many forms of neuroscience and evolutionary psychology, a central
debate concerns the conflict over nature and nurture. While psychoanal-
ysis does not deny the importance of biology, evolution, and nature,
Freud’s theory emphasizes how instinctual forces are reshaped by experi-
ence, culture, history, and subjectivity. At times, Solms also recognizes
this break from biological evolution, but his underlying theory usually
returns to biological determinism. For instance, in the following discus-
sion concerning human emotions, the variability of human feelings is
both expressed and repressed:
The major dissenting voice is that of Lisa Feldman Barrett. Again, the dis-
agreement is attributable mainly to methodological differences. She focuses
on self-reported emotions in humans and, not surprisingly, finds that there
is enormous variability in how different people (and cultures) characterise
and parse feelings. This does not disprove the fact that basic natural kinds
lurk beneath the socially constructed surface. I will soon illustrate the
mechanisms whereby such variability arises, but the short explanation is
this: our reflexes and instincts provide rough-and-ready tools for survival
and reproductive success, but they cannot possibly equip us adequately for
the multiplicity of unpredicted situations and environments that we find
ourselves in. We therefore need to adaptively supplement the innate
responses through learning from experience. The fact that human beings
do so with such ease is the major reason why, for better or worse, we came
to dominate the world to the degree that we now do. (104)
Since we can redirect our drives based on our thoughts, experience, and
culture, we are able to use biological programs in unexpected ways.67 Our
emotional responses, then, may have their roots in evolutionary forces,
48 R. Samuels
but the ways we supplement these instinctual responses transforms our

feelings to such an extent that they separate from the consciousness of
other animals: “The instinctual programmes that undergird actions in
humans are typically so conditioned through learning that they are no
longer recognisable as ‘instinctual’. Yet instincts and reflexes are always
there in the background” (104–105). The question remains of how
important these background reflexes remain if human emotions have
such diverse causes and effects?
Fundamentally, Solms wants to have it both ways as he continues to
argue that our emotions and consciousness are purely instinctual and
equivalent to other animals while he also reveals the many ways humans
subvert this biological determinism:
It is uncertain whether LUST should be classified as a ‘bodily’ or an ‘emo-

tional’ affect. Some people even doubt that sexuality is a need. This is an
excellent example of the difference between (unconscious) needs and the
(conscious) affects they give rise to. When we engage in sexual acts, we are
not usually trying to perform our biological duty. In fact, very frequently,
we are hoping not to reproduce. As with sweet tastes versus energy sup-
plies, what motivates us subjective beings is the pursuit of erotic pleasure,
not reproductive success. That is, we are driven by feelings. But living
organisms need to reproduce, at least on average. That is why sex became
subjectively pleasurable in the first place, through natural selec-
tion. (105–106)
Since humans do not primarily use sex for reproduction, the evolutionary
cause is broken, and yet, Solms has to return to biology and evolution to
make psychoanalysis fit his version of science. Once again, by not tying
the unconscious to repression, he displaces the fundamental meaning of
psychoanalysis as he claims he is doing psychoanalytic work.
As Solms rightly points out, a driving force behind our emotions tran-
scending biology is that we have to interact with other people to satisfy
our needs:
The main reason why ‘emotional’ needs are more difficult to meet than
‘bodily’ ones is that they typically involve other sentient agents, who have
needs of their own; they are not mere substances like food and water. To
satisfy sexual needs, therefore, we must supplement our innate knowledge

with other skills, acquired through learning. This fact alone explains the
wide variety of sexual activities that we indulge in, alongside the ‘average’
form that was bequeathed by natural selection. (106)
This reliance on working with the emotions and needs of others is one of
the main sources for Freud’s theory of transference, and yet Solms turns
to this social factor in order to highlight the inter-subjective nature of
sexuality.68 The problem with this approach is that it rejects Freud’s
insight into how human sexuality is often centered on auto-erotism,
which relies on a denial of the social and the needs of others.69 Although
psychoanalysis also highlights the role that culture plays in reshaping
desire and the drives, the pleasure principle is centered on the release of
tension and not on communication or social interaction.
This distinction between what is social and what is biological has to be
supplemented by the anti-evolutionary aspects of human drives, which
are themselves different from symbolic consciousness and unconscious
repression. When we fail to make these distinctions, we rob psychoanaly-
sis of the very things that make it important and different from other
disciplines. For instance, in the following discussion of reflexes, instincts,
and memories, we encounter a non-psychoanalytic use of psychoanalytic
concepts: “Notice that learning does not erase reflexes and instincts; it
elaborates, supplements and overrules them, but they are still there. Street
lamps illuminate pathways by night, but they cannot get rid of the dark-
ness altogether. The usual mechanism for updating long-term memories,
‘reconsolidation’ (which I’ll describe in Chap. 10), doesn’t apply to
reflexes and instincts. That is because reflexes and instincts are not memo-
ries” (106). Freud would concur that memories and instincts are very
different things, but the key distinction is between the primary processes
and the pleasure principle. A basic Freudian principle is that once drives
(instincts) are repressed into the unconscious, they become restructured
through the primary processes. These symbolic associations, displace-
ments, and substitutions make a break with biology, nature, material real-
ity, and evolution. In turn, on another level, our desires are reshaped by
culture and society through transference, identification, idealization, and
morality. So while it may be true that learning (nurture) does not
50 R. Samuels
completely erase instincts (nature), the supplementation through repres-

sion, the primary processes, and social mediation makes these reflexes a
secondary consideration.
From Theory to Practice

This turn to biology and neuroscience to ground psychoanalysis is part of
the process of removing psychoanalysis from the ways we diagnose and
treat mental disorders today. As Allan Horwitz describes in DSM: A
History of Psychiatry’s Bible, the desire to make psychiatry more scientific,
respected, and profitable resulted in replacing psychoanalytic concepts
with bio-chemical explanations.70 Horwitz highlights how,
Before the 1980s, psychiatric diagnoses were inextricable from the experi-
ences of particular individuals. Clinicians viewed mental problems as being
closely intertwined with people’s psychosocial backgrounds and circum-
stances and therefore impossible to isolate from personal interpretations,
identities, socialization, relationships, and life events. This view of mental
illness sharply divided psychiatry from other medical specialties, which
studied diseases with predictable courses and outcomes that were indepen-
dent of particular individual lives. (2)
According to this history of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of

Mental Disorders (DSM,) before 1980, psychoanalysis still played a
major role in describing and explaining different mental pathologies, but
Freudian theories were soon replaced by decontextualized medical
descriptions of symptoms:71
Since the DSM-III, however, psychiatric diagnoses have been considered

comparable to organic diseases that “can and should be thought of as enti-
ties existing outside the unique manifestations of illness in particular men
and women. Mental, as much as physical, diseases are discrete ailments
with characteristic causes, prognoses, and outcomes. Their diagnoses stand
apart from the singularity of the individual patient. (2)
What in part allowed for this move away from psychoanalysis in psychia-
try and other forms of therapy was a growing desire to see mental issues
as organic diseases.72
A side-effect, then, of Solms’ discourse is that its focus on biological
determinism feeds the drive to replace social and psychological interpre-
tations with the natural sciences. Likewise, in moving away from the
inner dynamics of individuals and the conflicts between society and the
drives, the standardized diagnostic manual was able to repress psycho-
analysis as it determined the economic and practical future of mental
health treatment:
The manual establishes which psychiatric conditions are taught in medical

and other professional schools, determine eligibility for disability payments
for patients and insurance compensation for providers, are targeted by
pharmaceutical advertisements, become objects of psychiatric research,
and shape public formulations of mental illness. It is also firmly embedded
in the administrative apparatus of hospitals, private practices, the judicial
system, and all other institutions that deal with mental disorder. Moreover,
the DSM shapes the way individuals conceive of their own psychological
problems. (3)
Due to a wide-range of social and individual incentives, it became highly

desirable to replace psychoanalysis with a model based on medical diag-
nosis even when the new system failed to explain any of the causes for the
symptoms and behaviors it was cataloging.73
Since the DSM broke it ties to Freudian theory, it was able to expand
the number of diagnostic categories:
Moreover, rates of DSM disorders appear to be rising at an alarming pace:

studies conducted in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s show continuously
growing numbers of individuals with these conditions. The use of DSM
diagnoses thus makes it seem as if mental disorders are rampant in the
population. Far from being a specialty that treats a small group of seriously
disturbed people, psychiatry (and other mental health professions) is
charged with a mission to confront a large and growing “public health
epidemic” that threatens virtually everyone. Without exaggeration, a for-
mer president of the APA claims that “the DSM might just be the most
influential book written in the past century.” (5)
52 R. Samuels
This constant expansion of diagnostic categories not only helped to pro-

vide new markets for mental health specialists and pharmaceutical com-
panies, but it also provided a new way for individuals to see themselves.
In fact, even before the turn to neuroscience and evolutionary psychol-
ogy, the leaders of the American Psychiatric Association figured out that
the best way to sell their new diagnostic categories was to model them on
the scientific approach to medical diseases:
Since its third edition, many psychiatrists have viewed the DSM as the
product of improving empirical knowledge about mental disorder. They
regard the first two editions as reflecting the unscientific or even anti-
scientific views of eclectic American psychiatrist Adolf Meyer and psycho-
analyst Sigmund Freud. After the DSM-III revolution in 1980, however,
scientific evidence has served as the foundation of psychiatric diagnoses.
Therefore, the evolution of the manual represents the triumph of “science
over ideology”: “The old psychiatry derives from theory, the new psychiatry
from fact.” (5–6)
In representing psychoanalysis as unscientific, the space was cleared for a

new medical model of mental illness. From this perspective, Solms’
attempt to combine psychoanalysis and neuroscience together is prob-
lematic since the repression of Freud’s theory has been driven by the
desire to replace analysis and theory with empirical methods borrowed
from the natural sciences.74
It is vital to point out that this replacement of psychoanalysis was
mainly driven by a set of political and economic interests:
During the 1950s and 1960s, analytically oriented psychiatrists, who

scorned the use of specific diagnoses organized by observable symptoms,
dominated the organization. Consequently, the first two DSMs paid little
attention to developing precise specifications of diagnostic criteria. After
the 1960s, however, intense pressures developed from, among other
sources, federal regulators, insurance companies, and medical schools to
portray psychiatrists as doctors practicing medicine. (8)
The desire to increase the profits and prestige of psychiatrists and phar-
maceutical companies helped to motivate this move from psychoanalysis
to the medical sciences, which in turn was fed by insurance companies

and governmental regulations.75 In other words, the definition of mental
illness and its treatment was not determined by an enhanced understand-
ing of the mind; rather, various vested interests sought to cash in on a
system that was not based on any underlying theory.
As Horwitz emphasizes, the changes in the DSM were often the result
of a battle between clinicians and researchers:
There are also clear intra-professional divisions regarding the role of diag-
noses. In particular, researchers and clinicians use the DSM in distinct
ways. Researchers require specific diagnoses to create homogeneous groups
that can reveal the etiology, prognosis, and best treatments for the particu-
lar condition under study. Their definitions must be similar to those of
others who study comparable phenomena. In contrast, clinicians must deal
with the idiosyncrasies of particular clients. For them, diagnoses are practi-
cal tools, not the basis for standardized protocols. (9)
While researchers need clear diagnostic categories, analysts are more con-
cerned about the specificity of each individual case. The way that this
conflict was resolved was to give both sides what they wanted by stan-
dardizing diagnostic categories and multiplying them to such an extent
that every individual could be covered. Moreover, since clinicians wanted
to be re-imbursed by insurance companies that required defined diagno-
sis and treatment plans, they had to conform to a system in which they
did not really believe.76
Horwitz adds that it was often the pharmaceutical industry that was
fueling this drive for more standardized diagnostic categories:
pharmaceutical companies have been intimately connected to diagnostic

classification systems. Since the early 1970s, the Food and Drug
Administration’s (FDA) regulations have required the drug industry to
market its products as treatments for particular DSM diagnoses. Drug
companies are also a major source of income for departments of psychiatry
in medical schools, psychiatric researchers, and the APA. The web of affili-
ations between the industry and the psychiatric profession is tight enough
that nearly three-quarters of the members of the latest DSM task force had
54 R. Samuels
ties to drug companies. Moreover, pervasive drug advertisements are prob-

ably the most significant conduit of information to the general public
about DSM diagnoses. (9)
Here we find the core of what I have called the Governmental University
Medical Pharmaceutical Complex (GUMP).77 The government forces
drug companies to cater to particular diagnostic categories, while these
same corporations fund university medical research and required drug
trials. Meanwhile, the professional association that authors the diagnostic
manual is shaped by pharmaceutical interests, and the individual psychia-
trists increase their pay and prestige by invoking a medical and scientific
approach to mental illness.
All of these intertwined incentives are further enabled by the desire of
patients to receive a clear diagnosis that fortifies their identity and pro-
vides access to care and financial support: “Patients and their families
sought them to obtain desired treatments, reimbursement for care, eligi-
bility for government benefits, provision of special education resources,
and explanations for distress” (10). Although it appears that everyone has
a stake in the diagnostic bible, what is still unclear is if this system of
diagnosis has any real validity or scientific value.
In fact, Horwitz reveals how there is little connection between the
development and marketing of psychotropic drugs and a scientific under-
standing of different mental disorders:
As later developments would show, almost all psychotropic drugs do not

work specifically for particular DSM mental disorders. Nevertheless,
declining tranquilizer sales, coupled with congressional pressure and the
resulting FDA mandate, provided powerful reasons for the pharmaceutical
industry to market its products as remedies for specific diseases. Biological
psychiatrists, pharmaceutical companies, the FDA, and the NIMH all
began to push a narrative centered on the specificity of diagnostic catego-
ries. “During the 1970s the major psychiatric disorders became defined as
disorders of single neurotransmitter systems and their receptors, with
depression being a catecholamine disorder, anxiety a 5HT disorder, demen-
tia a cholinergic disorder, and schizophrenia a dopamine disorder,” Healy
explains. (10)
What we learn here is that the new brain sciences played a key role in
propping up the pharmaceutical industry’s need to match their medica-
tion with specific diagnostic categories; using the disease model from the
medical sciences, university researchers and pharmaceutical interests pro-
moted the idea that mental problems derived from chemical imbalances.78
In the battle between psychoanalytic treatment and medication, Big
Pharma won by turning to scientific theories bent on discrediting Freud.
Moreover, insurance companies enhanced their influence by dictating
what treatments would be allowed for specific diagnosis:
Between the mid-1960s and 1980, the percentage of patients using insur-
ance to pay for outpatient psychotherapy rose from 38 to 68 percent.
While patients had little concern with particular diagnostic categories, the
third parties that increasingly paid for their treatment were coming to
demand that it involve genuine diseases and not problems in living.
Insurers were willing to fund only a specific number of visits for well-
defined problems and cast an especially sharp eye on what could often be
interminable psychoanalytic sessions. The nebulous DSM-II conditions
poorly fit an insurance logic that would reimburse the treatment of only
discrete diseases. (49–50)
Since the insurance companies would only support payments for specific
diseases, and clinicians relied on insurance payments, the clinicians had
to buy into a system that often went against their own beliefs and prac-
tices. In fact, as Horwitz documents, academic researchers, pharmaceuti-
cal corporations, and psychiatric institutions all dismissed the fundamental
basis of psychoanalytic treatment:
Another central distinction between practitioners and investigators is the

role of clinical intuition. The particular insights and relationships thera-
pists have with their patients are essential aspects of clinical practice.
Indeed, the process of “transference,” which involves the specific psycho-
logical dynamics in therapeutic encounters, is an essential aspect of analytic
treatments. Researchers, however, strove to abolish the role of particular
clinicians in defining any disorder. They regarded the dominant analytic
therapeutic model as the offspring of such discredited practices as mesmer-
ism or hypnotism. In their view, optimal practice would replace clinical
56 R. Samuels
insight with reliable diagnostic criteria grounded in observable symptoms

and decision rules that do not depend on the personal characteristics of
either patients or clinicians. (52)
In dismissing the key role of transference in the analytic process, research-

ers and other interested parties sought to eliminate psychoanalytic prac-
tice and theory and replace it with a purely abstract scientific discourse.
Defending the Science of Psychoanalysis

Since psychoanalysis has been discredited for not being empirical, it is
important to examine if psychoanalysis is actually a science. As we saw in
Solms’ work, the turn to neuroscience and evolutionary psychology has
been in part driven by a desire to provide clinicians with a more consis-
tent and realistic theory and practice. This same drive for reliable data has
also shaped some of the transformations of the DSM; however, as Horwitz
insists, there is very little evidence that we can base most mental issues on
biology: “Given the absence of known pathogens or objective tests for
any mental disorder, the DSM-III diagnoses emerged in the only possible
way: through a messy procedure marked by arguments, heated discus-
sions, and, eventually, reluctant consensus” (58). In other words, a man-
ual that sought to eliminate the social and the individual ended up being
determined by the social negotiations of individuals because there really
was no scientific foundation to its system.79
As a catalogue of discrete symptoms and behaviors, the DSM contin-
ues to be a set of descriptions lacking an underlying theory. Although
Freud clearly divided different type of mental disorders based on their
central mode of defense (projection, repression, denial), the desire to find
an organic cause for most mental disorders has pushed the mental health
system to rely on a fragmented list of disconnected manifestations. A
return to Freud’s fundamental concepts is thus necessary in order to clar-
ify the theory and treatment of mental disorders because without a
grounding in an integrated system, there is nothing to stop the destruc-
tive drugging of individuals and social discontent.
Notes
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Sciences. Palgrave Pivot, Cham, 2017. 35–58.
5. Bourtchouladze, Rusiko. Memories are made of this: How memory works
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27. Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and its discontents. Broadview Press, 2015.
28. Ansermet, Jean-Philippe, Pierre Magistretti, and Francois Ansermet.
“From the Principle of Inertia to the Death Drive: The Influence of the
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29. Samuels, Robert. “Catharsis: The politics of enjoyment.” Zizek and the
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4
Moving from Freud’s Five Principles
to Lacan’s Four Fundamental Concepts
As a way of clarifying what is at stake in (mis)understanding psycho-

analysis, I will now turn to Lacan’s Four Fundamental Concepts of
Psychoanalysis, where he defines the central theories of the unconscious,
repetition, transference, and the drives.1 We shall see that a key to Lacan’s
interpretation is a conflation of the unconscious and the primary process
and the replacement of the reality principle with the concept of repeti-
tion. Although Lacan does help to explain several of Feud’s key ideas, he
also displaces the meaning of other central notions.2 Instead of simply
rejecting or accepting Lacan’s theories, then, I seek to develop a critical
interaction with his interpretation of Freud’s work.
The Unconscious and the Primary Processes

The first concept that Lacan examines in this seminar is the unconscious,
but he makes a curious move by equating this notion with the theory of
the subject and the way we are subjected to symbolic representations.3 In
fact, Lacan turns to the field of structural anthropology to posit that
humans are born into a world that is already structured by a series of
symbolic binary oppositions:4

64 R. Samuels
Most of you will have some idea of what I mean when I say--the uncon-
scious is structured like a language. This statement refers to a field that is
much more accessible to us today than at the time of Freud. I will illustrate
it by something that is materialized, at what is certainly a scientific level, by
the field that is explored, structured, elaborated by Claude Levi-Strauss,
and which he has pinpointed in the title of his book, La Pensee Sauvage.
Before any experience, before any individual deduction, even before those
collective experiences that may be related only to social needs are inscribed
in it, something organizes this field, inscribes its initial lines of force. This
is the function that Claude Levi-Strauss shows us to be the truth of the
totemic function, and which reduces its appearance--the primary classifica-
tory function. Before strictly human relations are established, certain rela-
tions have already been determined. They are taken from whatever nature
may offer as supports, supports that are arranged in themes of opposition.
Nature provides-- must use the word--signifiers, and these signifiers orga-
nize human relations in a creative way, providing them with structures and
shaping them. The important thing, for us, is that we are seeking here-
-before any formation of the subject, of a subject who thinks, who situates
himself in it--the level at which there is counting, things are counted, and
in this counting he who counts is already included. It is only later that the
subject has to recognize himself as such, recognize himself as he who
counts. (20)
The unconscious is thus considered here to be the effect of the pre-existing

symbolic order. However, by saying that the unconscious is structured
like a language, Lacan conflates three different things: the non-conscious
symbolic organization of societies, the Freudian unconscious, and the
primary processes. While Freud clearly defines the unconscious by the
process of repression and the primary processes as an automatic system of
poetic consciousness, Lacan relates both of these concepts to the way
societies are structured through the manipulation of symbolic
oppositions.5
In his seminar, this combination of three different forms of symbolism
(primary, social, and subjective) is soon displaced by the focus on how in
each of these systems, individuals are included by being excluded.6 Lacan,
thus, represents the subject of the unconscious as a lack, a gap, and a fault
in order to stress the negative presence of this entity: “For what the
4 Moving from Freud’s Five Principles to Lacan’s Four… 65
unconscious does is to show us the gap through which neurosis recreates

a harmony with a real--a real that may well not be determined. In this
gap, something happens” (22). Instead of basing the unconscious on
repression, Lacan concentrates on the way the subject is included in sym-
bolization by being excluded.
This definition of the unconscious can be related to the fact that peo-
ple within a social system are not aware of the rules and practices shaping
that culture. For instance, Levi-Strauss found that the members of “prim-
itive” groups strictly followed rules that they could not explain as they
took all symbolic social formations to be natural and real.7 Freud makes
a similar claim in Totem and Taboo, but Freud’s main point was that these
animistic subjects projected their own thoughts onto the external world
as they were dominated by the primary processes.8 Freud added that since
they treated words like things and things like words, they confused sym-
bolic memories with perceptions of the real.9 Following Lacan, we can
say that these subjects are excluded from their own thoughts since their
internal representations lack intentionality.
Lacan himself will later posit that in the structure of a hallucination,
the subject is barred and subverted: “If I have insisted on it, it is to show
you that the notion of hallucination, in Freud, as a process of regressive
investment on perception necessarily implies that the subject must be
completely subverted in it--which he is, in effect, only in extremely fleet-
ing moments” (48). On the level of the primary processes, what we find
is that the loss of intentional control (the barring of the subject) is cou-
pled with a projection of thought onto reality, which Lacan reads as proof
that the cause of the unconscious is language itself: “But the fact that
there is a mode in which Freud can conceive as possible the subversion of
the subject shows clearly enough to what extent he identifies the subject
with that which is originally subverted by the system of the signifier. So
let us leave this time of the unconscious” (48). Instead of following Freud
by equating consciousness with the automatic psychotic primary pro-
cesses, Lacan conflates the unconscious with the primary processes. This
displacement has important clinical implications since as Lacan himself
insists, the main way to differentiate psychosis from neurosis is by oppos-
ing two different defense mechanisms: psychotic foreclosure and neurotic
repression.10
66 R. Samuels
Lacan’s notion of foreclosure is equivalent to Freud’s concept of projec-

tion in the primary processes because Lacan posits that what is rejected
(foreclosed) in the symbolic returns in the real.11 For example, Freud
argued that when paranoid psychotics think that other people know their
thoughts, what the psychotic is doing is projecting their own internal
self-observations out into the external world.12 Due to the foreclosure of
the super-ego, the psychotic experiences internal thoughts as externalized
voices. The idea here is that when people radically reject their own
thoughts and feelings, these internal mental representations are experi-
enced as real perceptions coming from the outside.13 Freud added that
this psychotic process represents both the primary state of culture (ani-
mism) and the initial state of infantile subjectivity (the hallucination of
the satisfaction of desire).14 Moreover, we gain access to this type of
thinking when we dream since the ego of intentionality and reality test-
ing is put to sleep as we hallucinate the representation of our desires,
fears, and anxieties.15
In contrast to psychotic projection, with neurotic repression, the sub-
ject replaces unwanted thoughts, perceptions, and feelings with imagi-
nary fantasies leading to the formation of symptoms and the generation
of defensive counter-measures.16 While in psychosis, thoughts and feel-
ings are rejected and then perceived as coming from the other in the real,
in neurosis, unwanted feelings and thoughts are repressed and return in a
distorted form. This distinction is crucial from the perspective of treat-
ment because psychotics should not be put on a couch and asked to free
associate since they will quickly regress to the primary processes.17 Here
we see how the theoretical distinction between the unconscious and the
primary processes is so essential; if we do not understand this difference,
we could make a major clinical mistake.
The Dream of the Subject

Freud’s theory of the primary processes is so vital to not only our under-
standing of psychosis but also to our work with neurotics because this
system shapes dreams and other neurotic formations. In fact, Freud insists
that dreams are a psychosis of short duration, and they are the best way
to encounter unconscious material.18 According to his theory, once a

neurotic subject avoids unwanted thoughts, feelings, and memories,
these mental experiences become reshaped by the primary processes of
association, substitution, and displacement. Lacan adds that in the neu-
rotic’s dream state, the subjectivity of the unconscious is evident in the
way that each representation is coupled with a subjective response:
If you keep hold of this initial structure, you will avoid giving yourself up
to some partial aspect of the question of the unconscious---as, for example,
that it is the subject, qua alienated in his history, at the level at which the
syncope of discourse is joined with his desire. You will see that, more radi-
cally, it is in the dimension of a synchrony that you must situate the uncon-
scious--at the level of a being, but in the sense that it can spread over
everything, that is to say, at the level of the subject of the enunciation, in
so far as, according to the sentences, according to the modes, it loses itself
as much as it finds itself again, and in the sense that, in an interjection, in
an imperative, in an invocation, even in a hesitation, it is always the uncon-
scious that presents you with its enigma, and speaks--in short, at the level
at which everything that blossoms in the unconscious spreads, like myce-
lium, as Freud says about the dream, around a central point. It is always a
question of the subject qua indeterminate … (26)
On one level, Lacan is arguing the subjectivity spreads over the entire
dream because in relation to representation, the ego is absent and the
subject vacillates and is indeterminate; however, on another level, he is
insisting that the subject is present through the emotional relation to the
symbolic representations. In the opposition between the content of the
dream and the subjective response to the content, we find the relation
between the primary processes and the unconscious. Like the final punc-
tuation of a sentence with a question mark or an exclamation point, sub-
jectivity (the enunciation in linguistic terminology) defines the meaning
of a symbolic representation through the attitude of the speaker or writer
in relation to symbolic material.19 In fact, what one often finds in dreams
is an ongoing commentary similar to a voice-over in movies.
The dream then highlights two aspects of the primary processes: the
manifest symbols (signifiers) and the latent thoughts (signifieds). As
Lacan highlights, Freud anticipates Saussure’s theory of linguistics by
68 R. Samuels
separating these two different aspects of language; on one level, we find

the automatic association of symbolic representations in a network of
memories, and on another level, these representations are interpreted
through subjective desire.20 Lacan emphasizes this latter point by claim-
ing that desire and interpretation are the same thing since meaning, feel-
ings, and subjectivity are equated.21 What then happens in free association
is that the network of symbolic associations is explored as the subjective
responses to these representations becomes evident. However, it would be
wrong to equate the recounting of the dream with the dream itself since
they are presented in radically different ways.
In following Descartes’ discussion of thought as the essence of con-
sciousness, Lacan interjects his theory of the subject into his definition of
the unconscious:
To all these forms of unconscious, ever more or less linked to some obscure
will regarded as primordial, to something preconscious, what Freud
opposes is the revelation that at the level of the unconscious there is some-
thing at all points homologous with what occurs at the level of the subject-
-this thing speaks and functions in a way quite as elaborate as at the level
of the conscious, which thus loses what seemed to be its privilege. I am well
aware of the resistances that this simple remark can still provoke, though it
is evident in everything that Freud wrote. (24)
The radical move Lacan makes here is to define consciousness and subjec-
tivity through the psychotic dream state. Since we are not in control of
our dreams, and they do not follow our intentions, we are subjected to
them, and yet, our subjectivity is evident in these formations. Here,
Lacan is close to Sartre’s critique of Freud since one of Sartre’s main criti-
cisms of psychoanalysis was that it tried to divorce subjectivity from con-
sciousness through the concept of the unconscious.22 For Sartre, even
when we try to repress something or avoid a memory, we are conscious of
what we are doing. However, what Sartre refuses to accept is the differ-
ence between consciousness in the primary processes and the way repres-
sion causes a division between the unintentional awareness of
consciousness and the lack of awareness of repressed material.23 Although
Lacan helps to reject Sartre’s criticism by showing how consciousness
itself combines automatic symbolism with projection and interpretation,

what he does not consistently articulate is the distinction between the
primary processes and repression.
As I have been arguing, a major point of confusion in Lacan’s text is
the relationship between foreclosure (projection) in the primary processes
and repression as the cause of the unconscious. This issue comes out in
his discussion of censorship:
Oblivium is that which effaces-effaces what? The signifier as such. Here we

find again the basic structure that makes it possible, in an operatory way,
for something to take on the function of barring, striking out another
thing. This is a more primordial level, structurally speaking, than repres-
sion, of which we shall speak later. Well, this operatory element of efface-
ment is what Freud designates, from the outset, in the function of the
censor. (26–27)
It should be clear that Lacan wants to distinguish a primary level of cen-

sorship from a secondary level of repression, but what confuses matters is
that both of these defenses rely on striking out a signifier. What needs to
be distinguished is that with the primary processes, it is the intentional
ego that is absent, while with neurosis, a signifier has been barred from
consciousness.
Lacan clarifies this distinction by turning to Freud’s example of forget-
ting a name because part of the signifier reminds Freud of things he
would like to not admit to himself:24
Let us turn again to an example that has never been sufficiently exploited,
the first used by Freud to demonstrate his theory, namely, his forgetting,
his inability to remember the word Signorelli after his visit to the paintings
at Orvieto. Is it possible not to see emerging from the text itself, and estab-
lishing itself, not metaphor, but the reality of the disappearance, of the
suppression, of the Unterdriickung, the passing underneath? The term
Signor, Herr, passes underneath--the absolute master, I once said, which is
in fact death, has disappeared there. Furthermore, do we not see, behind
this, the emergence of that which forced Freud to find in the myths of the
death of the father the regulation of his desire? After all, it is to be found in
Nietzsche, who declares, in his own myth, that God is dead. And it is
70 R. Samuels
erhaps against the background of the same reasons. For the myth of the
p
God is dead--which, personally, I feel much less sure about, as a myth of
course, than most contemporary intellectuals, which is in no sense a decla-
ration of theism, nor of faith in the resurrection--perhaps this myth is sim-
ply a shelter against the threat of castration. (27)
There is a lot going on in this passage, but what I would like to stress is
Lacan’s emphasis on the notion that Freud cannot remember a name
because part of the signifier reminds him of death and castration. Clearly,
we are on the level of repression and the unconscious here what deter-
mines the self-censorship is the desire to avoid thinking about a threaten-
ing subject matter.25 Lacan adds that we know in analysis when we are
dealing with the unconscious because the subject is surprised by what is
discovered in his or her own discourse: “Thus the unconscious is always
manifested as that which vacillates in a split in the subject, from which
emerges a discovery that Freud compares with desire--a desire that we will
temporarily situate in the denuded metonymy of the discourse in ques-
tion, where the subject surprises himself in some unexpected way” (28).
While the subject of a psychotic hallucination or delusion is certain about
what is being perceived, the subject of the unconscious is surprised by the
automatic return of the repressed.26 It is then a goal of analysis to enable
an encounter with this unexpected material.
Underlying both Freud’s and Lacan’s conceptions of the unconscious is
the notion that whatever is repressed always tries to return.27 In fact,
Lacan uses his theory of desire to show how in contrast to the pleasure
principle, unconscious material resists being subjected to the homeostatic
drive to avoid all tension and conflict: “Pleasure limits the scope of human
possibility--the pleasure principle is a principle of homeostasis. Desire,
on the other hand, finds its boundary, its strict relation, its limit, and it is
in the relation to this limit that it is sustained as such, crossing the thresh-
old imposed by the pleasure principle” (31). From this perspective, what
allows us to move beyond the dictates of the pleasure principle is desire as
a longing for something we do not have that also refuses to be limited by
time or the need to avoid tension:28
Now, although desire merely conveys what it maintains of an image of the

past towards an ever short and limited future, Freud declares that it is nev-
ertheless indestructible. Notice that in the term indestructible, it is pre-
cisely the most inconsistent reality of all that is affirmed. If indestructible
desire escapes from time, to what register does it belong in the order of
things? For what is a thing, if not that which endures, in an identical state,
for a certain time? Is not this the place to distinguish in addition to dura-
tion, the substance of things, another mode of time--a logical time? (31–32)
This notion that desire is indestructible points to its symbolic character

because real things are affected by time, while symbolic representations
can resist temporality. In fact, early on in his work, Lacan stressed that
our awareness of lack and absence is only possible because we have a sym-
bolic marker for something, and as Sartre insisted, nothing lacks in the
real.29 Desire then is a symbolic representation of something that can be
lost or absent, and it is this presence of absence that opens up the human
experience to life beyond reality and biology. The symbol, then, not only
kills the thing, but it also makes us desire the thing that has been lost.30
Repetition and Desire

Lacan’s discussion of desire pushes him to introduce the second concept,
repetition, which he quickly distinguishes from transference:
It is quite common, for example, to hear it said that the transference is a

form of repetition. I am not saying that this is untrue, or that there is not
an element of repetition in the transference. I am not saying that it is not
on the basis of his experience of the transference that Freud approached
repetition. What I am saying is that the concept of repetition has nothing
to do with the concept of the transference. Because of this confusion, I am
obliged to go through this explanation at the outset, to lay down the neces-
sary logical steps. For to follow chronology would be to encourage the
ambiguities of the concept of repetition that derive from the fact that its
discovery took place in the course of the first hesitant steps necessitated by
the experience of the transference. (31)
72 R. Samuels
Lacan reveals here how his method of presentation requires both relating
and distinguishing key concepts. Moreover, he posits that Freud’s theo-
ries can be confusing because they were derived from Freud’s developing
technique. The importance of this latter point is that we see the close
connection between theory and practice, which requires us to constantly
ask how a particular concept helps to shape psychoanalytic technique.
By focusing on analytic treatment, Lacan recenters our understanding
of Freud’s theory of the unconscious:
The status of the unconscious, which, as I have shown, is so fragile on the

ontic plane, is ethical. In his thirst for truth, Freud says, whatever it is, I
must go there, because, somewhere, this unconscious reveals itself. And he
says this on the basis of his experience of what was, up to that time, for the
physician, the most rejected, the most concealed, the most contained, real-
ity, that of the hysteric, in so far as it is--in a sense, from its origin--marked
by the sign of deception. (33)
Lacan’s important move here is to posit that the ethics of psychoanalysis

is based on the desire to uncover unconscious material no matter how
uncomfortable or difficult the process might be.31 Furthermore, he adds
that this pursuit of the truth required Freud to work with hysterical sub-
jects, who were up to that point avoided by the medical profession
because of their deceptive nature. I would add that Freud uses the con-
cept of the reality principle in order to define the ethics of psychoanalysis
since for Freud, the unconscious is defined by self-deception, and it is
only a process of radical self-honesty that allows the discovery of surpris-
ing repressed material through the process of free association enabled by
the neutrality of the analyst.32
Unlike most other analysts and therapists today, Lacan’s discourse is
full of reference to truth, the real, and ethics, and one reason for this
focus on these issues is that he sees psychoanalytic practice as centered on
the repetition of deception and the need to follow speech wherever it
leads: “We shall see how by means of repetition, as repetition of decep-
tion, Freud coordinates experience, qua deceiving, with a real that will
henceforth be situated in the field of science, situated as that which the
subject is condemned to miss, but even this miss is revelatory” (39).
Lacan thus approaches the reality principle, science, and the ethics of
psychoanalysis through the concept of repetition, which he relates to the
revelation caused by a missed encounter with the real.33
Lacan connects science and the reality principle to the concept of rep-
etition because he sees this notion as highlighting both the impossibility
of fully symbolizing reality and the fact that the real always returns.34
Since we cannot completely escape our own memories, thoughts, fears,
and feelings, psychoanalytic practice is founded on a belief in the power
of repetition. In fact, Lacan points to this role of repetition in psychoana-
lytic technique by making the following argument:
Where it was, the Ich--the subject, not psychology--the subject, must come
into existence. And there is only one method of knowing that one is there,
namely, to map the network. And how is a network mapped? One goes
back and forth over one’s ground, one crosses one’s path, one cross-checks
it always in the same way, and in this seventh chapter of The Interpretation
of Dreams there is no other confirmation for one’s Gewissheit, one’s cer-
tainty, than this--Speak of chance, gentlemen, if you like. In my experience
I have observed nothing arbitrary in this field, for it is crosschecked in such
a way that it escapes chance. (45)
In saying that analysis has to map the network of the subject’s memories,
Lacan is emphasizing how the practice of free association relies on discov-
ering repressed memories by following the path of their associations.
From this perspective, there is no chance because all connections have
been determined through symbolic relationships that are discovered
through repetition. Since, as Freud insists, no memory can ever be fully
forgotten, these thoughts and feelings are seen as equivalent to a real that
always returns to the same place.35
The practice of free association and the neutrality of the analysis are,
thus, based on a belief in the return and repetition of signifiers. Since all
thoughts and feelings are encoded in memories, and all memories are
signifiers, this theory of the inability to efface signifiers represents the key
to both the theory and technique of psychoanalysis.36 Furthermore,
Lacan shows that in Freud’s work, an important move was made by sepa-
rating these memory signifiers from consciousness and perception:
74 R. Samuels
Well, to return to the letter to Fliess, how do the Wahrnehmungszeichen, the

traces of perception, function? Freud deduces from his experience the need
to make an absolute separation between perception and consciousness--in
order for these traces of perception to pass into memory, they must first be
effaced in perception, and reciprocally. He then designates a time when
these Wahrnehmungszeichen must be constituted in simultaneity. What is
this time, if not signifying synchrony? And, of course, Freud says this all
the more in that he does not know that he is saying it fifty years before the
linguists. But we can immediately give to these Wahrnehmungszeichen
their true name of signifiers. (45–46)
Lacan’s insight here is that Freud anticipates structural linguistics by

treating the signs of perception as signifiers located in a synchronic net-
work. One of the effects of this theory of the signifier is that memory is
no longer founded on perception or consciousness since each internal
mental representation is a signifier relating to other signifiers through the
processes of differentiation, association, and substitution. In this system,
free association is dedicated to tracing the relations contained in the
internal network.37
The theory of the signifier, therefore, becomes essential in providing
the foundations of analytic practice:
Recollection is not Platonic reminiscence--it is not the return of a form, an

imprint, a eidos of beauty and good, a supreme truth, coming to us from
the beyond. It is something that comes to us from the structural necessities,
something humble, born at the level of the lowest encounters and of all the
talking crowd that precedes us, at the level of the structure of the signifier,
of the languages spoken in a stuttering, stumbling way, but which cannot
elude constraints whose echoes, model, style can be found, curiously
enough, in contemporary mathematics. (47)
By seeing recollection as based on the network of signifiers, Lacan is able

to provide a scientific foundation for psychoanalysis. This theory works
by eliminating mystical and mythical conceptions of memory through
the mathematical mapping of signifying structures.38
As I argued in Chap. 2, the Project for a Scientific Psychology treated
memories, neurons, and thoughts as signifiers defined by their difference
to other signifiers, and in this anticipation of structural linguistics, Freud

cleared a space for his conceptions of repetition and free association: “As
you saw with the notion of cross-checking, the function of return,
Wiederkehr, is essential. It is not only Wiederkehr in the sense of that
which has been repressed--the very constitution of the field of the uncon-
scious is based on the Wiederkehr. It is there that Freud bases his cer-
tainty” (47–48). The certainty of the analyst is produced by the trust that
one has in the theory of the return of repressed signifiers, which struc-
tures free association and the discovery of unconscious material.39
By making repetition, and not the reality principle, a fundamental
concept, Lacan seeks to separate the testing of reality from the subject’s
ego or an identification with the analyst’s sense of reality. Lacan also uses
his conception of the real to highlight how there is always a difference
between reality and how we represent it:
Wiederholen is related to Erinnerung (remembering). The subject in him-

self, the recalling of his biography, all this goes only to a certain limit,
which is known as the real…. An adequate thought, qua thought, at the
level at which we are, always avoids--if only to find itself again later in
everything the same thing. Here, the real is that which always comes back
to the same place--to the place where the subject in so far as he thinks,
where the res cogitans, does not meet it. (49)
Just as Freud argued that there is a center to every dream that has no
meaning, Lacan insists that since the symbolic cannot fully represent the
real, every attempt at memory ultimately fails.40 In fact, for Freud, what
defined science was the acceptance of the limits of our knowledge, which
fuels a desire to always try to discover more. Furthermore, Freud sought
to counter what he calls the “omnipotence of thought” in the primary
processes by stressing the limitations of our understanding.41
Lacan’s theory of the real can be seen as representing Freud’s reality
principle because what he seeks to emphasize is the fact that reality always
resists representation: “Where do we meet this real? For what we have in
the discovery of psycho-analysis is an encounter, an essential encounter-
-an appointment to which we are always called with a real that eludes us”
(53). Based on this theory of the real as always being missed, we see how
76 R. Samuels
free association involves two opposite movements: one aspect concerns

re-tracing the network of the memory associations, and the other aspect
concerns accepting the limitations of speech and memory: “The real is
beyond the automaton, the return, the coming-back, the insistence of the
signs, by which we see ourselves governed by the pleasure principle. The
real is that which always lies behind the automaton, and it is quite obvi-
ous, throughout Freud’s research, that it is this that is the object of his
concern” (54). From this perspective, we can say that there are two reals
in psychoanalysis: the reality of the internal system of signifiers and the
reality of the fundamental conflict between the symbolic and the real.42
One reason why this conflict between the symbolic and the real is so
important to life and the experience of psychoanalysis is that Lacan
defines trauma by the missed symbolic encounter with the real: “The
function of the tuche, of the real as encounter--the encounter in so far as
it may be missed, in so far as it is essentially the missed encounter--first
presented itself in the history of psycho-analysis in a form that was in
itself already enough to arouse our attention, that of the trauma” (55).
Since the real by definition is impossible to symbolize, but it always
returns to the same place, it represents a traumatic encounter.43
Ultimately, for Lacan, the real is represented as traumatic because it
undermines the pleasure principle’s drive to avoid all tension and conflict:
In effect, the trauma is conceived as having necessarily been marked by the

subjectifying homeostasis that orientates the whole functioning defined by
the pleasure principle. Our experience then presents us with a problem,
which derives from the fact that, at the very heart of the primary processes,
we see preserved the insistence of the trauma in making us aware of its
existence. The trauma reappears, in effect, frequently unveiled. How can
the dream, the bearer of the subject’s desire, produce that which makes the
trauma emerge repeatedly--if not its very face, at least the screen that shows
us that it is still there behind? (55)
Lacan asks here how it is possible for people to return in their minds to
traumatic events if our thinking is driven by the pleasure principle’s quest
to avoid all mental tension and unpleasure? In other words, why do we
repeat in our dreams and fantasies the very things we are trying to
escape?44
Lacan’s strange response to these questions is the following: “Let us

conclude that the reality system, however far it is developed, leaves an
essential part of what belongs to the real a prisoner in the toils of the
pleasure principle” (55). Lacan appears to be arguing here that the reason
why we repeat traumatic events in our minds and actions is that the plea-
sure principle maintains control over part of the real. However, if we
return to Freud’s fundamental concepts, it would be more accurate to
state that while the primary processes may first act to satisfy the dictates
of the pleasure principle, the automatic nature of these symbolic pro-
cesses make them prone to return to thoughts and experiences that the
subject would like to avoid. In this structure, the repetition of the trauma
is caused by the fact that we do not totally control our own minds, and
we cannot efface our memory signifiers.45 What then makes us ethical is
that we can never fully avoid our guilt, shame, fear, and truth.
Repression and Consciousness

In order to show what allows us to not think about the reality of our
minds, Lacan follows his discussion of traumatic repetition with an
examination of how our “normal” consciousness is constituted:
The other day, I was awoken from a short nap by knocking at my door just
before I actually awoke. With this impatient knocking I had already formed
a dream, a dream that manifested to me something other than this knock-
ing. And when I awake, it is in so far as I reconstitute my entire representa-
tion around this knocking--this perception-that I am aware of it. I know
that I am there, at what time I went to sleep, and why I went to sleep.
When the knocking occurs, not in my perception, but in my conscious-
ness, it is because my consciousness reconstitutes itself around this repre-
sentation--that I know that I am waking up, that I am knocked up. (56)
The first thing to highlight about this discussion of self-consciousness is

the way that it begins with the automatic symbolization of reality in the
dream.46 Through the primary processes, the knocking on the door is
instantly transformed into a scene of something related to that perceived
78 R. Samuels
sound. Here we witness the automatic translation of perceptions into

imaginary symbolic representations beyond the intentionality and con-
trol of the subject. Since Lacan is aware of the manifest content of his
dream, we can say that the initial form of consciousness is hallucinatory.
What then happens as he awakes is that he convinces himself that he is in
control of his mind by locating his self in time and space. In this process,
his knowledge becomes identified with his ego as he takes responsibility
for his own thoughts and perceptions.47
As Freud argues in his Project, one of the main ways of distinguishing
the consciousness of the dream from the consciousness of the waking
state is that in the second form, the ego uses attention, selection, and
repression to make thoughts, feelings, and perceptions appear to be the
product of the self ’s intentionality.48 Lacan’s version of this argument is
the following: “Observe what I am directing you towards--towards the
symmetry of that structure that makes me, after the awakening knock,
able to sustain myself, apparently only in a relation with my representa-
tion, which, apparently, makes of me only consciousness. A sort of invo-
luted reflection--in my consciousness, it is only my representation that I
recover possession of ” (57). The consciousness of the ego is here defined
by the illusion that “I” control “my” thinking.
Instead of directly stressing the role of repression in the formation of
the ego’s consciousness, Lacan makes another curious move by introduc-
ing his theory of the object (a). In returning to the traumatic encounter
with the unrepresentable real, Lacan seeks to take on the history of phi-
losophy by representing the object (a) as the which presents the truth of
the real as the inverse of self-consciousness and aesthetic contemplation:
“In so far as it is a search for truth, is this way to be forged in our style of
adventure, with its trauma seen as a reflection of facticity? Or is it to be
located where tradition has always placed it, at the level of the dialectic of
truth and appearance, grasped at the outset of perception in its funda-
mentally ideic, in a way aesthetic, and accentuated character as visual
centering? (71). This consideration of visual centering indicates the key
role that images and the mapping of space play in Lacan’s conception of
the ego and narcissism.49 Following Freud, Lacan highlights how the ego
is formed through the identification with a holistic image or spatial map-
ping, which provides the self with a sense of imaginary bodily and mental
unity.50 Moreover, the sense of intentionality and mental control is

derived in part from the formation of the ego as contained in a body
separated from others. We shall see that the opposite of this idealized ego
control and idealization is the object (a) as an entity that lacks a spectral
image.51
Turning to the work of the phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty,
Lacan illustrates the conflict between the philosophy of consciousness
and the psychoanalytic understanding of the real: “This work, Le Visible
et l’invisible, may indicate for us the moment of arrival of the philosophi-
cal tradition--the tradition that begins with Plato with the promulgation
of the idea, of which one may say that, setting out from an aesthetic
world, it is determined by an end given to being as sovereign good, thus
attaining a beauty that is also its limit. And it is not by chance that
Maurice Merleau-Ponty recognized its guide in the eye” (71). The argu-
ment here is that philosophy bases consciousness on vision and the per-
ception of ideal moral and aesthetic forms. As Lacan indicates, underlying
this vision-centered tradition is Merleau-Ponty’s focus on the intentional-
ity of the knowing ego:
In this work, one finds a recapitulation of the regulatory function of form,

invoked in opposition to that which, as philosophical thinking progressed,
had been taken to that extreme of vertigo expressed in the term idealism-
-how could the ‘lining’ that representation then became be joined to that
which it is supposed to cover? La Phinomenologie brings us back, then, to
the regulation of form, which is governed, not only by the subject’s eye, but
by his expectations, his movement, his grip, his muscular and visceral emo-
tion--in short, his constitutive presence, directed in what is called his total
intentionality. (71)
Unlike the unintentional primary processes shaping consciousness, the

ego is centered on the intentionality of the knowing self.52 What then
enables us to move from the barred subject of projection and hallucina-
tion to the centered ego is the formation of a point of view guided by
expectation.
It is important to point out that while Lacan stresses the visual aspects
of this imaginary structure, he also realizes that since blind people can
80 R. Samuels
also develop an ego and a holistic body image, the formation of the self
must be based on a virtual mapping of space.53 Our recognition and iden-
tification with an ideal body image, then, relies on our ability to identify
with an external holistic object. Thus, in his theory of the mirror stage,
Lacan highlights how the ideal ego is formed by identifying with the ideal
image in the mirror, and this object can be replaced by the relation to
another person of similar size and age.54
The next move that Lacan makes in relation to this imaginary level of
subjectivity is to oppose the intentionality of the ego to his concept of
the gaze:
You will see that the ways through which he will lead you are not only of
the order of visual phenomenology, since they set out to rediscover--this is
the essential point-the dependence of the visible on that which places us
under the eye of the seer. But this is going too far, for that eye is only the
metaphor of something that I would prefer to call the seer’s ‘shoot’ (pousse)-
-something prior to his eye. What we have to circumscribe, by means of the
path he indicates for us, is the pre-existence of a gaze--I see only from one
point, but in my existence I am looked at from all sides. (72)
Since I see the world from my own perspective, I repress the way I am
seen by others. The gaze, then, represents a reversal of my intentionality
and a threat to my ego.55 Just as in a dream, I am shown something to
look at, which is not controlled by my expectations, with the gaze, I am
looked at from the position of the primary processes.
Lacan ties this theory of the gaze to the production of anxiety in the
face of the threat of castration: “The gaze is presented to us only in the
form of a strange contingency, symbolic of what we find on the horizon,
as the thrust of our experience, namely, the lack that constitutes castra-
tion anxiety” (72–73). From this perspective, what causes anxiety is the
reversal of our intentionality since we can no longer control what we are
experiencing.56 The ego therefore has to repress the primary processes
because these representations are not the products of our intentions: In
the dream, the slip of the tongue, and the symptom, we reveal more than
we want to reveal because we have lost control of our own minds.
Furthermore, free association is predicated on this notion that we need to
learn how to speak without intention and control in order to discover the
things we would rather repress.
The theory of the ego is thus equivalent to the concept of repression,
and this equivalence motivates Lacan to posit that the ego is a primarily
a defensive structure, and so it makes no sense to base therapy on trying
to strengthen this agency.57 Once again, we see here how theory matches
practice since the possibility of free association is predicated on the cri-
tique of ego psychology and the Western philosophical tradition.58 In
turn, the concept of the gaze relates to how our visual and virtual relation
to the world and ourselves is always predicated on the repression of the
gaze as a representation of the primary processes: “In our relation to
things, in so far as this relation is constituted by the way of vision, and
ordered in the figures of representation, something slips, passes, is trans-
mitted, from stage to stage, and is always to some degree eluded in it-
-that is what we call the gaze” (73). The gaze presents here the reversal of
our usual form of intentional awareness, and due to its threatening
nature, it must always be repressed by the controlling ego.
The cause of repression is thus centered on the ego’s need to anticipate
what enters consciousness, and this means that the primary processes
have to be repressed because they function beyond the ego’s control.
Lacan’s introduction of the gaze as a primary form of what he calls the
object (a) is shown here to be guided by the need to explain the relation
between repression and the primary processes:
There is no need for us to refer to some supposition of the existence of a

universal seer. If the function of the stain is recognized in its autonomy and
identified with that of the gaze, we can seek its track, its thread, its trace, at
every stage of the constitution of the world, in the scopic field. We will
then realize that the function of the stain and of the gaze is both that which
governs the gaze most secretly and that which always escapes from the
grasp of that form of vision that is satisfied with itself in imagining itself as
consciousness. (74)
The gaze is defined at this point in opposition to the self-satisfaction of

the imaginary ego, which relies on visual and spatial control.59 Since in
the dream and the hallucination, we are shown what to look at, we lose
82 R. Samuels
the illusion of ego control, and this loss of control is what causes anxiety.
For instance, many patients do not want to lie on a coach and free associ-
ate because they are afraid of losing control of their own minds. In fact,
one reason why it is not a good practice to have psychotic patients lie
down and just talk is that they might regress to a pure expression of the
primary processes.
In this opposition between the gaze and our usual state of conscious-
ness, we find a central cause for Lacan’s theory of the imaginary order:
Similarly, in that order, which is particularly satisfying for the subject, con-
noted in psycho-analytic experience by the term narcissism-in which I have
striven to reintroduce the essential structure it derives from its reference to
the specular image--in the satisfaction, not to say self-satisfaction, that dif-
fuses from it, which gives the subject a pretext for such a profound mecon-
naissance--and does its empire not extend as far as this reference of the
philosophical tradition represented by plenitude encountered by the sub-
ject in the mode of contemplation--can we not also grasp that which has
been eluded, namely, the function of the gaze? (74)
Although Freud introduces his theory of how the ego is formed by devel-
oping his concept of narcissism, he never fully explores the role played by
the mapping of space in the production of the ideal ego.60 What Lacan
does by turning to the field of philosophy is to show the limits of the
intentionality of consciousness. Instead of privileging the contemplative
ego of visual and cognitive control, Lacan sees the ego as based on a set of
misrecognitions that can be reversed by the presence of the gaze.
As stated above, the concept of the gaze helps us to comprehend the
conflict between the primary processes and the desire for ego control:
“What does this mean, if not that, in the so-called waking state, there is
an elision of the gaze, and an elision of the fact that not only does it look,
it also shows. In the field of the dream, on the other hand, what charac-
terizes the images is that it shows” (74). One has to only think about the
experience of dreaming to realize that on the level of the primary pro-
cesses, we are not in control of what we are perceiving or thinking. The
gaze is a threat to our narcissism and our drive to see only what we want
to see and to think only what we want to think, and the practice of psy-
choanalysis requires a reversal of this narcissism.61
In connecting Lacan’s theory to the practice of psychoanalysis, I am

not only clarifying the key concepts of the field, but I am also resisting
the academic temptation to simply apply his ideas without any connec-
tion to the fundamental system and experience from which they are
derived. For instance, in film theory, the gaze has often been used to
represent the control of narrative and culture through the masculine
direction of visual representation. However, as we have seen, the gaze
presents the opposite of control:62
It shows--but here, too, some form of ‘sliding away’ of the subject is appar-
ent. Look up some description of a dream, any one--not only the one I
referred to last time, in which, after all, what I am going to say may remain
enigmatic, but any dream--place it in its co-ordinates, and you will see that
this it shows is well to the fore. So much is it to the fore, with the charac-
teristics in which it is co-ordinated-namely, the absence of horizon, the
enclosure, of that which is contemplated in the waking state, and, also, the
character of emergence, of contrast, of stain, of its images, the intensifica-
tion of their colours--that, in the final resort, our position in the dream is
profoundly that of someone who does not see. The subject does not see
where it is leading, he follows. He may even on occasion detach himself,
tell himself that it is a dream, but in no case will he be able to apprehend
himself in the dream in the way in which, in the Cartesian cogito, he
apprehends himself as thought. (75)
Instead of us looking at the dream, we are shown what to see, and this
reversal of intentionality gives us access to unconscious material that has
been transformed by the primary processes. Lacan adds that what
Descartes got wrong in his famous “I think, therefore, I am” is the fact
that in the dream, the ego slips away. In fact, this effacement of the “I” is
similar to the Eastern meditative notion that the self is an illusion.63
In mediation, the dream state, and the hallucination, the primary pro-
cesses think without an ego, as one is forced to see what one may prefer
to repress: “In a dream, he is a butterfly. What does this mean? It means
that he sees the butterfly in his reality as gaze. What are so many figures,
so many shapes, so many colours, if not this gratuitous showing, in which
is marked for us the primal nature of the essence of the gaze” (76). The
dream here presents the reversal of our normal consciousness through the
84 R. Samuels
lack of ego intentionality and the presence of the gaze. From a clinical
perspective, this theory of reversal is so important because it helps to
explain why we need free association to move beyond repression in order
to access unconscious material.
Transference
Following his articulation of the gaze and the reversal of intentionality,
Lacan introduces the concept of transference: “This brings us to the func-
tion of the transference. For this indeterminate of pure being that has no
point of access to determination, this primary position of the uncon-
scious that is articulated as constituted by the indetermination of the
subject--it is to this that the transference gives us access, in an enigmatic
way. It is a Gordian knot that leads us to the following conclusion--the
subject is looking for his certainty” (129). Lacan posits here that since the
subject of the primary processes lacks intentionality and a determinant
status, the patient seeks certainty through transference. In other words,
just as Descartes has to return to the idea of a perfect and all-knowing
god in order to escape from his own feelings of radical doubt, the patient
in analysis idealizes the analyst in order to find a person who knows and
is certain.64
Following Freud, Lacan stresses that in transference, the subject hands
over responsibility over to the Other:
One may go so far as to believe that the opacity of the trauma--as it was
then maintained in its initial function by Freud’s thought, that is to say, in
my terms, its resistance to signification--is then specifically held responsi-
ble for the limits of remembering. And, after all, it is hardly surprising,
given my own theorization, that I should see this as a highly significant
moment in the transfer of powers from the subject to the Other, what I call
the capital Other (le grand Autre), the locus of speech and, potentially, the
locus of truth. (129)
Since the traumatic real resists symbolization, and the gaze of the primary
processes reverses intentional control, the patient in analysis seeks to find
some certainty by seeing the analyst as the One who knows The Truth. In
fact, Freud argued that when a patient suddenly stopped free associating,
he was sure that the subject was thinking about the presence of the
analyst.65
Lacan insists that we should see the transference as a necessary obstacle
to free association and the discovery of unconscious material: “The trans-
ference is the means by which the communication of the unconscious is
interrupted, by which the unconscious closes up again. Far from being
the handing over of powers to the unconscious, the transference is, on the
contrary, its closing up” (130). Repressed material and the formations of
the primary processes are thus avoided through the transference, but this
avoidance has to be worked through.66 However, what Lacan finds in
many forms of therapy and analysis is a reinforcing of the transference,
which is caused by a misunderstanding of its essential structure:
There is a conception which, wherever it is formulated, can only contami-

nate practice--I am referring to the conception which would have the anal-
ysis of the transference proceed on the basis of an alliance with the healthy
part of the subject’s ego, and consists in appealing to his common sense, by
way of pointing out to him the illusory character of certain of his actions
in his relation with the analyst. This is a thesis that subverts what it is all
about, namely the bringing to awareness of this split in the subject, realized
here, in fact, in presence. To appeal to some healthy part of the subject
thought to be there in the real, capable of judging with the analyst what is
happening in the transference, is to misunderstand that it is precisely this
part that is concerned in the transference, that it is this part that closes the
door, or the window, or the shutters, or whatever--and that the beauty with
whom one wishes to speak is there, behind, only too willing to open the
shutters again. That is why it is at this moment that interpretation becomes
decisive, for it is to the beauty one must speak. (130–131)
From Lacan’s perspective, the analyst’s interpretation should be aimed at

enabling the discovery of unconscious material, but what has to be
avoided is feeding the illusion that the analyst is the one who knows the
truth of reality.67 While many other analysts and therapist seek to form an
alliance between the “healthy” parts of the patient’s ego and the analyst’s
reality testing, Lacan sees this relationship as only sustaining a defensive
illusion.68
86 R. Samuels
As Freud in his Project bases transference on the initial dependence of

the helpless child on the caregiver, Lacan emphasizes the relation between
love and deception:
When I introduced you to the subject of Cartesian certainty as the neces-

sary starting-point of all our speculations as to what the unconscious
reveals, I pointed out the role of essential balancer played in Descartes by
the Other which, it is said, must on no account be deceptive. In analysis,
the danger is that this Other will be deceived. This is not the only dimen-
sion to be apprehended in the transference. But one has to admit that if
there is one domain in which, in discourse, deception has some chance of
success, it is certainly love that provides its model. What better way of
assuring oneself, on the point on which one is mistaken, than to persuade
the other of the truth of what one says! Is not this a fundamental structure
of the dimension of love that the transference gives us the opportunity of
depicting? In persuading the other that he has that which may complement
us, we assure ourselves of being able to continue to misunderstand precisely
what we lack. (133)
Lacan’s main point here is that the transference is structured by two

demands: one demand is for the analyst to be a source of truth, and the
other demand is for the analyst to be the missing thing that will complete
the subject.69 In seeing both of these demands as being based on decep-
tion, Lacan returns to Freud’s theory of love, hypnosis, and group forma-
tions since the foundation of the primal social link is founded on the
helpless child’s demand for love, recognition, and understanding, which
requires the deceptive idealization of the Other.70
Lacan affirms that because most therapists and analysts do not under-
stand the deceptive and idealizing nature of transference, they try to get
their patients to conform to an illusionary mode of pleasure: “He then
seeks for assurances in theories that operate in the direction of an ortho-
paedic, conformist therapeutics, providing access for the subject to the
most mythical conception of happiness [English in the original-Tr.].
Together with an uncritical manipulation of evolutionism, this is what
sets the tone of our era” (135). Through this combination of social con-
formity and evolutionary theory, analysts and therapists seek to motivate
their patients to assimilate to a cultural ideal of pleasure. In fact, Lacan
argues that the first generation of analysts leaving Europe to set up shop
in America wanted their patients to follow the same path of assimilating
to American culture that they had to follow.71 From this perspective, if
the analyst feeds the transference relationship, the patient will be pushed
to conform to the social ideals of the analyst.
One of Lacan’s important moves is to tie the idealizing transference to
the narcissistic relationship between the ideal ego and the ego ideal: “it is
in the Other that the subject is constituted as ideal, that he has to regulate
the completion of what comes as ego, or ideal ego--which is not the ego
ideal--that is to say, to constitute himself in his imaginary reality” (144).
The idealization of the analyst is thus driven by a desire to idealize the self
since the ego ideal is the place in the Other that subject sees himself as
loveable.72 For instance, in his theory of the mirror stage, Lacan pointed
out how after a child becomes happy by seeing its own completed image
in the mirror, it turns to the caregiver to get a look of approval.73 The
Other, as caregiver, stands here for the social order of cultural ideals, and
so what the subject is looking for is not only the verification of the ideal
ego but also a recognition of his or her conformity to cultural ideals.74
Lacan adds that the ego ideal is the place from which the subject looks
at himself and is also the place from which he speaks: “it is in the space of
the Other that he sees himself and the point from which he looks at him-
self is also in that space. Now, this is also the point from which he
speaks … “(144). Lacan posits that that we see ourselves from the posi-
tion of cultural ideals internalized in the form of the ego ideal; moreover,
our speech is also derived from this idealized cultural Other. This theory
of transference can be considered to be a restating of Freud’s argument
from his Project, where he affirms that the parent’s response to the help-
less child’s cry represents the origins of human communication and
morality.
In this structure, transference presents the fundamental way that we
become social subjects, and it is precisely this mode of alienating confor-
mity that has to be exposed through analysis: “the transference is not the
enactment (mise en acte) of the illusion that seems to drive us to this
alienating identification that any conformity constitutes, even when it is
with an ideal model, of which the analyst, in any case, cannot be the
support--the transference is the enactment of the reality of the
88 R. Samuels
unconscious” (146). In contrast to the theory that the patient should

identify with the ideals of the analyst as a way of conforming to the
expectations of society, Lacan insists that the transference should be used
to enable an encounter with the reality of repressed material.
The Unconscious and Sexuality

Following Freud, Lacan posits that the reality of the unconscious is
shaped by sexuality, but sexuality is itself defined by the ways societies
symbolize and structure natural differences:
Existence, thanks to sexual division, rests upon copulation, accentuated in

two poles that time--honoured tradition has tried to characterize as the
male pole and the female pole. This is because the mainspring of reproduc-
tion is to be found there. Around this fundamental reality, there have
always been grouped, harmonized, other characteristics, more or less bound
up with the finality of reproduction. I can do no more than point out here,
what, in the biological register, is associated with sexual differentiation, in
the form of secondary sexual characteristics and functions. We know today
how, in society, a whole distribution of functions in a play of alternation is
grounded on this terrain. It is modern structuralism that has brought this
out best, by showing that it is at the level of matrimonial alliance, as
opposed to natural generation, to biological lineal descent--at the level
therefore of the signifier--that the fundamental exchanges take place and it
is there that we find once again that the most elementary structures of
social functioning are inscribed in the terms of a combinatory. (150)
One of the essential ideas behind this description of sexuality is the dia-
lectical relationship between biology and culture.75 Instead of simply
denying the importance of nature or rejecting social mediation, Lacan
centers his theory of sexuality on the combination of nature and cul-
ture.76 In other words, societies use biological sexual differences in order
to structure social relationships through a system of oppositions con-
tained in a combinatory system.77 The signifier plays an important role
because it allows for the translation of natural distinctions into cultural
oppositions. Furthermore, it is through guilt, shame, and fear that the

drives are subjected to the social order.78
The reality of the unconscious is therefore sexual because we repress
the conflict between nature and culture. Thus, the argument here is not
that the primary processes are by definition sexual or that the drives are
purely social; instead, it is the unconscious that is defined by repressed
sexuality.79 Therefore, in contrast to Jung, Lacan rejects the “primitive”
way of using sex to structure society: “Now, Jungianism--in so far as it
makes of the primitive modes of articulating the world something that
survives, the kernel, he says, of the psyche itself--is necessarily accompa-
nied by a repudiation of the term libido, by the neutralization of this
function by recourse to a notion of psychical energy, a much more gener-
alized notion of interest” (153). While for Jung, our primary processes
are defined by the internalization of primitive cultural oppositions, Lacan
highlights the Freudian notion of desire:
For what Freud intends to make present in the function of this libido is not
some archaic relation, some primitive mode of access of thoughts, some
world that is there like some shade of an ancient world surviving in ours.
The libido is the effective presence, as such, of desire. It is what now remains
to indicate desire--which is not substance, but which is there at the level of
the primary process, and which governs the very mode of our approach. (153)
Desire is here predicated on the automatic symbolism of the primary

processes in relation to the essential conflict between social norms and
regulations on the one hand and the drives of the individual on the
other hand.80
As a reminder of the fundamental conflict between nature and culture,
desire can be seen as that which results from the difference between what
we need and what we demand:
I maintain that it is at the level of analysis--if we can take a few more steps
forward--that the nodal point by which the pulsation of the unconscious is
linked to sexual reality must be revealed. This nodal point is called desire,
and the theoretical elaboration that I have pursued in recent years will
show you, through each stage of clinical experience, how desire is situated
90 R. Samuels
in dependence on demand--which, by being articulated in signifiers, leaves

a metonymic remainder that runs under it, an element that is not indeter-
minate, which is a condition both, absolute and unapprehensible, an ele-
ment necessarily lacking, unsatisfied, impossible, misconstrued (meconnu),
an element that is called desire. (154)
What Lacan is describing here is that on the most basic level, when the
child asks the caregiver for help, the child is driven by an unconscious
desire for love, knowledge, and recognition, and this desire brings the
reality of unconscious desire into the transference: “it means that in the
transference we must see established the weight of sexual reality. Largely
unknown and, up to a point, masked, it runs beneath what happens at
the level of the analytic discourse, which is well and truly, as it takes form,
that of demand--it is not for nothing that all experience leads us to throw
it on to the side of the terms frustration and gratification” (155). Here we
see how Lacan’s theories have direct implications for the practice of psy-
choanalysis: the reason why the analyst does not satisfy the demands of
the patient is that these demands cannot be fully satiated because they are
supported by an underlying impossible desire for complete love, knowl-
edge, and recognition.81 By not fulfilling the demands of the patient, the
analyst is able to allow these desires to surface for the first time.
The Drives and the Pleasure Principle

Lacan’s discussion of sexuality and desire in the unconscious leads him to
articulate the final concept of the drive, which he is quick to distinguish
from biology and evolution: “The constancy of the thrust forbids any
assimilation of the drive to a biological function, which always has a
rhythm. The first thing Freud says about the drive is, if I may put it this
way, that it has no day or night, no spring or autumn, no rise and fall. It
is a constant force” (165). The compulsive aspect of our drives therefore
reveals a non-biological influence to human sexuality.82 In fact, Lacan
adds that he sees drives and satisfaction as two opposed forces: “Between
these two terms--drive and satisfaction--there is set up an extreme antin-
omy that reminds us that the use of the function of the drive has for me
no other purpose than to put in question what is meant by satisfaction”

(166). As he will later highlight, even subjects’ symptoms give them sat-
isfaction, and yet they are still unhappy, which causes them to seek help:
It is clear that those with whom we deal, the patients, are not satisfied, as
one says, with what they are. And yet, we know that everything they are,
everything they experience, even their symptoms, involves satisfaction.
They satisfy something that no doubt runs counter to that with which they
might be satisfied, or rather, perhaps, they give satisfaction to something.
They are not content with their state, but all the same, being in a state that
gives so little content, they are content. The whole question boils down to
the following--what is contented here? (166)
If the pleasure principle means that we find satisfaction in escaping ten-

sion and reality, the question remains why we are not content with our
own pleasure?
Lacan’s response to this conflict between the drives and the pleasure
principle is the following: “I would say that to which they give satisfac-
tion by the ways of displeasure is nevertheless--and this is commonly
accepted--the law of pleasure. Let us say that, for this sort of satisfaction,
they give themselves too much trouble. Up to a point, it is this too much
trouble that is the sole justification of our intervention” (166). Lacan’s
argument here helps us to think about the clinical implications of work-
ing with addicts and perverts since in both of these cases, the subject
appears to be driven by the satisfaction of their impulses.83 While many
analysts argue that you cannot analyze a pervert, what Lacan shows us is
that the drive is never fully satisfied, and so the object of desire is ulti-
mately lost and impossible.84 What then makes an addiction compulsive
is the lack of satiation: “it is precisely because no object of any Not, need,
can satisfy the drive. Even when you stuff the mouth--the mouth that
opens in the register of the drive--it is not the food that satisfies it, it is,
as one says, the pleasure of the mouth. That is why, in analytic experience,
the oral drive is encountered at the final term, in a situation in which it
does no more than order the menu” (167). Lacan returns here to the rela-
tion between desire, demand, and need; since our demands will never
satisfy our needs, the satisfaction of our desire remains impossible.85
92 R. Samuels
One reason why our drives are always partial and limited is that their
fundamental aim is defined by auto-erotism: “If the drive may be satisfied
without attaining what, from the point of view of a biological totalization
of function, would be the satisfaction of its end of reproduction, it is
because it is a partial drive, and its aim is simply this return into cir-
cuit … This theory is present in Freud. He tells us somewhere that the
ideal model for auto-eroticism would be a single mouth kissing itself …
(179). In basing the sex drive on self-satisfaction, Freud reveals the self-
reflexive feedback loop inherent to our drives, which represents a break
with biology and evolution.86
The compulsive circuit of auto-erotism is coupled with the fact that
any object can become a cause of human desire, and yet we become fix-
ated on particular objects.87 Lacan adds that the only thing that pushes us
to move from an oral object to an anal or phallic object is the interven-
tion of an outside social force: “The passage from the oral drive to the
anal drive can be produced not by a process of maturation, but by the
intervention of something that does not belong to the field of the drive-
-by the intervention, the overthrow, of the demand of the Other” (180).
What Lacan is showing here is how human sexuality is so different from
other animals since the object of our desire is arbitrary and the cause of
our development is social. The fundamental concept of the drive there-
fore represents a major challenge for neuroscience, pharmacology, and
evolutionary psychology since human behavior is shown to be motivated
by impulses and demands going against the laws of nature and
evolution.88
From Lacan’s perspective, unlike instincts, drives break with the evolu-
tionary goals of reproduction and self-preservation: “The dialectic of the
drive is profoundly different both from that which belongs to the order
of love and from that which belongs to the well-being of the subject”
(206). In contrast to both narcissistic love and the pursuit of individual
survival, drives represent a compulsive demand for an impossible satisfac-
tion. We see this structure most clearly with addictions where the pursuit
of pleasure can result in self-destruction.89
From a clinical perspective, it is important to understand how Freud’s
diagnostic category of perversion has been mostly replaced by the border-
line personality disorder.90 One reason for this substitution is that the
post-Freudian standard diagnostic manual (DSM) seeks to eliminate psy-

choanalysis in order to focus on a more scientific and biological model.
However, if we understand that perverse subjects are dominated by their
drives, then we see that the lack of impulse control and the dominance of
destructive addictive behaviors in what is now called borderline person-
alities reveals the non-biological aspects of human desire.91 Guided by the
pleasure principle’s goal of avoiding all tension and unpleasure, perverse
borderline drives seek to produce and then eliminate stimulation. As in
the structure of an orgasm, the aim of the desire is to enter a state of non-
desire.92 Even if we see this law of inertia as a biological principle, it is a
biology that goes against evolution.
orking Through Transference and the Drives

W
at the End of Analysis
Since drives are determined by desires that can never be fully satisfied, the
non-response of the analyst to the patient’s demands allows these funda-
mental desires to emerge. For Lacan, coupled with this revelation of
desire, we find the overcoming of transference and narcissism at the end
of analysis:
It would be odd all the same if this subject who is supposed to know, sup-
posed to know something about you, and who, in fact, knows nothing,
should be regarded as liquidated, at the very moment when, at the end of
the analysis, he begins at last, about you at least, to know something. It is
therefore at the moment what he takes on most substance, that the subject
who is supposed to know ought to be supposed to have been vaporized. It
can only be a question, then, if the term liquidation has any meaning, of
the permanent liquidation of that deception by which the transference
tends to be exercised in the direction of the closing up of the unconscious.
I have already explained to you how it works, by referring to it the narcis-
sistic relation by which the subject becomes an object worthy of love. From
his reference to him who must love, him, he tries to induce the Other into
a mirage relation in which he convinces him of being worthy of love. (267)
94 R. Samuels
Since transference is based on the fundamental desire for love, recogni-

tion, and understanding, the liquidation of the transference entails a new
relation to others.93 What has to be overcome is the idealization of the
Other as the place of knowledge and care. Lacan highlights how this ide-
alization is driven by the narcissistic desire of the patient to feel worthy of
love, and in this structure, imaginary love functions to block access to
unconscious material.94
In turning to Freud’s theory of identification in his Group Psychology
and the Analysis of the Ego, Lacan emphasizes how transference love relies
on the relation between the ego ideal and the ideal ego: “The point of the
ego ideal is that from which the subject will see himself, as one says, as
others see him--which will enable him to support himself in a dual situa-
tion that is satisfactory for him from the point of view of love” (268).
Love here is posited as a form of alienation and social conformity because
it is based on the subject identifying with how others see him or her from
the perspective of particular cultural ideals.95 As we see in narcissistic
personality disorders and obsessive-compulsive neurosis, the patient per-
ceives the self as an other for the Other.96 This doubled alienation is
derived from the underlying desire for love, recognition, and care.
However, in trying to get the Other to recognize the subject, the subject
has to represent the self through the Other’s ideals.97
By equating transference with deception and narcissism, Lacan reveals
how society gets us to see ourselves from the perspective of cultural ide-
als, norms, and morality: “As a specular mirage, love is essentially decep-
tion. It is situated in the field established at the level of the pleasure
reference, of that sole signifier necessary to introduce a perspective cen-
tered on the Ideal point, capital I, placed somewhere in the Other, from
which the Other sees me, in the form I like to be seen” (268). The para-
dox here is that I would like to be seen by the Other, but in order to
accomplish this task, I have to see myself through the eyes of this social
representative.98
In order to break this narcissistic deadlock, the analyst has to find a
way to maintain a distance between the analyst’s presence and the patient’s
demand for identification: “There is a beyond to this identification, and
this beyond is defined by the relation and the distance of the objet petit a
to the idealizing capital I of identification” (271–272). Lacan’s main

point here is that the analyst has to refuse being the ego ideal of his
patient by resisting the temptation to be the One who knows and cares.99
Lacan highlights that the development of Freud’s analytic technique is
in part inspired by Freud’s understanding of his original practice of hyp-
nosis, and that by the time of his Group Psychology and the Analysis of the
Ego, Freud drew a connection between hypnosis and what Lacan calls
“collective fascination” (272). In arguing that in hypnosis, passionate love
relations, and social groups, we find the same uncritical submission to an
idealized Other, Freud offers not only a critique of therapy but also an
analysis of fascism: “Things are such that the only view of the schema that
Freud gives of hypnosis, gives by the same token the formula of collective
fascination, which was an increasing reality at the time when he wrote
that article” (272). Since Freud was writing this text before the start of
World War II, we see how his understanding of transference relates to
both clinical treatment and social organization.100 The key then to both
the political group and the analytic relation is the combination of the ego
ideal with the gaze of the Other: “Freud gives its status to hypnosis by
superposing at the same place the objet a as such and this signifying map-
ping that is called the ego ideal’ (272). Since the ego ideal is the social
place that determines how I see myself as loveable, when this ideal is
attached to the gaze, as the transcending perspective of the primary pro-
cesses, the subject is forced to suspend all reality testing and submit to the
all-powerful leader or lover.101
At the end of his seminar, we begin to see why Lacan introduced the
concept of the gaze as one of the main forms of what he calls the object
(a). As the cause of the reversal of ego intentionality, the gaze disempow-
ers the self, which opens the subject up to social submission:
adding that the objet a may be identical with the gaze. Well, Freud pre-
cisely indicates the nodal point of hypnosis when he formulates that the
object is certainly an element that is difficult to grasp in it, but an
incontestable one, namely, the gaze of the hypnotizer. Remember what I
articulated for you about the function of the gaze, of its fundamental rela-
tions to the ink-blot, of the fact that there is already in the world some-
96 R. Samuels
thing that looks before there is a view for it to see, that the ocellus of animal
mimicry is indispensible as a presupposition to the fact that a subject may
see and be fascinated, that the fascination of the ink-blot is anterior to the
view that discovers it. (272–273)
Lacan’s theory of the gaze is therefore developed partially in order to

explain how fascination works in love, hypnosis, and social groups.102 In
all of these situations, the imaginary and social identification with cul-
tural ideals is coupled with a loss of control and intentionality. Lacan
adds that the end of analysis requires the analyst to reverse the hypnotic
relationship by allowing for the fall of idealization and the separation of
the gaze from the ego ideal: “It is from this idealization that the analyst
has to fall in order to be the support of the separating [object] a, in so far
as his desire allows him, in an upside-down hypnosis, to embody the
hypnotized patient” (273). Instead of being the cause of idealization and
fascination, the analyst has to accept being subjected to the primary pro-
cesses of the patient.103In fact, for Lacan, the key to psychoanalytic tech-
nique is for the analyst to let his or her desire remain unexpressed and
unknowable: “It is in as much as the analyst’s desire, which remains an x,
tends in a direction that is the exact opposite of identification, that the
crossing of the plane of identification is possible … “ (274). This call to
keep the analyst’s desire unknown contrasts with the current model of the
analyst or therapist revealing their own thoughts and feelings.104
In Lacan’s return to Freud’s fundamental concepts, we have seen the
close relation between theory and practice, and while some critics think
Lacan is an intellectual whose obscure theories are divorced from clinical
realities, his work can help us to understand the reasons and potential
pitfalls of analytic technique. However, I have also revealed the problem-
atic way that Lacan confuses the unconscious and the primary processes
and replaces the reality principle with the concept of repetition in rela-
tion to the unsymbolized real. In the next chapter, I further clarify why it
is vital to understand these fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis in
order to understand how to practice as an analyst.
Notes
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the Mental Lives of Savages and. Routledge, 2013.
98 R. Samuels
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Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 2017.
30. Lacan, Jacques, Alan Sheridan, and Malcolm Bowie. “The Subversion
of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire in the Freudian Unconscious.”
Écrits. Routledge, 2020. 323–360.
31. Rajchman, John. Truth and Eros: Foucault, Lacan and the question of
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32. Samuels, Robert. “Science and the reality principle.” Freud for the
twenty-first century. Palgrave Pivot, Cham, 2019. 5–16.
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SubStance 23.1 (1994): 24–40.
34. Zupancic, Alenka. Ethics of the real: Kant and Lacan. Verso Trade, 2011.
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realism.” Journal of Critical Realism 9.1 (2010): 5–32.
36. Bistoen, Gregory, Stijn Vanheule, and Stef Craps. “Nachträglichkeit: A
Freudian perspective on delayed traumatic reactions.” Theory &
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37. Cardoso, Mauricio José d’Escragnolle, and Rosane Zétola Lustoza.
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Other Works. 1957. 141–158.
40. Shepherdson, Charles. Lacan and the Limits of Language. Fordham
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the Mental Lives of Savages and. Routledge, 2013.
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Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 2017.
43. Gutiérrez-Peláez, Miguel. “Ferenczi’s anticipation of the traumatic
dimension of language: A meeting with Lacan.” Contemporary
Psychoanalysis 51.1 (2015): 137–154.
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100 R. Samuels
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5
The Desire of the Analyst
and the American Repression
of Psychoanalysis
In looking at two post-Freudian thinkers, I have examined how psycho-

analysis is being (mis)understood within analysis itself. To further clarify
what shapes these misunderstandings and what is at stake in this repres-
sion of Freud’s fundamental concepts, I will interpret Mitchell Wilson’s
The Analyst Desire.1 I am choosing this book because Wilson is a main-
stream American analyst who also has a deep interest in Lacan. However,
my main focus will be on how an incorrect understanding of Freud’s
theory results in a questionable analytic technique.
The Ethics of Care

One of the framing metaphors that Wilson uses throughout his book is
the idea that the analyst acts as a host or inn keeper for the patient:
“While the analyst is a gracious host—and part of that grace is knowing
that she will inevitably reveal some of her own concerns and desires to her
charge—her attention and concern are directed to the patient for his
benefit. The vector of ethical responsibility goes in one direction” (16).
By arguing that the ethical responsibility in analysis belongs solely to the
106 R. Samuels
analyst, Wilson presents a non-psychoanalytic notion of ethics because

he fails to see how the central responsibility of the patient is to speak
without censoring in order to discover the truth of their inner and outer
reality.2 Likewise, the analyst’s main desire is for the patient to free associ-
ate, and this is accomplished by the analyst remaining neutral.3 The ethi-
cal responsibility of the analyst and the patient therefore rely on a certain
faith in the analytic process.
In order to remain neutral, it is essential for the analyst to take on a
position of self-effacement, which may appear to be cold and impersonal,
but it is necessary for the working through of the transference.4 Since the
patient comes to analysis with a fundamental demand for love, recogni-
tion, and understanding, the non-response of the analyst allows for these
unconscious desires to emerge. However, as Lacan warns, if the analyst
takes on the position of the one who knows or cares, then the patient will
be unable to recognize and then overcome these underlying unconscious
forces.5 Yet, it appears that like so many other analysts and therapists,
Wilson does not accept the position of the analyst as he posits the need
to be kind, comforting, and understanding: “Anything might be said.
Dialogue is implicit, even if the analyst is silent in her response. There is
the direct discourse of positive content: ‘This happened, and that hap-
pened. I feel this way and that way’—the normal currency of conversa-
tional relating between parties. There develops ‘the bond of safe company,’
the comfort born of the analyst’s reliable kindness, willingness to speak
truthfully, and to meet consistently” (16–17). What Wilson appears to
miss here is that psychoanalysis is an artificial relationship unlike any
other mode of communication.6 In fact, one of the major reasons why
someone goes to a psychoanalyst is because friends and family have not
been able to help with the patient’s symptoms; in order to make a change,
a very different type of relationship has to be established, and yet many
analysts resist this difference.
Wilson’s resistance to analysis itself can be seen in his description of the
basic responsibilities of the patient and the analyst: “while the patient has
two clear commitments—to come to the agreed-upon sessions and to pay
the analyst for them—as I said earlier, the vector of care and responsibil-
ity goes in one direction, from analyst to patient” (18). What Wilson
leaves out from this description is the responsibility of the patient to
5 The Desire of the Analyst and the American Repression… 107
follow the fundamental rule, which is free association. Moreover, the ana-
lyst is responsible for suspending judgment so that the patient can also do
the same.7 This is clearly not an everyday relationship, and that is why it
is so important to understand the theory supporting the practice of
psychoanalysis.
Although it is sometimes necessary to deviate from strict analytic neu-
trality, it is vital to realize how the analytic process can be easily subverted
when the analyst refuses to play the required role.8 In fact, Wilson appears
to disregard these foundations of analytic practice in the following pas-
sage: “Over the years I have had occasion to drive patients from my office
to doctors’ offices and emergency rooms. I have made phone calls on
their behalf that they could not. I have had them bring their computers
to the office to do work that had otherwise been languishing for months
or longer. And I have been known to prepare a cup of tea or two” (18).
Instead of performing the optimal frustration of the patient’s drives,
Wilson wants to be experienced as a caring host and helper.9 The major
problem with this approach is that not only does one feed the demands
of the patient, but once one steps away from the position of being an
empty mirror, it is difficult to return to being a blank screen. Since the
analyst wants the content of the transference to come from the patient’s
imagination, any disclosures by the analyst taints the process.10
To be clear, as we shall see, the analyst cannot remain completely silent
or passive, but the interventions have to be directed towards the goal of
free association and the neutralizing of the artificial transference relation-
ship. The trick is how to interpret without being the subject who is sup-
posed to know or the moral authority.11 Unfortunately, the difficulty of
maintaining this analytic position has been increased because theorists
like Wilson want to base their practice of therapy on the model of being
a good mother: “All of these aspects of practice fall under the umbrella of
the matricial. Matricial space is the phrase that to me best captures the
background conditions that facilitate—that hold, flexibly, steadily—the
ongoing conversational engagement that is psychoanalysis” (18). In this
focus on the analyst taking on the attributes of a good mother, Wilson
and others seek to envision analytic treatment as a form of reparative
parenting.12 As Lacan insists, one of the problems with this model is that
it only serves to feed the narcissistic demand for love, understanding, and
108 R. Samuels
recognition.13 Since the ideal ego wants to be recognized by the ego ideal
while repressing the super-ego, the re-enactment of the good mother rela-
tionship functions to strengthen the ego’s defenses.14 In Oedipal terms,
this form of therapy seeks to symbolically kill off the father in order to
maintain the love of the mother. However, what Wilson and others do
not realize is that in order for analysis to progress, the narcissistic transfer-
ence has to be revealed and called into question.15
In a very telling passage, Wilson traces his analytic position to a theory
of maternal care that appears to function to extend the Oedipus complex:
The phrase matricial space, and the theorization of it, comes from Viviane
Chetrit-Vatine. Her book, The Ethical Seduction of the Analytic Situation
(2014), is an extended investigation into the strangeness and risk that
inhere in any meaningful encounter with the other. The foundational
encounter with the other is the mother/caretaker in relation to her/his/
their child; the psychoanalytic encounter evokes and re-figures this original
relational moment. (33–34)
While Freud stressed the conflicted nature of human relationships,

Wilson turns to the figure of the all-loving mother in order to argue that
the analyst should desire to be this idealized care-giver.16 One possible
reason for this misunderstanding of psychoanalytic theory and practice is
the growing dominance of certain feminist perspectives within the gen-
eral culture and analysis itself.17 In response to the perception that Freud
saw the identification with the father as the solution to all social and
personal problems, many analysts and therapists have sought to empha-
size the role played by the mother; however, what should be clear from
Freud’s work is that the analyst has to resist playing any role, especially a
parental one.18
Wilson believes that the analyst should embody a caring mother
because unlike other animals, humans are highly dependent on caregivers
for an extended period of time: “These conditions are all the more acutely
present within the context of what Jean Laplanche (1999) calls the pri-
mary anthropological situation of infancy, that radically dependent rela-
tion between the infans, the helpless infant, and the adult caretaker. The
psychoanalytic situation recapitulates the primary one, and so, like the
primary caregivers of a small child, the analyst is in a position of ethical

responsibility for the other, her patient” (19). As I have pointed out in
previous chapters, this fundamental relationship of dependency is at the
center of Freud’s theory of transference, but the goal of analysis is to work
through this relationship and not reinforce it. In short, the ethics of psy-
choanalysis is directed towards the discovery of the truth of reality and
not the recreation of an idealized relationship of dependency where the
responsibility for meeting unmet needs is transferred from the subject to
the Other.19
It is important to point out that many feminist psychoanalysts have
critiqued Freud’s focus on separation and independence because they see
it as a masculine, anti-social desire predicated on promoting the competi-
tive masculine individualist of modern capitalism.20 What these critiques
often fail to understand is that the neutrality of the analyst and the free
association of the analysand are founded on suspending judgment and
allowing for the subject to explore the effects of all ideologies and identi-
ties.21 The analyst simply does not take sides or try to take on the role of
being a mother or father; instead, a space is cleared for the patient to
explore how these social and political norms and values have shaped their
existence.22 Unfortunately, Wilson cannot accept the neutrality of the
analyst, and so he continues to equate this position with a series of social
role models:
For the patient, the physicianly analyst is a powerful activator of the trans-
ference neurosis and the working alliance. The patient’s image of the doctor
stirs up memories, fantasies, and feelings from childhood of an authorita-
tive, arbitrary, incomprehensible, and magical figure who possessed the
power of the omnipotent, omniscient parents. It is the doctor who takes
over when the parents are sick and afraid. It is the doctor who has the right
to explore the naked body, and who has no fear or disgust of blood, mucus,
vomit, urine, or feces. He is the rescuer from pain and panic, the establisher
of order from chaos, provider of emergency functions performed by the
mother in the first years of life. In addition, the physician inflicts pain,
pierces the flesh, and intrudes into every opening in the body. He is remi-
niscent of the mother of bodily intimacy as well as the representative of the
sadomasochistic fantasies involving both parents. (19–20)
110 R. Samuels
This equation of the analyst with the caring doctor goes against Freud’s
idea that medicine wants nothing to do with the unconscious, hysterical
symptoms, or the unconscious.23 In fact, when the patient places the
analyst in the position of the caring physician, the idealizing transference
is not only activated but it becomes reinforced as one chooses the cure of
love over the cure of analysis.24 Wilson simply resists seeing how his the-
ory and practice end up feeding the transference instead of clearing a
space to work through it.
Although it is very tempting and gratifying for the analyst to feel ideal-
ized by the patient, this type of relationship serves to re-enforce the trans-
ference in an imaginary manner.25 As Lacan has pointed out, when the
patient idealizes the analyst, the patient places the Other in the position
of the ego ideal, which then is manipulated to recognize and verify the
patient’s self-idealization.26 Like someone who is addicted to placing pic-
tures of themselves on the Web so others can “like” their image, the desire
to be recognized by an idealized spectator feeds the unconscious demand
for control and satisfaction.27 Instead of recognizing the pathological
nature of idealization in analysis, Wilson expresses how good it feels to be
admired by his patient: “Relationally, Paul feels relieved that I showed I
had survived his attacks, and did it in a way that reached him, and also in
a way that he could admire” (24). In this representation of the dual rela-
tion between the analyst and the patient, the patient admires the analyst
who is able to tolerate aggression; however, we have to ask if this concep-
tion of analysis enables free association and the discovery of unconscious
content.28 From Lacan’s perspective, it is a mistake to see the analytic
relation in a dualistic manner because this type of structure locks both
subjects into an imaginary world of envy, rivalry, identification, and
idealization.29
To break out from this imaginary dualism, the analyst has to refrain
from feeding the transference by remaining neutral and impersonal.
Clearly, this type of position goes against our natural tendency to care for
the other and make immediate problems go away, and yet, the only way
for someone to discover something new is if they stop acting in a natural
or intuitive manner. The power of psychoanalysis, then, is that is offers a
new type of relationship that is radically different from other forms of
social interaction, and this means that the patient should always experi-
ence an analytic session as something strange and different.30
Comforting the Patient

However, the strangeness of the unconscious and the analytic relation-
ship is often repressed in many forms of therapy because the therapists
seek to bring immediate comfort to their patients. Wilson describes this
therapeutic impulse in the following manner: “Through this repurposing
of speech the strange is then made more familiar” (27). Rather than see-
ing analysis as the discovery of something new and different, Wilson
stresses the way language can be used to make the strange appear familiar.
In other words, analysis becomes a method for repression as unconscious
material is translated into the discourse of normal communication.31
As an effort to be a good host and a loving mother for his patients,
Wilson reverses Lacan’s insistence that the analyst take on the position of
impersonality: “Lacan was right to lay claim to the speech relation and its
structuring effects as the central organizing endeavor of psychoanalysis.
He was simply wrong, to be blunt about it, in so vigorously cautioning
the analyst to refuse the personal engagement, and to view with great
skepticism any attention paid to the qualities of the therapeutic relation-
ship, reducing—in his terms—the subject to an ego” (30). In arguing
against the neutrality of the analyst, Wilson reveals how he borrows psy-
choanalytic terms from Lacan and Freud, but he removes their original
intent so that they now have an opposing meaning. In fact, the title of his
book is derived from Lacan’s theory of the desire of the analyst, which is
very telling because Wilson presents a radical misunderstanding of what
Lacan meant by this term.32
What Wilson and others fail to accept is the idea that desire is always
for something one does not have, and so when Lacan refers to the desire
of the analyst, he is not referring to something that the analyst knows or
possess.33 Instead, the analyst’s desire remains an unknown variable for
the patient, which then becomes a source for fantasy, transference, and
projection. Lacan may say that the desire of the analyst is for absolute
difference, but this definition only reiterates the presence of an absence.34
112 R. Samuels
As the unknowable object causing the patient to desire, the analyst is a

cause and not a goal or value.35 Moreover, by resisting identification and
idealization, the analyst clears a space for the patient’s free discovery of
unconscious material. In fact, Wilson does at times recognize this need
for the analyst to break out of a narcissistic relation with the self and the
other: “Any position the analyst maintains, especially one based on psy-
choanalytic theory that one avers to the true—really believes in, and
really thinks is right in the veridical sense of the word—can fall prey to
excessive narcissistic investment, and serve the purposes of shoring up the
analyst’s wavering ego. The analyst’s desire is always a position contrary to
her narcissism in whatever form that investment takes” (33). If in narcis-
sism, the subject wants the idealized self-image to be verified and recog-
nized by an idealized Other or cultural ideal, then it is vital for the analyst
to suspend this imaginary mode of relating.36
Writing about Analysis

Just as Freud realized that the recounting of a dream is always being
revised through the secondary processes, Wilson affirms that when an
analyst is discussing a case, the narrative places the analyst in the position
of the hero: “The writer-analyst is not only representing her work in the
vignette (i.e., what “really happened”), she is also a character in the story
that she is telling. By depicting the analyst as both a clever sleuth and a
determined healer, the reader is invited to admire (and identify with) the
analyst qua analyst, while perhaps not appreciating that the machinery of
rhetorical persuasion is being used to effect this admiration and identifi-
cation” (44). Wilson highlights here one reason why it is so hard to write
about analysis: the narrative structure of presenting a case tends to rewrite
history by placing the analyst in the position of the ego ideal in a transfer-
ence relationship with the reader.37 In this structure, complexity, ambigu-
ity, ambivalence, and ignorance are repressed so that the narrator can be
seen as the hero of the story.
Since the narcissistic ego wants to be seen as the one who knows, psy-
choanalysis itself has to be distorted and repressed in the recounting
of cases:
It is common for all analysts, at various points in a psychoanalytic treat-

ment, to see ourselves in precisely these ways: in the face of obstacles both
obscure and obvious, the analyst is a determined and at times clever healer
who pieces together new ways of understanding and explaining the patient’s
symptoms and predicaments. This picture is not only promoted by our
clinical literature, it is an alluring one for the clinical psychoanalyst, who,
as I have described in this chapter, is in no way exempt from the vagaries
and wavering of the ego and its narcissistic struggles. (44)
One reason for this analytic struggle is that analysts refuse to accept tak-
ing on a position of neutrality, and so they fall into the “normal” way of
relating, knowing, and communicating. As Wilson points out, it is hard
for someone to give up the admiration for being the clever one who can
figure out what others have failed to understand. Furthermore, Wilson is
correct in positing that the narrative form itself pushes analysts to distort
the experience of psychoanalysis: “First, to the extent that the analyst
identifies herself with the hero/detective image she will tend to invest,
and perhaps overly commit to, the explanatory narrative that is being
constructed in the analysis. The second reason has to do with the nature
of narrative itself: narrative explanations tend to create their own demands
for coherence as they get built” (44–45). As a discourse of discovery, psy-
choanalysis does not lend itself to narrative closure or self-satisfied under-
standing. For instance, if the patient is able to speak without censoring or
self-reflection, then the produced discourse will often be fragmented,
incoherent, and de-idealized.38
Wilson himself does recognize that our desire for understanding and
narrative order can serve to undermine the very discourse the analyst is
trying to represent:
If we are too interested in “connecting the dots,” then moments of new-

ness, surprise, oddity, confusion, contradiction, and repetition tend to get
ignored or devalued. In fact, the psychoanalyst ought to be biased toward
narrative’s disruption, against which something new and different can be
appreciated. While we all do this story-building to some extent, it is haz-
ardous to make it the central focus of the analysis. (46)
114 R. Samuels
There is then a radical disconnect between the discourse of free associa-

tion and the narrative retelling of an analytic case, and this distinction
leads to the misunderstanding of psychoanalysis.39 In fact, one reason
why one needs to go through analysis to be an analyst is that the only way
one can really learn about psychoanalysis is through experience.
The difficulty in teaching psychoanalysis as a traditional academic dis-
cipline is related to this need for analytic experience and the working
through of the transference. Unlike other instructional relationships, the
analyst has to refrain from being the one who knows, and this refusal of
identification is hard to maintain. As Freud discovered early on, if you
simply interpret a patient’s symptoms or resistances, these issues will con-
tinue to return: what is necessary is for the patient to make the discovery
on their own concerning the causes of their problems. The analyst still
needs to intervene to keep the process going, but these interventions
should not feed the idea that the analyst has all of the answers. Moreover,
Freud was dedicated to seeing free association as a path towards individ-
ual autonomy, and so he stopped trying to tell his patients what to think
and say.40
From Hypnosis to Neutrality

The development of Freud’s technique can be traced from his early use of
hypnosis to his later employment of free association.41 By moving from a
position of being the master who tells the patient what to think to the
position of neutrality, Freud discovered what enables the patient the abil-
ity to speak without judgment. As we shall see, Wilson both accepts and
rejects this emphasis on the analyst being neutral and suspending all
judgment and knowledge: “The patient doesn’t know that he doesn’t want
to know the difficult thing, the unwanted desire, the hateful or shameful
feeling, especially in the presence of the analyst. This twofold ‘not want-
ing to know’ analysts called resistance. The analyst’s job, in this view, is to
‘analyze the patient’s resistances,’ so that they become more familiar to
the person who deploys them” (50). The problem with analyzing the
resistances is that the analyst falls back into the position of being the
master who knows and judges. While it appears to be much easier and
direct to tell patients about their defenses, this type of intervention only
serves to heighten the transference and strengthen the resistances of
the ego.42
A frustrating aspect of Wilson’s book is that at times he does seem to
understand the need for analytic neutrality, but at other times, he argues
against it. For example, in the following passage, we see how the desire of
the analyst can result in establishing a dual relationship of opposition
between the patient’s ego and the analyst’s ego: “Here is Friedman again,
in another part of his discussion, more forceful and direct: ‘There’s a
demand for work here … a bending of purpose, a conflict of wills, a ver-
dict of satisfactoriness. The analyst is not just a facilitator; he is a taskmas-
ter and judge’ (1993, 13). Yes, a demand, a conflict, a verdict. That
captures things better. Resistance has no meaning unless there is a force
pushing against it” (52–53). In seeing the analyst as a judge and taskmas-
ter, the neutrality of the position is eliminated as one takes on the role of
super-ego or ego-ideal.43 This type of analytic relationship can only func-
tion to increase the resistances of the ego and reinforce the transference,
and so it is necessary to couple analytic training with a theory devised to
protect against faulty analytic interventions.
Theory and Practice

In other words, we need to teach psychoanalysis and write and speak
about it in order to clearly define the role of the analyst.44 Although psy-
choanalytic theory also has important things to say about human psy-
chology and culture, the training of analysts requires a clear understanding
of transference, repression, the pleasure principle, the primary processes,
and the reality principle. On the most basic level, analysts have to under-
stand how transference enables the repression of the primary processes in
order to satisfy the pleasure principle, and the only way to attain the real-
ity principle is through the neutrality of the analyst causing the free asso-
ciation of the patient. In fact, this concept of neutrality represents the
heart of modern science and democratic law because we want our scien-
tists to look at evidence without prejudice just as we want our judges to
judge without bias.45 Neutrality is then a key invention of the modern
116 R. Samuels
Enlightenment, and as a necessary but impossible ideal, it is never fully

attained, and yet we desire to fulfil this ideal to the best of our ability.46
In the movement from the pleasure principle to the reality principle, it
is essential to suspend judgment and eliminate all prejudices and biases;
however, as we have seen in Wilson’s discourse, this practice of neutrality
is very hard to maintain. One reason for this difficulty is the way our egos
seek to maintain a positive self-image by idealizing the knowledge of the
self and the other:47
resistances have to do with the stickiness of bias, a self-protective effort to

maintain one’s position, one’s self-esteem, one’s identity in the face of
uncertainly or threat. Kohut (1971) deserves full credit for putting narcis-
sism on the psychoanalytic map as a central aspect of normative psychoso-
cial development, rather than a pathological manifestation of that
development gone awry. Lacan, however different he is from Kohut in
other respects, also theorized a normal narcissism through his concept of
the mirror stage and the structuring of the ego by way of a series of identi-
fications. (53)
In linking bias to the resistances of the narcissistic ego, Wilson reveals the
limits of his own discourse. As much as he would like to maintain the
position of analytic neutrality, he cannot help interpreting his patents’
resistances and substantiating the desire of the analyst.
The Known Desire of the Analyst

While Lacan insists that the analyst’s desire must remain an unknown
variable and cause, Wilson, like so many other analysts and therapists,
wants to define this desire through theory and personality: “Regarding
the analyst’s desire, it can be seen or glimpsed within the various actions
that desire motivates, including why each of us chooses to be an analyst
(see Chap. 1), our theoretical persuasions, and the kinds of experiences
we want to have with our patients for our own particular reasons” (57).
This notion that the analyst shapes the analytic relation based on
theoretical persuasion and particular reasons goes against the need for the
analyst to suspend judgment and eliminate all bias. Instead of seeing the
practice of psychoanalysis as shaped by different competing theories, I
have stressed the need to return to Freud’s fundamental concepts as a way
of protecting against misunderstanding the role of the analyst.
Of course, in the age of postmodern relativism, it may appear absurd
to insist that there is a single way to understand Freud and psychoanaly-
sis; however, it is vital to insist on the validity of his initial insights in
relation to the development of his technique.48 In fact, I have been argu-
ing that five key concepts structure the field itself, and any misunder-
standing of these notions results in deviations in the practice of analysis.
Yet, many therapists and analysts will resist this argument because they
simply do not understand these foundational principles and the process
of analysis itself. It is also difficult to critique the analyst as the one who
knows and then present a theory and practice with a strict set of defini-
tions. Just as the Enlightenment seeks to promote a bias against bias, the
privileging of neutrality is itself a value that has to be defended through
the use of non-neutral concepts.49
Returning to Wilson’s discussion of the analyst, we see how psychoana-
lytic theory and practice has been shaped by a continuous resistance to
analytic neutrality:
Once upon a time, many analysts—whether ego psychological or

Kleinian—claimed that the analyst’s wishes for certain experiences repre-
sent unresolved neurotic conflict. In this picture, the well-analyzed analyst
was “neutral” and her work was burdened, at most, by a few well-understood
“blind spots.” This state of affairs is an obvious impossibility, because the
analyst’s wishing is inevitable, her pushing and prodding—however tactful,
however gentle—ubiquitous, and her exercising of judgment on the pro-
ceedings a central part of her ethical position. The picture of the “well-
analyzed” analyst is, then, itself wishful, and points to a fantasy of
wholeness, integration, and plentitude, and, at the same time an elision of
our basic lacking and desiring state. To believe one is “well-analyzed” is to
live in one version of a narcissistic enclosure, precisely what Laplanche
warned us about. (57–58)
118 R. Samuels
As Wilson indicates, one of the reasons why analysts have to undergo

their own analysis is that they need to learn how to overcome their biases
when they work with patients. However, Wilson dismisses this goal of
neutrality as a narcissistic fantasy as he returns to the misguided notion
that the analyst cannot stop judging and wanting specific things in rela-
tion to patients.50 Here, we see how psychoanalysis becomes repressed
within analysis itself as key concepts are misunderstood and then
discarded.
On the one hand, Wilson does follow Lacan in affirming that desire is
always based on loss and lack, but on the other hand, he keeps positing
that specific desires shape the actions of the analyst.51 It is simply too
tempting to fall into non-psychoanalytic understandings of desire, knowl-
edge, and communication, and so the practice of analysis is itself avoided.
This misunderstanding of psychoanalysis is evident in Wilson’s view of
reason and rationality: “Psychoanalysts have struggled with the proposi-
tion—though I believe we might as well call it a fact of human being—
that our cherished “rationality” is shot through with self-interest. Aristotle
argued that what makes human beings human is their capacity for ratio-
nal activity, the putting to use of practical reason in the undertaking of
various goal-directed actions” (58). Wilson connects reason and rational-
ity to self-interest, but Freud’s theory of the reality principle and Descartes’
conception of modern science rely on the possibility of suspending self-
interest in the quest to separate the real from the fictional.52 For Freud,
one of the central tasks of the reality principle is to counter the tendency
of human thought to confuse internalized memories with perceptions of
the external world.53 As a way of breaking free from the pleasure principle
and the primary processes, one has to give up on the omnipotence of
thought through the process of reality testing. In other words, Freud
takes the ideal of reason derived from Enlightenment philosophy and
science and applies it to everyday experience.54 Through free association,
one learns to approach the reality of one’s own mind without bias or
self-interest.
As Wilson points out, the ego psychologists did attempt to emphasize
the reality principle, but they failed to separate this form of reason from
the rationalizations and secondary revisions of the defensive ego:
American ego psychologists (Hartmann, for one) tended to highlight the

ego’s rational capacities, and they insisted on a distinction between the ego
and the self. Hartmann (1950) writes: “It therefore will be clarifying if we
define narcissism as the libidinal cathexis not of the ego but of the self ”
(85). Why would Hartmann want to make this separation? Because in
doing so the ego is more or less cleansed of narcissistic needs and the influ-
ences of the drives (sex and aggression). With the advent of the structural
model, the theoretical status of the ego changed: it was now conceptualized
as a set of functions that gained an autonomy from the internal, thereby
allowing it, so the Hartmannian story went, to adapt healthily to the world
relatively unburdened by internal exigencies and pressures. (58)
Lacan critiques this development of ego psychology in psychoanalysis

because he believes that the separation of the ego from narcissism makes
no sense since the ego is developed and sustained through narcissism.55
Lacan also critiques the way that many ego psychologists saw the end of
analysis as centered on the patient identifying with the reality testing of
the analyst.56 Lacan argues that this identification is a form of alienation
and a prolongation of the transference; however, I would argue that the
ego psychologists were onto something when they sought to place the
responsibility for reality testing in an internal agency outside of narcissism.
If psychoanalysis requires coming to terms with the inner truth of
one’s fantasies, unconscious thoughts, and primary processes, then it is
necessary to posit a source for internal reality testing. However, with the
turn against neutrality inside and outside of psychoanalysis, the possibil-
ity for an unbiased approach to the real is eliminated. Wilson, himself,
repeats this problem by arguing against the ideal of a non-biased, objec-
tive perspective: “In other words, there is an inherently self-validating
aspect to thinking and perceiving … Opatow’s work gives us yet another
angle on the ego functions of rationality and judgment: there is no such
thing as ‘neutral’ thinking” (59). By rejecting the necessary but impossi-
ble ideal of neutral thinking, Wilson gives up on the possibility of the
reality principle and the ability to see psychoanalysis as a science. Although
it is important to focus on how the ego seeks self-validation in its percep-
tions and thoughts, it is also vital to affirm that the neutrality of the
analyst and the free association of the patient open up the space for a
move beyond pure self-interest.
120 R. Samuels
It is also essential to point out that for Freud, thought structured by

the primary processes is often delusional because it is not tied to reality
and cannot be controlled by the ego.57 Psychoanalysis, then, has to pro-
vide a critique of pure thought as it calls for the separation of representa-
tions from reality, yet Wilson claims that thinking is by definition
narcissistic and self-serving: “Thinking is suffused with a distinctly narcis-
sistic, self-aggrandizing desire. I hope it is clear by this point that I do not
mean to imply something pathological in using the term ‘narcissistic.’
Thinking is a self-preservative function, and in that very important sense
is always already self-serving” (59). In turning to the theory of evolution,
Wilson repeats the common confusion between the survival of genetic
material and the pursuit of individual self-interest.58 Since he wants to
argue that all thought is guided by the drive for self-preservation, he pos-
its that thinking is inherently narcissistic. In contrast, Freud insists that
humans often engage in self-destructive behavior, and our ability to reject
reality on a mental level means that we are not strictly guided by natural
selection or self-preservation.59
As I have been arguing throughout this book, when one misunder-
stands the basic concepts of psychoanalysis, one is unable to maintain an
effective analytic position in the clinic. This relation between theory and
practice is evident in the following passage: “Most often, though, if the
analyst is “thinking theory” in a clinical hour, she is likely using it as a
way to maintain a feeling of independence from difficult internal experi-
ences of whatever valence (boredom, frustration, excitement, hatred,
passion, and the like)” (61). Wilson, here, presents an inverted concep-
tion of psychoanalysis; instead of seeing theory as a way of promoting
analytic neutrality, he argues that theory can serve as a resistance to the
analysts thinking about their own thoughts and feelings. Yet, doesn’t the
working through of the transference require the analyst to suspend any
judgment, including the judgments about his or her own thoughts, feel-
ings, and reactions?60 It appears that the radical nature of analytic neu-
trality is just too alienating and difficult for many analysts and therapists
to accept.
Instead of seeing the analyst as representing an unknowable desire in
the process of analysis, Wilson concentrates on the way the analyst seeks
to satisfy his or her own desire when working with patients: “The analyst
is always, in part, looking for lost objects, trying to refind herself in the
patient and to see herself as an analyst in day-to-day clinical work. The
crucial question is how these desires facilitate or hinder a successful ana-
lytic process” (61). This notion that the analyst is looking for his or her
own lost past objects represents a major deviation from analytic practice
and theory since the neutrality of the analyst requires a suspension of this
self-interest as one takes on the position of being an impersonal, empty
mirror.61 We can, thus consider counter-transference as anything that
prevents the analyst from taking on this position.
As Wilson appears to understand, when the analyst pursues personal
interests, values, and desires, the patient will react with resistances:
resistance is fundamentally an intersubjective phenomenon. The analyst’s

desire—as it is expressed through specific wishes and demands—engenders
resistance when the patient feels forced to recognize it. Especially during
moments of uncertainty or uncomfortable silence or interaction—in which
the analyst feels in her bones caught in an enactment with a patient—the
analyst is tempted to fall back for defensive purposes on certain cherished
identifications with a theory, a supervisor, a colleague, or her analyst.
Precisely when we feel lost we want to refind ourselves. Here we are in the
by now familiar place of the exercising of judgment under uncertain condi-
tions: bias looms larger in these moments. (62)
This accurate description of counter-transference and the resistance it

generates fails to provide an escape from this imaginary dualistic conflict
between the ego and the other.62 The way that the analyst exists from this
dynamic is by refusing to be the one who knows, recognizes, and cares.
As soon as the analyst takes on the position of the Other in the idealizing
or mirroring transference, the only thing that one can do is placate the
unconscious demands of the patient or frustrate the demands and pro-
duce resistance.63 As Lacan insists, the key move is to suspend this imagi-
nary relation by remaining neutral.
At times, Wilson does recognize the importance of theory in helping
to guide the analyst’s technique, but at the other times, he represents
122 R. Samuels
theory as a way of hiding the analyst’s desire: “The analyst is in a more

difficult spot, however, if she cloaks her desire in a theory of technique
that she assumes to be true and takes for granted, thereby naturalizing her
desire by way of that theory” (66). The problem with this formulation is
that it is difficult to imagine how an analyst would not be guided by a
theory considered to be true unless no theory at all was being used. In
opposition to Wilson’s argument, I have posited that psychoanalytic the-
ory is necessary in order to prevent the analyst from operating on the
level of imaginary identification, rivalry, recognition, and understand-
ing.64 In fact, Wilson himself makes this point in turning to Lacan’s the-
ory of imaginary narcissism: “The dual-relation resistance is, as we have
seen, a dyadically constructed ‘field of contest’ (as Lacan wrote in his
Mirror Stage paper): it is either you or me, my desire or yours. There is
no breathing room in such a situation, no third term or point of reference
that both parties can look to or use to gain perspective on the interaction”
(66). In his early works, Lacan claims that by taking on the position of
the symbolic Other, the analyst can help to form a social pact with the
patient that moves beyond imaginary rivalry.65 However, he later argues
that this promotion of the social third-party only reinforces the transfer-
ence, and so it is necessary for the analyst to take a position embodied by
an object outside of the symbolic order.66 From a theoretical perspective,
analytic neutrality stands outside of the imaginary, the symbolic, and the
real—the analyst is an artificial construction representing the limits of
language, imagination, and reality itself.67
The outside status of the analytic position is described by Wilson in
the following manner: “In order for a reliably valid causal relation to be
established an independent variable is needed. In psychoanalysis, it is
ethically incumbent upon the analyst to find a way to remove herself
from the field of contest” (66). Of course, it is difficult for people to take
on this position because they are so used to playing an active role in their
relationships, and yet Freud insisted that one of the biggest issues for the
end of analysis was the ability of people to take a passive position because
it implies castration.68 In other words, the analyst has to accept a cas-
trated role so that neutrality becomes possible.
The Resistance of Narcissism

Like so many other therapists and analysts, Wilson has a difficult time
maintaining his neutrality because he wants to help his patients by inter-
preting their defenses:
Generally speaking, my approach to his problems during this first year of

analysis was to examine his conflicts with him (though Robert was often
not “with me”), specifically the imagined negative consequences of various
actions, should he take them. “How is it, exactly, that you know Kerrie
doesn’t want to go on another date?” Or, “Oh, I see. So it’s easier to think
you know the outcome rather than find out. What do you worry will hap-
pen?” Such were typical comments I would make to Robert, which he
tended to hear not as open-minded questions but as criticisms and subtle
prods to be other than he was. (67–68)
What Wilson reveals in this passage is the notion that when an analyst
tries to intervene directly in a patient’s psychopathology, even the most
well-intentioned interpretations can be experienced as direct attacks on
the subject.69 Lacan’s solution to this problem was to claim that the inter-
pretations should always be ambiguous so that they avoid being seen as
judgments or criticisms.70 Of course, this is easier said than done, but the
key is for the analyst to give up the position of being the one who knows
what is the truth or what is morally right. Often, the best way to inter-
vene is to simply ask an open question predicated on the desire to pro-
duce more unknown unconscious material.71
At times, Wilson does show an awareness of the need to interpret from
a position of non-knowledge:
So I pulled back, and not in a “lick my wounds” kind of way. I quite con-
sciously decided not to interpret the defensive aspects of Robert’s pseudo-
nonchalance or his complaints of despair. I simply asked him to tell me
more about these feelings. I let him know through a variety of questions
and an openness in my tone and quality of my presence that I wanted to
hear more, not less. Over the next several weeks, seemingly in direct
response to this shift in my subjectivity—a shift, that is, in the objects of
my analytic desire—Robert gave more full-throated expression to his
124 R. Samuels
suffering. And his way of speaking gradually came to have a different

aspect. He talked about his despair without massaging it. He had moments
of genuinely questioning himself without demanding immediate answers
from me or condemning himself for not knowing them. (70)
By maintaining an open position, Wilson was better able to break out of

the imaginary relationship with his patient; in other terms, his neutrality
enabled the patient to be less judgmental about his own thoughts and
feelings, which in turn, allowed more unconscious material to surface:
In my estimation, there was no other way out of this infinite regress than
for me to stop contributing to it. As I removed myself from the field of
contest, Robert felt much freer to think about himself. This showed in his
ability, perhaps for the first time in our working together, to analyze him-
self. As he talked about the details of how bad he felt at times, he began to
notice he was feeling better. He became more curious about his own
thoughts and spoke more freely. He felt more “in control” and less over-
whelmed. In short, instead of his feeling that I was implicitly telling him
what to do and how to be—forms of ignoring him, as he felt his parents
had done repeatedly— he now felt that I did, really and in fact, want to
listen to how he was feeling. (70–71)
We see here why Lacan argued that every analytic treatment is a training
analysis since what the patient has to learn is how to analyze himself or
herself by taking on the position of non-judgmental neutrality.72 We also
grasp the reason why analysts have to undergo their own analysis so that
they can learn the value of suspending judgment through their own per-
sonal experience.
Notes
1. Wilson, Mitchell. The Analyst’s Desire: The Ethical Foundation of Clinical
Practice. Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2020.
2. Thompson, M. Guy. The ethic of honesty: The fundamental rule of psycho-
analysis. Vol. 2. Rodopi, 2004.
3. Thompson, M, Guy. “The rule of neutrality.” Psychoanalysis and
Contemporary Thought 19.1 (1996): 57–84.
4. Corveleyn, Jozef. “In Defense of Benevolent Neutrality: Against a”

Spiritual Strategy”.” Individual Psychology 56.3 (2000): 343.
5. Lacan, Jacques, Alan Sheridan, and Malcolm Bowie. “The Direction of
the Treatment and the Principles of its Power 1.” Écrits. Routledge, 2020.
250–310.
6. Hoffer, Axel, and Virginia R. Youngren. “Is free association still at the
core of psychoanalysis?.” The International Journal of Psychoanalysis 85.6
(2004): 1489–1492.
7. Lothane, Zvi. “Reciprocal free association: Listening with the third ear
as an instrument in psychoanalysis.” Psychoanalytic Psychology 23.4
(2006): 711.
8. Thompson, M, Guy. “The ethics of psychoanalysis: An introduction.”
Psychoanalytic review 86.4 (1999): 503–512.
9. Shane, Morton, and Estelle Shane. “Chapter 3 Self Psychology in Search
of the Optimal: A Consideration of Optimal Responsiveness, Optimal
Provision, Optimal Gratif.” Progress in Self Psychology 12 (1996): 37–54.
10. Meissner, W. W. “The problem of self-disclosure in psychoanalysis.”
Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 50.3 (2002): 827–867.
11. Fink, Bruce. “Against understanding: Why understanding should not be
viewed as an essential aim of psychoanalytic treatment.” Journal of the
American Psychoanalytic Association 58.2 (2010): 259–285.
12. Colman, Warren. “Is the Analyst A Good Object?.” British Journal of
Psychotherapy 22.3 (2006): 295–310.
13. Fink, Bruce. Lacan on love: An exploration of Lacan’s seminar VIII, trans-
ference. John Wiley & Sons, 2017.
14. Malin, Barnet D. “Kohut and Lacan: mirror opposites.” Psychoanalytic
Inquiry 31.1 (2011): 58–74.
250–310.
16. Chetrit-Vatine, Viviane. The ethical seduction of the analytic situation: The
feminine-maternal origins of responsibility for the other. Routledge, 2018.
17. Benjamin, Jessica. The bonds of love: Psychoanalysis, feminism, and the
problem of domincation. Pantheon, 2013.
18. Freud, Sigmund. “The dynamics of transference.” The standard edition of
the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XII
(1911-1913): The case of Schreber, papers on technique and other works.
1958. 97–108.
126 R. Samuels
19. Samuels, Robert. “Ethos, Transference, and Liberal Cynicism.” Zizek

and the Rhetorical Unconscious. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2020. 49–63.
20. Buhle, Mari Jo, and Mari Jo Buhle. Feminism and its discontents: A cen-
tury of struggle with psychoanalysis. Harvard University Press, 2009.
21. Gentile, Jill, and Michael Macrone. Feminine law: Freud, free speech, and
the voice of desire. Routledge, 2018.
22. Felman, Shoshana. “Psychoanalysis and education: Teaching terminable
and interminable.” Yale French Studies 63 (1982): 21–44.
23. Freud, Sigmund. The question of lay analysis: Conversations with an
impartial person. WW Norton & Company, 1969.
24. Freud, Sigmund, and J. Strachey. “Observations on transference-love
(further recommendations on the technique of psycho-analysis III).”
(1915): 157–171.
25. Hamburg, Paul. “Interpretation and empathy: reading Lacan with
Kohut.” International journal of psycho-analysis 72 (1991): 347–361.
26. Dervin, Daniel. “Where Freud was, there Lacan shall be: Lacan and the
fate of transference.” American Imago 54.4 (1997): 347–375.
28. Lacan, Jacques, Alan Sheridan, and Malcolm Bowie. “Aggressivity in
psychoanalysis.” Ecrits. Routledge, 2020. 9–32.
29. Lacan, Jacques. The Ego in Freud’s Theory and in the Technique of
Psychoanalysis, 1954-1955. Vol. 2. WW Norton & Company, 1991.
30. Felman, Shoshana. Jacques Lacan and the adventure of insight:
Psychoanalysis in contemporary culture. Harvard University Press, 1987.
31. Fink, Bruce. A clinical introduction to Lacanian psychoanalysis: Theory and
technique. Harvard University Press, 1999.
32. Libbrecht, Katrien. “The original sin of psychoanalysis: On the desire of
the analyst.” Key concepts of Lacanian psychoanalysis. Routledge,
2018. 75–100.
33. Cauwe, Joachim, Stijn Vanheule, and Mattias Desmet. “The presence of
the analyst in Lacanian treatment.” Journal of the American Psychoanalytic
Association 65.4 (2017): 609–638.
34. Harari, Roberto. Lacan’s four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis: An
introduction. Other Press, LLC, 2004.
35. Wolf, Bogdan. Anxiety Between Desire and the Body: What Lacan Says in
Seminar X. Routledge, 2019.
36. Miller, Jacques-Alain. “How Psychoanalysis Cures According to Lacan

The First Paris/Chicago Psychoanalytic Workshop, 1986 I My title is
meant as a tribute to Heinz Kohut’s last work, How Psychoanalysis
Cures. As to Lacan, I suppose there are both people.” Newsletter of the
Freudian Field 1.2 (1987).
37. Berkenkotter, Carol. Patient tales: Case histories and the uses of narrative
in psychiatry. Univ of South Carolina Press, 2008.
38. Rosner, Stanley. “On the nature of free association.” Journal of the
39. Spence, Donald P. Narrative truth and historical truth: Meaning and
interpretation in psychoanalysis. WW Norton & Company, 1984.
40. Freud, Sigmund. “Recommendations to physicians practising psycho-
analysis.” London: The (1912).
41. Aron, Lewis. “From hypnotic suggestion to free association: Freud as a
psychotherapist, circa 1892–1893.” Contemporary Psychoanalysis 32.1
(1996): 99–114.
42. Muller, John, P. “Ego and subject in Lacan.” Psychoanalytic review 69.2
(1982): 234–240.
43. Lacan, Jacques. “Some reflections on the ego 1.” Influential Papers from
the 1950s. Routledge, 2018. 292–306.
44. Apollon, Willy, Danielle Bergeron, and Lucie Cantin. After Lacan:
Clinical practice and the subject of the unconscious. SUNY Press, 2002.
20.1 (2003): 30.
48. Goldberg, Arnold. “The tension between realism and relativism in psy-
choanalysis.” Psychoanalysis and contemporary thought7.3 (1984):
367–386.
49. Samuels, Robert. The Psychopathology of Political Ideologies.
Routledge, 2021.
50. Khoury, Maurice. “The desire of the analyst and counter-transference:
from the mirroring analyst to the desiring analyst.” The Lacan Tradition.
Routledge, 2018. 189–206.
51. Fink, Bruce. “5. The Subject and the Other’s Desire.” The Lacanian
Subject. Princeton University Press, 2017. 49–68.
128 R. Samuels
53. Freud, Sigmund. “Negation.” Organization and pathology of thought:
Selected sources. Columbia University Press, 1951. 338–348.
54. Kerrigan, William. “Psychoanalysis and the Vicissitudes of
Enlightenment.” American Imago 48.2 (1991): 265–278.
55. Lacan, Jacques. “Some reflections on the ego.” International Journal of
Psycho-Analysis 34 (1953): 11–17.
56. Boothby, Richard. Freud as philosopher: Metapsychology after Lacan.
Routledge, 2015.
57. Hole, Richard W., Augustus J. Rush, and Aaron T. Beck. “A cognitive
investigation of schizophrenic delusions.” Psychiatry42.4 (1979):
312–319.
59. Poeldinger, W. J. “The psychopathology and psychodynamics of self-
destruction.” Crisis: The Journal of Crisis Intervention and Suicide
Prevention (1989).
60. Palomera, Vicente. “Modalities of the Transference.” Analysis5
(1994): 17–26.
61. Reed, Gail S. “An empty mirror: reflections on nonrepresentation.” The
62. Van Pelt, Tamise. “Otherness.” Postmodern Culture 10.2 (2000).
250–310.
64. Nobus, Dany. Jacques Lacan and the Freudian practice of psychoanalysis.
Routledge, 2013.
66. Vanier, Alain. Lacan. Other Press, LLC, 2020.
67. Samuels, Robert. Between philosophy and psychoanalysis: Lacan’s recon-
struction of Freud. Routledge, 2014.
68. Freud, Sigmund. “Analysis Terminable and Interminable.” The
International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 18 (1937): 373.
69. Siebers, Tobin. “7. The Ethical Unconscious: From Freud to Lacan.” The
Ethics of Criticism. Cornell University Press, 2018. 159–185.
70. Stevens, Alexandre. “Lacanian interpretation.” Hurly-Burly: The

International Lacanian Journal of Psychoanalysis 1 (2009): 57–59.
71. Fink, Bruce. A clinical introduction to Lacanian psychoanalysis: Theory and
technique. Harvard University Press, 1999.
72. Hammill, Graham. “Being and knowledge: Lacan and the institution of
psychoanalysis.” The American Journal of Semiotics 15.1/4 (2008):
137–167.
6
Zizek and the Empty Unconscious
This chapter argues that the work of Slavoj Zizek has been one of the
major causes for the contemporary misunderstanding of psychoanalysis.
Through a close reading of his first major book, The Sublime Object of
Ideology, I will explore how he distorts the meaning of the unconscious,
primary processes, the pleasure principle, the reality principle, and trans-
ference.1 I will also examine the possibility of using psychoanalytic treat-
ment on a social and cultural level. The key question here is how do we
work through the fundamental fantasies shaping our relationship
to others?
From Freud to Lacan

From a psychoanalytic perspective, the central conflict shaping every
society and individual is the relationship between the moral conscience
(the super-ego) and individual drives (the pleasure principle).2 For
Freud, this conflict is ultimately unresolvable, and so there can be no
perfect relation between the self and others.3 In fact, a major goal of
analysis is to help people to see that the pursuit of pleasure and the
132 R. Samuels
demands of social organization (civilization) will always be in conflict

with each other.4 Moreover, it is often personal and ideological fantasies
that seek to resolve this antinomy on an imaginary level.5 Psychoanalytic
treatment then is primarily focused on working through these distorting
thought-structures.6
Doubling the divide between the social and the individual, we find the
opposition of language and reality. Since, we can never fully present the
real through symbolic representations, our knowledge is always limited.7
It is therefore important to affirm that language alienates us from reality
and that the truth is never complete or whole.8 While it is true that the
only medium of psychoanalysis is speech, it is vital to realize that speech
is based on a system of associations, substitutions, and displacements.9
The goal of analysis, then, should not be the complete symbolic narrative
of a person’s life or the attainment of some comprehensive knowledge;
rather, one has to realize the different ways reality has been misrepre-
sented through imaginary mental productions while at the same time
seeking to attain the necessary but impossible ideal of knowing the truth
of one’s inner and outer life.10 Thus, the desire of the analyst and the
desire of the patient are identical: They desire to discover the truth, but
since they can never know the whole truth, they continue to desire to
know more.11 In fact, if we follow Lacan in affirming that desire is always
directed towards something one does not have, it must be impossible for
desire to be ever satisfied.12
In the case of Zizek’s use of Lacan’s work, this question of desire is
presented near the start of The Sublime Object of Ideology:
The famous Lacanian motto not to give way on one’s desire (ne pas cider
sur son desir) - is aimed at the fact that we must not obliterate the distance
separating the Real from its symbolization: it is this surplus of the Real over
every symbolization that functions as the object-cause of desire. To come to
terms with this surplus (or, more. precisely, leftover) means to acknowledge
a fundamental deadlock (‘antagonism’), a kernel resisting symbolic
integration-dissolution. (xxv)
On the hand, Zizek recognizes here the opposition between the social
symbolic and the real, but then on the other hand, he quickly privileges
6 Zizek and the Empty Unconscious 133
the real instead of stressing the psychoanalytic focus on the conflict

between the two. As we shall see, this focus on the unknowable real tends
to dominate his work and his views of the goals of psychoanalysis.13 In
fact, I will argue that there is an underlying libertarian fantasy driving his
discourse, which centers on the idealization of the pleasure principle over
the social super-ego.14
Following the teachings of Jacques-Alain Miller, Zizek believes that the
“Early Lacan” stressed the role of language and the social Other, while the
“Late Lacan,” emphasized the role played by enjoyment (jouissance), the
real, and the death drive.15 Underlying this reading is the unconscious
fantasy of the subject who is free to enjoy in opposition to the castrating
and censoring social order. In other words, instead of positing the funda-
mental conflict between the symbolic social super-ego and individual
enjoyment, Miller and Zizek tend to privilege the real over the symbolic
and the individual over the social.16
Coupled with his own pronouncements that “the Other does not exist”
and “there is no such thing as a sexual relation,” Lacan’s focus on what he
calls jouissance (orgasm, pleasure, release) shapes the last stage of his
teachings, and so there is a good reason for Miller’s and Zizek’s misunder-
standings of psychoanalysis.17 Moreover, Lacan, in his earlier teachings
and writings did emphasize how the goal of analysis is to get the patient
to use speech to fully integrate their own history, and this view of analytic
treatment pushed him to stress the roles played by language, social order,
and cultural discourse.18 However, throughout his work, Lacan also
insisted that the tragic dimension of being human revolves around the
fundamental conflict between the socio-symbolic order and the resistant
enjoyment of individuals, which is a restating of Freud’s foundational
notion of how civilization leads to discontent.19
The Death Drive Distortion

While Freud affirmed that society will always be at odds with the indi-
vidual, he also highlighted how individuals are at odds with themselves.20
Not only is the unconscious based on the fact that people lie to them-
selves, and thus they divide themselves between the truth and the lie, but
134 R. Samuels
the pursuit of individual pleasure is itself in conflict internally. Since the

goal of the pleasure principle is to release all physical and mental tension,
the generation of stimulation has to be coupled with its erasure.21 In fact,
Lacan’s use of the term “jouissance” itself points to the role of release and
self-consumption in sexuality by highlighting the function of an orgasm.22
However, due to the fact that Zizek and others translate jouissance by
enjoyment, they lose this aspect of release that is evident for French
speakers.23
Since Freud highlights how pleasure concerns avoiding and releasing
tension, he is able to posit a fundamental law of inertia, which he will
later call the death drive.24 If it seems absurd to equate the pursuit of
pleasure with death, one only has to think of the destructive nature of
addictions where one seeks out enjoyment but can end up pursuing self-
destruction.25 Likewise, when Freud in Beyond the Pleasure Principle
describes a game he saw his grandson playing, what he stresses is that not
only did this form of play represent the child using language and a sym-
bolic object to overcome the absence of his parents, but this child also
used this activity to try to make his own self-image appear and disappear
in the mirror.26 We learn from this example of the death drive that plea-
sure can be derived from self-effacement and the replacement of others.
Like the release of stimulation through an orgasm, symbolic play can
help us to escape from our own selves and our dependency on others.
Although enjoyment and the death drive are key concepts for Zizek,
we shall see in the following passage how he distorts the meaning of
these terms:
Let us take the Freudian notion of the ‘death drive’. of course, we have to
abstract Freud’s biologism: ‘death drive’ is not a biological fact but a notion
indicating that the human psychic apparatus is subordinated to a blind
automatism of repetition beyond pleasure-seeking, self-preservation, accor-
dance between man and his milieu. Man is - Hegel dixit- ‘an animal sick
unto death’, an animal extorted by an insatiable parasite (reason, logos,
language). In this perspective, the ‘death drive’, this dimension of radical
negativity, cannot be reduced to an expression of alienated social condi-
tions, it defines la condition humaine as such: there is no solution, no
escape from it. (xxvii)
At first glance, Zizek’s interpretation of the death drive does appear to

match Freud’s theory concerning the relation between pleasure and
release: as a compulsion to negate the self and the other through symbolic
repetition, the death drive represents a break with biology and social
alienation. However, it is misleading to posit that this drive defines the
human condition because one still has to deal with the fundamental con-
flict between society and the individual.27
It is vital to highlight how from a psychoanalytic perspective, social
order is produced and maintained through the regulation of sex and vio-
lence.28 Furthermore, the super-ego represents the internalization of this
regulation, which requires every individual to sacrifice their own drives
for the benefit of the collective.29 When Zizek insists that it is the internal
death drive in the individual that determines the fundamental conflict of
the human condition, he represses the role that society plays in structur-
ing desire and division. What would be more accurate is to say that the
drive to escape all tension often matches the social need to regulate sex
and violence. What is very misleading is to blame the entire problem on
the compulsive repetitions of the death drive in the isolated individual.
Defining Culture
Not only are we internally divided by our self-destructive urges, but we
are alienated by the social order, which requires us to sacrifice our indi-
vidual impulses.30 Zizek posits that one way that these conflicts are over-
come on an imaginary level is through cultural formations:
All ‘culture’ is in a way a reaction-formation, an attempt to limit, canalize-

-to cultivate this imbalance, this traumatic kernel, this radical antagonism
through which man cuts his umbilical cord with nature, with animal
homeostasis. It is not only that the aim is no longer to abolish this drive
antagonism, but the aspiration to abolish it is precisely the source of totali-
tarian temptation: the greatest mass murders and holocausts have always
been perpetrated in the name of man as harmonious being, of a New Man
without antagonistic tension. (xxviii)
136 R. Samuels
Zizek’s important insight here that cultures are often shaped by a utopian
idea to eliminate fundamental conflicts leaves open the question of which
conflict is fundamental. He appears to be arguing that we turn to culture
in order to resolve the tension caused by the death drive and the pleasure
principle. However, Freud’s idea is that we first turn to imagination in the
form of hallucinations in order to satisfy our unmet needs, and then
when this does not work, we turn to others to help us to satisfy our
needs.31 In fact, Freud bases his theory of transference and the social link
on this primary demand for caregivers to satisfy the subject’s pleasure
principle. As he argues in his Project for a Scientific Psychology, morality
and communication have their roots in a primary relation where the
helpless infant cries, and the parents recognize and understand this cry as
a demand for a certain satisfaction. The cry is then turned into a demand
through the recognition of the social Other.32 From this moment on,
when the subject asks for something, there is an underlying desire for the
Other’s love, knowledge, and recognition. Culture then can be under-
stood as the way a society mystifies these relationships by combining the
primary processes of imaginary satisfaction with the requirements of the
social order. Ideological fantasies should therefore be seen as hiding the
fundamental conflict between society and the individual through a solu-
tion that occurs purely on the level of thought.33
We can understand the role of culture as an ideological fantasy by
examining Zizek’s own discourse. In focusing on the death drive, enjoy-
ment, and the inexistence of the social Other, he resolves the conflict
between the social and the individual by indirectly privileging the liber-
tarian subject of freedom and compulsive pleasure.34 While I do not
think that Zizek would approve of this interpretation, this repressed ideo-
logical fantasy continues to return throughout his work. Moreover, one
reason for this symptomatic repetition is that he conflates the five levels
of conflict shaping psychoanalysis and human subjectivity: (1) the con-
flict between stimulation and release (the pleasure principle); (2) the con-
flict between reality and imaginative thought (the primary processes); (3)
the conflict between society and the individual (transference); (4) the
conflict between the ego and the super-ego (the unconscious); and (5) the
conflict between the Symbolic and the Real (the reality principle). We
should therefore think of the misunderstanding of psychoanalysis as gen-
erated from the refusal to accept these foundational antinomies.
From Lacan to Marx and Back Again

If Zizek’s work can be considered to be an ideological fantasy, then we
need to see how he constructs this imaginary reconciliation in his text.
One of the main ways he unifies opposing forces is through his attempt
to reconcile psychoanalysis with Marxism:35
According to Lacan, it was none other than Karl Marx who invented the
notion of symptom. Is this Lacanian thesis just a sally of wit, a vague anal-
ogy, or does it possess a pertinent theoretical foundation? If Marx really
articulated the notion of the symptom as it is also at work in the Freudian
field, then we must ask ourselves the Kantian question, concerning the
epistemological ‘conditions of possibility’ of such an encounter: how was it
possible for Marx, in his analysis of the world of commodities, to produce
a notion which applies also to the analysis of dreams, hysterical phenom-
ena, and so on? (3)
This combination of Lacan and Marx replicates a common Western aca-

demic desire to reconcile theories based on society with theories centered
on the individual.36 In Zizek’s case, he attempts to equate Marx’s eco-
nomic theory of commodity exchange with Freud’s notions of symptoms,
dreams, and hysteria.
The way that Zizek brings together Marxism and psychoanalysis is by
highlighting how in both discourses, the emphasis of interpretation is on
form and not content:37
The answer is that there is a fundamental homology between the interpre-

tative procedure of Marx and Freud - more precisely, between their analysis
of commodity and of dreams. In both cases the point is to avoid the prop-
erly fetishistic fascination of the ‘content’ supposedly hidden behind the
form: the ‘secret’ to be unveiled through analysis is not the content hidden
by the form (the form of commodities, the form of dreams) but, on the
contrary, the secret of this form itself. The theoretical intelligence of the
form of dreams does not consist in penetrating from the manifest content
to its ‘hidden kernel’, to the latent dream-thoughts; it consists in the answer
to the question: why have the latent dream-thoughts assumed such a form,
why were they transposed into the form of a dream? (3)
138 R. Samuels
In this privileging of form over content, Zizek makes the important move
of eliminating both social and subjective material from the consideration
of capitalism and subjectivity.38 Thus, instead of looking at the content of
a dream or the material derived from free association, Zizek’s formalism
removes signification and individual experience from psychoanalysis and
Marxism. This emptying out of content to focus on form is odd for some-
one who is known for his insightful political and cultural
interpretations.39
One possible explanation for Zizek’s formalism is his understanding of
the key psychoanalytic concept of the unconscious:
But as Freud continually emphasizes, there is nothing ‘unconscious’ in the

‘latent dream thought: this thought is an entirely ‘normal’ thought which
can be articulated in the syntax of everyday, common language; topologi-
cally, it belongs to the system of, consciousness/preconsciousness’; the sub-
ject is usually aware of it, even excessively so; it harasses him all the time …
Under certain conditions this thought is pushed away, forced out of the
consciousness, drawn into the unconscious - that is, submitted to the laws
of the ‘primary process’, translated into the ‘language of the uncon-
scious’. (4)
Once again, at first glance, this interpretation of unconscious thoughts

seems correct, but there are two major issues: one is the relation between
this passage and Zizek’s formalism, and the other concerns the relation-
ship between the unconscious and the primary processes.
In terms of the formal nature of the unconscious, what is lost in this
approach is the question of why the subject seeks to avoid these thoughts
in the first place. According to Freud’s theory of repression, the neurotic
subject desires to escape feelings of guilt, shame, and fear by replacing
these thoughts and feelings with other representations.40 It is essential for
psychoanalytic treatment to reveal these repressed thoughts through
speech, and so the content is more important than the form. In removing
the content from consideration, the process then becomes a practice in
empty formalism, and we shall see that this formalism points to Zizek’s
tendency to promote a type of behaviorism where subjectivity is put in a
black box as the focus is placed on externalized practices.41
It is also necessary to point out that the formal aspects of the primary
processes—substitution, displacement, association, and projection—do
reshape unconscious thoughts, but these thoughts themselves are derived
from the fundamental conflict between the individual and the social.42
Since one represses feelings of guilt and shame, and these feelings are
derived from the internalization of social norms and morality, the internal
conflict between the super-ego and the ideal ego replicates the larger con-
flict between the self and society.43 When one concentrates on the form
and not the content of this conflict, one loses the important distinction
between the unconscious thoughts and the forms of the primary processes.
Zizek’s misunderstanding of the unconscious is apparent in the follow-
ing passage where he rejects some of the core aspects of unconscious
content:
if we seek the ‘secret of the dream’ in the latent content hidden by the
manifest text, we are doomed to disappointment: all we find is some
entirely ‘normal’ – albeit usually unpleasant - thought, the nature of which
is mostly non-sexual and definitely not ‘unconscious’. This ‘normal’,
conscious/preconscious thought is not drawn towards the unconscious,
repressed simply because of its ‘disagreeable’ character for the conscious,
but because it achieves a kind of ‘short circuit’ between it and another
desire which is already repressed, located in the unconscious, a desire which
has nothing whatsoever to do with the latent dream-thought. (5)
Although Zizek wants to disconnect the unconscious from strictly

unpleasant thoughts, the Freudian unconscious is founded on the repres-
sion of anything that undermines the ego’s sense of moral righteousness
or personal competence. Moreover, while the obsessional subject may
engage in acts of purification to keep impure thoughts out of mind, these
feelings of guilt and shame remain in the unconscious where they are
reworked by the primary processes.44 Likewise, in the case of hysteria, the
repression of sexual fixations and fantasies results in a return of repressed
impulses coupled with a defense against them in a contradictory forma-
tion.45 In both cases, analytic treatment works by discovering this
repressed material through the process of free association and the work-
ing through of the transference; it therefore makes no sense to argue that
only the form of the primary processes is important.
140 R. Samuels
Exchange Value
One reason why Zizek may seek to eliminate the content of the uncon-
scious is that he wants to show that behind modern science and democ-
racy, one finds the formal nihilism of capitalist exchange value: “Before
thought could arrive at the idea of a purely quantitative determination, a
sine qua non of the modern science of nature, pure quantity was already
at work in money, that commodity which renders possible the commen-
surability of the value of all other commodities not withstanding their
particular qualitative determination” (11). The theory here is that under-
lying the modern scientific practice of analyzing nature through the use
of abstract symbols and concepts, we find the abstract quantification
caused by the capitalist exchange value.46 Since any object or act of labor
can be represented by a shared symbolic mediation (money), all other
values and meanings are eliminated.47 Thus, when Marx posits that in
modern capitalism, all past feudal values and relations melt away, he was
pointing to the way exchange value replaces every other value.
It is interesting to note that this nihilism of capitalism dovetails with
Zizek’s own method of emptying out the meaning of key psychoanalytic
concepts: by insisting on form over content, Zizek melts away all of the
meaning and value of Freud’s original theories. We see this move to a
universalized nihilism in his combination of Marx and Hegel:
That is to say, if we look closely at the ontological status of what Sohn-

Rethel calls the ‘real abstraction’ [das reale Abstraktion (that is, the act of
abstraction at work in the very active process of the exchange of commodi-
ties), the homology between its status and that of the unconscious, this
signifying chain which persists on ‘another Scene’, is striking: the ‘real
abstraction ‘ is the unconscious of the transcendental subject, the support
of objective-universal scientific knowledge. (11)
This combination of Hegel’s real abstraction, Marx’s exchange value, and

Lacan’s theory of the unconscious reveals the way that Zizek is able to
jump from one discourse to the other because he empties out the mean-
ing of each one.48 As Jean Baudrillard argues, what in part defines con-
temporary culture is the lost distinction among different discourses,
which is itself the result of the combination of capitalism with science

and art and the lack of any cultural filtering system.49 Zizek’s own dis-
course then reflects this aspect of contemporary post-postmodern cul-
ture. Not only does he jump from high culture to low culture, but he also
has no problem moving from Hegel to Marx to Lacan. In fact, The
Sublime Object of Ideology represents the foundation of the main argu-
ments he will make in his later books, and we can thus read the entirety
of his work through an analysis of this early text.
On one level, he is correct to highlight how the formal primary pro-
cesses of association, substitution, and displacement function in part by
eliminating natural (time) and social differences (categories), but on the
other hand, he confuses this automatic mental symbolism with the
meaning-destroying force of exchange value. In other words, it is true
that in our dreams, we treat things like words and words like things, but
this type of fetishism is different from the fetishism caused by the general-
ized mediation of symbolic currencies.50 The latter type of fetishism is
much closer to the symbolic dimension of the death drive, which is cen-
tered on the way drives function through the substitution of objects and
the re-iteration of symbolic social differences (idealized vs. debased, active
vs. passive, Madonna vs. whore, affection vs. desire).51
Cynical Behaviorism
The clearest example of Zizek’s formalism can be seen in his focus on
social practices shaped by exchange value:
we know very well that money, like all other material objects, suffers the
effects of use, that its material body changes through time, but in the social
activity of the market we none the less treat coins as if they consist ‘of an
immutable substance, a substance over which time has no power, and
which stands in antithetic contrast to any matter found in nature’ How
tempting to recall here the formula of fetishistic disavowal: ‘I know very
well, but still … ‘. To the current exemplifications of this formula (‘I know
that Mother has not got a phallus, but still … [I believe she has got one]; ‘I
know that Jews are people like us, but still … [there is something in them,)
142 R. Samuels
we must undoubtedly add also the variant of money: ‘I know that money
is a material object like others, but still … [it is as if it were made of a spe-
cial substance over which time has no power)’. (12)
In this structure of fetishistic disavowal, the subject is split between the

perception of reality and a symbolic substitution that is treated as the real
thing.52 Thus, in Freud’s classic example, the male child sees that the
mother does not have a penis, but he acts as if she still has the universal
symbol of sexual identity. In fact, according to Freud’s theory, the fetishist
will fixate on an object (a shoe, hair, clothing) that was seen right before
the discovery of the missing phallus. As a form of exchange value, the
imaginary phallus or fetish represents a substitution of the primary lost
object.53
We can say with Zizek that the sexual drive and the economic exchange
value share the same structure—both rely on symbolic substitution.
However, Zizek extends this analogy by including a whole range of social
beliefs and ideological practices centered on idealization and the sublime:
Here we have touched a problem unsolved by Marx, that of the material

character of money: not of the empirical, material stuff money is made of,
but of the sublime material, of that other ‘indestructible and immutable’
body which persists beyond the corruption of the body physical – this
other body of money is like the corpse of the Sadeian victim which endures
all torments and survives with its beauty immaculate. This immaterial cor-
porality of the ‘body within the body’ gives us a precise definition of the
sublime object, and it is in this sense only that the psychoanalytic notion
of money as a ‘pre-phallic’, ‘anal’ object is acceptable – provided that we do
not forget how this postulated existence of the sublime body depends on
the symbolic order: the indestructible ‘body-within-the-body’ exempted
from the effects of wear and tear is always sustained by the guarantee of
some symbolic authority. (12–13)
Similar to Lacan’s notion of the sublime love object in Courtly Love, the
idealized cause of desire embodies a symbolic social value, yet this object-
choice is in direct opposition to the object of the drive.54 As Lacan insists,
when lovers describe their beloved in this tradition, it always sounds like
they are describing the same person, and that is because the object is not
a real person but a symbolic cultural ideal. Moreover, Freud insists that in
the hypnotic love relation, the lover becomes humble and humiliated as
the ego-ideal is followed with blind obedience.55
It is crucial to contrast the masochistic submission to the idealized
object with the object of the exchange value since it is precisely capitalism
that undermines the feudal discourse of idealization.56 From a historical
and psychological perspective, modern capitalism allows the break from
premodern religion, feudalism, and monarchy through the replacement
of traditional values with the meaningless calculation of market value.57
In terms of psychoanalysis, premodern institutions rely on the transfer-
ence of responsibility from the individual to the transcendent idea, leader,
or love object, while in the perverse realm of the drives, the pursuit of
individual pleasure and self-interest is fueled by a debasement of the
object and denial of the social Other.58 Therefore, when Zizek equates
money with the Sadean victim and the sublime object of desire, he is
conflating the foundation of transference with the pleasure principle.
I have been stressing that is vital to separate the key concepts of trans-
ference, the pleasure principle, the primary processes, and the uncon-
scious because without these differences, one loses the specificity of
psychoanalysis itself. The risk of Zizek’s work, then, is that he tends to
empty the meaning out of these concepts so that he can combine together
different discourses in a unified perspective.59 For instance, the following
passage attempts to equate Marxism and psychoanalysis by conflating
economic exchange value with the unconscious and the primary processes:
“The exchange abstraction is not thought, but it has the form of thought.”
Here we have one of the possible definitions of the unconscious: the form
of thought whose ontological status is not that of thought, that is to say,
the form of thought external to the thought itself - in short, some Other
Scene external to the thought whereby the form of the thought is already
articulated in advance. The symbolic order is precisely such a formal order
which supplements and/or disrupts the dual relationship of ‘external’ fac-
tual reality and ‘internal’ subjective experience. (13)
As Zizek moves from exchange value to thought to the unconscious to

the symbolic order, he is once again confusing four different modes of
144 R. Samuels
symbolism. On one level, we have the symbolic substitution of objects

and values through the capitalistic market value system.60 I have equated
this form of symbolic activity to the drives and the pleasure principle
because for psychoanalysis, every object of desire is a substitute for an
original object that is always already lost—the mother.61 This mode of
symbolic substitution is distinct from the way that the primary processes
shape thinking through association, substitution, and displacement.
Thus, the representations in dreams are always symbols representing
something else in a network of signifiers structured by symbolic substitu-
tion, association, and displacement. One of Freud’s radical moves is to
argue that thought itself is determined by these automatic primary pro-
cesses, which treat things as words and words as things.62
Not only should we distinguish the symbolic nature of the primary
processes from the symbolic aspects of the drives, but we also have to
recognize the difference between these symbolic forms and the symbolic
social order. Since societies often structure their social hierarchies through
the use of symbolic oppositions (male vs. female, human vs. animal, rea-
son vs. emotion, master vs. slave), language plays a central role in produc-
ing and maintaining social order.63 Moreover, from a psychoanalytic
perspective, one of the main questions is how does an individual become
subjected to the social symbolic order? The three main answers to this
question are castration, identification, and transference.64 Freud stresses
that castration as a threat of bodily harm scares people into accepting
social authority structured by the social hierarchy.65 In turn, as a way of
resolving the conflict between the child and the parents (the Oedipus
complex), the male child identifies with the castrater, and the female
child identifies with the castrated subject.66 The cause of castration is then
idealized in the transference by allowing the subject the ability to place all
responsibility into the hands of the all-powerful Other.
Of course, neurotics resist accepting both the automatic nature of the
primary processes and the threat of symbolic castration, and so these
aspects of subjectivity are repressed into the unconscious.67 It is therefore
necessary to counter Zizek’s effort to equate symbolic thought, exchange
value, social order, and the unconscious because these different levels of
human subjectivity structure both the theory and practice of psycho-
analysis. When we fail to differentiate these fundamental concepts, we
end up with an empty formalistic behaviorism, which is evident in the

following claim by Zizek: “there, in the external effectivity of the exchange
process … there is the theatre in which your truth was performed before
you took cognizance of it” (14). Like Skinner’s behaviorism, the focus on
social behavior can result in placing subjectivity in an excluded black
box.68 By saying that with the exchange value, truth is performed prior to
any cognition, we lose the very essence of psychoanalysis itself. In fact, we
see in Zizek’s definition of ideology how he clings to a new form of
behaviorism:
the social effectivity of the exchange process is a kind of reality which is

possible only on condition that the individuals partaking in it are not aware
of its proper logic; that is, a kind of reality whose very ontological consis-
tency implies a certain non-knowledge of its participants - if we come to
‘know too much’, to pierce the true functioning of social reality, this reality
would dissolve itself. This is probably the fundamental dimension of ‘ideol-
ogy’ … (15–16)
From this perspective, social practices and individual behaviors are effec-
tive precisely because the people engaged in these activities are not aware
of what is going on.69 For Zizek, the issue is not that we repress our
desires, fears, and primary processes into the unconscious; the real issue
is that the capitalist exchange value and its supporting ideology do not
require subjective knowledge.70 Zizek thus presents a psychoanalysis
without content or subjectivity.
The Return of the Repressed

And yet, Zizek cannot help returning to the subjectivity of the uncon-
scious as the repressed continues to return. One reason, then, why Zizek
may be constantly re-writing the same book in an obsessional manner is
that his impulse to empty every concept of its original content is coupled
with his desire to be seen as providing profound insight.71 This contradic-
tion is apparent in his description of the interpretation of neurotic symp-
toms: “Thus we have finally reached the dimension of the symptom,
146 R. Samuels
because one of its possible definitions would also be ‘a formation whose

very consistency implies a certain non-knowledge on the part of the sub-
ject’: the subject can ‘enjoy his symptom’ only in so far as its logic escapes
him - the measure of the success of its interpretation is precisely its dis-
solution” (16). On one level, this formulation appears to match Freud’s
own practice of using interpretation as the cure to neurotic symptoms;
however, on another level, Zizek’s claim effaces analysis by devaluing the
importance of the repressed material. In other terms, he highlights the
lack of knowledge of the neurotic subject, but he does not examine what
the neurotic subject is trying to avoid.
By emptying out the content of the unconscious and the primary pro-
cesses, Zizek is able to equate the hysterical symptom with alienated
social relations: “’Instead of appearing at all events as their own mutual
relations, the social relations between individuals are disguised under the
shape of social relations between things’ - here we have a precise defini-
tion of the hysterical symptom, of the ‘hysteria of conversion’ proper to
capitalism” (22). What enables Zizek’s combination of Marxism with
psychoanalysis is the replacement of subjective content with the abstract
relationship between things.72 In other words, the alienation caused by
the mystification of exchange value structures Zizek’s own interpretive
strategy. Furthermore, his theory of cynical ideology is also shaped by this
same externalized social practice:
In the Critique of Cynical Reason, a great bestseller in Germany, Peter

Sloterdijk puts forward the thesis that ideology’s dominant mode of func-
tioning is cynical, which renders impossible - or, more precisely, vain-the
classic critical-ideological procedure. The cynical subject is quite aware of
the distance between the ideological mask and the social reality, but he
none the less still insists upon the mask. The formula, as proposed by
Sloterdijk, would then be: ‘they know very well what they are doing, but
still, they are doing it’. (25)
I have been arguing that Zizek’s own discourse partakes in cynical dis-
tance since he empties all terms of their original meaning and context by
creating a psychoanalysis without a psychoanalytic practice.73 In fact, we
shall see that his investment in saving an idealized version of Hegel results
in a reversal of Marx’s own reversal of German Idealism.74
From Lacan to Marx to Hegel

Underlying this move from Lacan to Marx to Hegel is the promotion of
a perverse borderline subjectivity where a cynical lack of belief is coupled
with the exploitation of others for the gain of profit and pleasure:
Even Adorno came to this conclusion, starting from the premise that ideol-
ogy is, strictly speaking, only a system which makes a claim to the truth -
that is, which is not simply a lie but a lie experienced as truth, a lie which
pretends to be taken seriously. Totalitarian ideology no longer has this pre-
tension. It is no longer meant, even by its authors, to be taken seriously - its
status is just that of a means of manipulation, purely external and instru-
mental; its rule is secured not by its truth-value but by simple extra ideo-
logical violence and promise of gain. (27)
In emphasizing the instrumental and external foundation of totalitarian

ideology, Zizek turns to a perverse and borderline mode of pathology
where people are treated as things to be used and exploited.75 From this
perspective, the cynic is someone who takes advantage of a system in
which he does not believe by acting on impulses and drives devoid of any
coherent understanding or reason.76 Thus, for the borderline subject, the
combination of low impulse control and unstable relationships represents
the privileging of the id over the social super-ego.77 Here we see why
Freud’s theory of perversion matches the contemporary diagnostic cate-
gory of the anti-social borderline personality disorder; through the domi-
nance of the drives, the subject’s pursuit of pleasure ultimately leads to
self-destruction and the imagined freedom from the castrating social
Other.78
In this combination of cynicism and perverse borderline subjectivity,
we understand how the discourse of capitalism does rely on an unsatisfi-
able desire motivating a manipulation and exploitation of other people:
“The problem is that in their social activity itself, in what they are doing,
they are acting as if money, in its material reality, is the immediate
embodiment of wealth as such. They are fetishists in practice, not in the-
ory. What they ‘ do not know’, what they misrecognize, is the fact that in
their social reality itself, in their social activity - in the act of commodity
148 R. Samuels
exchange - they are guided by the fetishistic illusion” (27). By arguing

that capitalists are “fetishists in practice,” Zizek reveals the underlying
pathology of cynical behavioral ideology: once subjectivity and uncon-
scious content have been removed, the abstract formalism of the exchange
values and the drives is able to reshape social reality.79
Zizek’s discursive move from Lacan to Marx to Hegel results in a
strange idealization of material relations: “The roots of philosophical
speculative idealism are in the social reality of the world of commodities;
it is this world which behaves ‘idealistically’”(29). In one move, Zizek is
able to empty out the meaning of both psychoanalysis and Marxism by
placing subjectivity and material conditions in a black box that repeats
the strategy of Skinner’s behaviorism: “What they overlook, what they
misrecognize, is not the reality but the illusion which is structuring their
reality, their real social activity. They know very well how things really are,
but still they are doing it as if they did not know. The illusion is therefore
double: it consists in overlooking the illusion which is structuring our
real, effective relationship to reality. And this overlooked, unconscious
illusion is what may be called the ideological fantasy” (30). Since Zizek
does not tie the unconscious to repression, the super-ego, and the content
of the primary processes, he is able to focus on the embodiment of ideo-
logical fantasies in non-conscious behaviors.80 It is then external reality
itself which is seen as being determined by imagination.
The Displacement of Ideology

One difficulty in examining Zizek’s theory of ideology is that he con-
stantly moves from equating it with capitalism to totalitarianism to con-
temporary subjectivity. These displacements are made possible because
each conceptual term is merely an instrument to be manipulated for the
purpose of providing a counter-intuitive insight.81 By removing the con-
tent from the concepts, ideas are able to be used freely in the same way
that the behaviorist attempts to efface thoughts and feelings from the
practices being conditioned. Behaviorism, consumer capitalism, libertar-
ian politics, and perverse borderline structures share this same tendency
of denying the unconscious shame and guilt associated with transgressive

drives.82 In Zizek’s case, his cynical analysis of cynicism seeks to displace
both psychoanalysis and Marxism: “If our concept of ideology remains
the classic one in which the illusion is located in knowledge, then today’s
society must appear post-ideological: the prevailing ideology is that of
cynicism; people no longer believe in ideological truth; they do not take
ideological propositions seriously” (30). Cynical distance and behavior-
ism go together because in both cases, any concern for belief or truth is
suspended.83
In fact, Zizek traces this contemporary form of cynical ideology to the
transition from feudalism to modern capitalism:
In feudalism, as we have seen, relations between people are mystified,

mediated through a web of ideological beliefs and superstitions. They are
the relations between the master and his servant, whereby the master exerts
his charismatic power of fascination, and so forth. Although in capitalism
the subjects are emancipated, perceiving themselves as free from medieval
religious superstitions, when they deal with one another they do so as ratio-
nal utilitarians, guided only by their selfish interests. The point of Marx’ s
analysis, however, is that the things (commodities) themselves believe in
their place, instead of the subjects: it is as if all their beliefs, superstitions
and metaphysical mystifications, supposedly surmounted by the rational,
utilitarian personality, are embodied in the ‘social relations between
things’. (31)
This notion that things believe in the place of people believing is a great
example of Freud’s theory of animism, which he defines as the projection
of internal mental thoughts onto external reality.84 However, in contem-
porary culture, these projected thoughts are not coupled with the cer-
tainty of the psychotic subject; instead, projected ideas are experienced
from a position of non-belief. Moreover, while in premodern religion and
feudalism, one submits to the powerful and charismatic leader in a mode
of hypnotic blind obedience, with modernity, this submission to the all-
powerful father-figure is broken or driven into the unconscious.85
In the case of contemporary cynical ideology, Zizek posits that one no
longer has to believe in beliefs since they take on a social life of their own:
150 R. Samuels
They no longer believe, but the things themselves believe for them. This
seems also to be a basic Lacanian proposition, contrary to the usual thesis
that a belief is something interior and knowledge something exterior (in
the sense that it can be verified through an external procedure). Rather, it
is belief which is radically exterior, embodied in the practical, effective pro-
cedure of people. It is similar to Tibetan prayer wheels: you write a prayer
on a paper, put the rolled paper into a wheel, and turn it automatically,
without thinking (or, if you want to proceed according to the Hegelian
‘cunning of reason’, you attach it to a windmill, so that it is moved around
by the wind). In this way, the wheel itself is praying for me, instead of me -
or, more precisely, I myself am praying through the medium of the wheel.
The beauty of it all is that in my psychological inferiority I can think about
whatever I want, I can yield to the most dirty and obscene fantasies, and it
does not matter because - to use a good old Stalinist expression - whatever
I am thinking, objectively I am praying. (31–32)
In this description of social practices removed from conscious thought, we

see why cognitive behavioral therapy has become so popular today: people
want to fix their mental problems without changing their underlying sub-
jectivity; in other words, they want to be reprogrammed by the therapist
so that they do not have to undergo the long process of psychoanalysis.86
The idea here is to change the drives without changing the unconscious or
the underlying demands for love, knowledge, and recognition.
What I have been arguing here is that Zizek ends up turning psycho-
analysis into a cynical ideology that matches the cynical alienation of
contemporary society: “This is how we should grasp the fundamental
Lacanian proposition that psychoanalysis is not a psychology: the most
intimate beliefs, even the most intimate emotions such as compassion,
crying, sorrow, laughter, can be transferred, delegated to others without
losing their sincerity” (32). In contemporary cynical conformity, one no
longer has to believe in one’s own beliefs since one creates a separation
between behavior and subjectivity. Through this emptying of subjective
content, thoughts and feelings are displaced onto the other; thus, the
other feels and thinks in my place.87 This voiding of the unconscious
points to the pleasure principle and the desire to escape any feelings of
tension or anxiety; when the other enjoys and thinks in my place, I can
fulfil the death drive’s push to use as little mental or physical energy as
possible.88 From this perspective, the reason why we are outsourcing our
minds to computer technologies and our labor to automation is that we
are finally able to realize the pleasure principle’s law of inertia.89
Not only do we desire not to think or work, but we also seek to rid
ourselves of the burden of feeling and enjoying: “The only correct answer
would be that the other - embodied in the television set - is relieving us
even of our duty to laugh - is laughing instead of us. So even if, tired from
a hard day’s stupid work, all evening we did nothing but gaze drowsily
into the television screen, we can say afterwards that objectively, through
the medium of the other, we had a really good time” (33). In referring to
the laugh track in television comedies, Zizek affirms that we are driven to
hand over responsibility for feeling, thinking, and enjoying to the other.90
As a form of meaningless enjoyment, popular media gives us the oppor-
tunity to displace our internal lives onto an externalized representation.
Of course, without internal thoughts and feelings, there can be no psy-
choanalysis, and here we see how Zizek’s turn to Lacan results in making
psychoanalysis itself impossible.
From Transference to Social Reality

One of the key ways that Zizek undermines psychoanalysis from within
psychoanalysis is through his understanding of social belief:
What we call ‘social reality’ is in the last resort an ethical construction; it is

supported by a certain as if (we act as if we believe in the almightiness of
bureaucracy, as if the President incarnates the will of the People, as if the
Party expresses the objective interest of the working class …). As soon as
the belief (which, let us remind ourselves again, is definitely not to be con-
ceived at a ‘psychological’ level: it is embodied, materialized, in the effective
functioning of the social field) is lost, the very texture of the social field
disintegrates. This was already articulated by Pascal, one of Althusser’s prin-
cipal points of reference, in his attempt to develop the concept of
‘Ideological State Apparatuses’. According to Pascal, the interiority of our
reasoning is determined by the external, nonsensical ‘machine’--automa-
tism of the signifier, of the symbolic network in which the subjects are
caught. (65)
152 R. Samuels
Zizek argues here that belief should not be conceived on a psychological

level because it is embodied in social practices; however, Freud’s concept
of transference is a psychological explanation of how individuals accept
cultural ideals and norms.91 What allows us to trust others and believe
what they say is that we transfer responsibility in order to escape our own
freedom, guilt, and shame.
Moreover, the automatism of the signifier occurs on the level of the
primary processes for Freud and not through social formations or drive-
based behaviors. And yet, Zizek continues to conflate the primary pro-
cesses, the unconscious, and social ideology:
For we must make no mistake about ourselves: we are as much automaton

as mind … proofs only convince the mind; habit provides the strongest
proofs and those that are most believed. It inclines the automaton, which
leads the mind unconsciously along with it. Here Pascal produces the very
Lacanian definition of the unconscious: ‘the automaton (i.e. the dead,
senseless letter), which leads the mind unconsciously [sans Ie savoir with
it’. It follows, from this constitutively senseless character of the Law, that
we must obey it not because it is just, good or even beneficial, but simply
because it is the law--this tautology articulates the vicious circle of its
authority, the fact that the last foundation of the Law’s authority lies in its
process of enunciation. (34–35)
While the automatic nature of the signifier in the mind relates to the way
the primary processes structure our thoughts and perceptions, it is repres-
sion that determines the unconscious. Also, the social law is internalized
through the super-ego and the ego-ideal through the process of transfer-
ence and the threat of castration, and so it does not make sense to equate
the automatic nature of the signifier with the law’s authority.92
A possible reason for Zizek’s desire to combine the unconscious, the
primary process, and transference together is that he wants to posit that
our submission to the social order is not based on subjectivity: “The only
real obedience, then, is an ‘external’ one: obedience out of conviction is
not real obedience because it is already ‘mediated’ through our subjectiv-
ity—that is, we are not really obeying the authority but simply following
our judgement, which tells us that the authority deserves to be obeyed in
so far as it is good, wise, beneficent” (35). Whereas Zizek opposes subjec-

tivity and submission here, Lacan defines the subject as being excluded by
language and society through its inclusion.93 In fact, for psychoanalytic
practice and theory, it is necessary to distinguish five types of subjection:
(1) the loss of intentional control with the primary processes; (2) the loss
of awareness in repression; (3) the submission of the self to the Other in
transference; (4) the loss of self-control with the drives; and (5) the sub-
mission of the self to reality in the reality principle.94 When we do not
make these distinction, we lose the meaning of psychoanalysis itself.
Notes
1. Žižek, Slavoj. The sublime object of ideology. Verso Books, 2019.
3. Lacan, Jacques, and Jacques-Alain Miller. The ethics of psychoanalysis
1959-1960: The seminar of Jacques Lacan. Routledge, 2013.
4. Freud, Sigmund. The future of an illusion. Broadview Press, 2012.
5. Althusser, Louis. “Ideology and ideological state apparatuses (notes
towards an investigation).” The anthropology of the state: A reader 9.1
(2006): 86–98.
6. Reinhard, Kenneth. “Lacan and Monotheism: Psychoanalysis and the
Traversal of Cultural Fantasy.” Jouvert: A Journal of Postcolonial Studies
3.1–2 (1999).
7. Shepherdson, Charles. Lacan and the Limits of Language. Fordham
8. Clemens, Justin, et al. Jacques Lacan and the Other Side of Psychoanalysis:
Reflections on Seminar XVII, Sic Vi. Duke University Press, 2006.
2020. 33–125.
10. Rieff, Philip. Freud: The mind of the moralist. University of Chicago
Press, 1979.
11. Davis, Robert Con. “Pedagogy, Lacan, and the Freudian subject.” College
English 49.7 (1987): 749–755.
12. Lacan, Jacques, Jacques-Alain Ed Miller, and Bruce Trans Fink. Desire
and its interpretation: The seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VI. Polity
Press, 2019.
154 R. Samuels
13. Samuels, Robert. “Žižek’s Rhetorical Matrix: The Symptomatic

Enjoyment of Postmodern Academic Writing.” JAC (2002): 327–354.
15. Voruz, Véronique, and Bogdan Wolf, eds. The Later Lacan: An
Introduction. SUNY Press, 2012.
16. Miller, Jacques-Alain. “Interpretation in reverse.” Bulletin de NLS 4
(2008): 69–75.
17. Lacan, Jacques. “The seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book XX: Encore:
1972-1973.” (2011).
2020. 33–125.
19. Badiou, Alain, and Elisabeth Roudinesco. Jacques Lacan, past and pres-
ent. Columbia University Press, 2014.
20. Byram, T. “Visions of the Self Conflict and Deficit: Toward an Integrative
Vision of the Self.” American Journal of Psychoanalysis 55.3 (1995): 275.
21. Freud, Sigmund. “Beyond the pleasure principle.” The Standard Edition
of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XVIII
(1920-1922): Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Group Psychology and Other
Works. 1955. 1–64.
22. Evans, Dylan. “From Kantian ethics to mystical experience: An explora-
tion of jouissance.” Key concepts of Lacanian psychoanalysis. Routledge,
2018. 1–28.
24. Black, David M. “Mapping a Detour: Why did Freud Speak of a Death
Drive? 1.” British Journal of Psychotherapy 18.2 (2001): 185–198.
25. Samuels, Robert. “The pleasure principle and the death drive.” Freud for
the twenty-first century. Palgrave Pivot, Cham, 2019. 17–25.
26. Aycock, Alan. “Derrida/Fort-da: deconstructing play.” Postmodern
Culture 3.2 (1993).
29. Freud, Sigmund. “The ego and the id (1923).” TACD Journal 17.1
(1989): 5–22.
30. Marcuse, Herbert. Eros and civilization: A philosophical inquiry into

Freud. Routledge, 2012.
Drafts. 1966. 281–391.
32. Benvenuto, Bice. Once upon a Time: The Infant in Lacanian Theory 1.
Routledge, 2018.
33. Žižek, Slavoj. For they know not what they do: Enjoyment as a political
factor. Verso, 2002.
36. Sherratt, Yvonne. “Adorno’s concept of the self: A marriage of Freud and
Hegelian Marxism.” Revue internationale de philosophie 1 (2004):
101–117.
37. Sharpe, Matthew. “What’s left in Žižek? The antinomies of Žižek’s socio-
political reason.” Traversing the Fantasy. Routledge, 2017. 147–168.
38. Hell, Julia. “Remnants of totalitarianism: Hannah Arendt, Heiner
Müller, Slavoj Žižek, and the re-invention of politics.” telos 2006.136
(2006): 76–103.
39. Ferguson, Jonathan. “Translation Review Essay:“Autour de Slavoj Žižek:
Psychanalyse, Marxisme, Idealisme Allemand.”(Benoît Guillette,
Université du Québec à Montréal).” International Journal of Žižek Studies
4.4 (2016).
40. Scheff, Thomas J. “Shame in self and society.” Symbolic interaction 26.2
(2003): 239–262.
41. Mróz, Piotr, and Łukasz Śliwa. “On diverse understandings of the
notion of tolerance: behaviorism versus psychoanalysis.” (2016).
42. Freud, Sigmund, James Strachey, and Anna Freud. The psychopathology of
everyday life:(1901). Hogarth Press: Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1978.
43. Rensmann, Lars. The politics of unreason: The Frankfurt School and the
origins of modern antisemitism. Suny Press, 2017.
44. Zetzel, Elizabeth, R. “1965: Additional notes upon a case of obsessional
neurosis: Freud 1909.” International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 47 (1966):
123–129.
156 R. Samuels
45. Freud, Sigmund. “Hysterical phantasies and their relation to bisexual-

ity.” The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund
Freud, Volume IX (1906-1908): Jensen’s ‘Gradiva’and Other Works. 1959.
155–166.
46. Flemming, Gregory C. “In the Beginning… Was the Act!: Zizek, Marx,
and the Question of Form.” (2014).
47. Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. The communist manifesto. Phoemixx
Classics Ebooks, 2021.
49. Baudrillard, Jean. The transparency of evil: Essays on extreme phenomena.
Verso, 1993.
50. Tomšič, Samo. The capitalist unconscious: Marx and Lacan. Verso
Books, 2015.
51. Freud, Sigmund. “A special type of choice of object made by men
(Contributions to the psychology of love I).” The Standard Edition of the
Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XI (1910): Five
Lectures on Psycho-Analysis, Leonardo da Vinci and Other Works. 1957.
163–176.
52. Freud, Sigmund. Fetishism. Routledge, 2017.
53. Dant, Tim. “Fetishism and the social value of objects 1.” The Sociological
Review 44.3 (1996): 495–516.
54. Lacan, Jacques, and Jacques-Alain Miller. The ethics of psychoanalysis
1959-1960: The seminar of Jacques Lacan. Routledge, 2013.
55. Freud, Sigmund. “Group psychology and the analysis of the ego.” The
Volume XVIII (1920-1922): Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Group
Psychology and Other Works. 1955. 65–144.
56. Sweezy, Paul M., and Maurice Dobb. “The transition from feudalism to
capitalism.” Science & Society (1950): 134–167.
57. Holton, Robert J. “Marxist theories of social change and the transition
from feudalism to capitalism.” Theory and society 10.6 (1981): 833–867.
58. Freud, Sigmund. On the universal tendency to debasement in the sphere of
love. Read Books Ltd, 2014.
59. Samuels, Robert. New media, cultural studies, and critical theory after
postmodernism: Automodernity from Zizek to Laclau. Springer, 2009.
60. Baudrillard, Jean. Impossible exchange. Verso Trade, 2012.
61. Nasio, Juan-David. Book of Love and Pain, The: Thinking at the Limit
with Freud and Lacan. Suny Press, 2012.

63. Dundes, Alan. “Binary opposition in myth: The Propp/Levi-Strauss
debate in retrospect.” Western folklore (1997): 39–50.
65. Freud, Sigmund. “The dissolution of the Oedipus complex.” The
Volume XIX (1923-1925): The Ego and the Id and Other Works. 1961.
171–180.
66. Freud, Sigmund. “Some psychical consequences of the anatomical dis-
tinction between the sexes.” Strachey, trans. and ed 19.253 (1925): 19.
67. Lacan, Jacques, Alan Sheridan, and Malcolm Bowie. “The Subversion of
the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire in the Freudian Unconscious.”
Écrits. Routledge, 2020. 323–360.
68. Skinner, Burrhus Frederic. The selection of behavior: The operant behavior-
ism of BF Skinner: Comments and consequences. CUP Archive, 1988.
69. Hoedemaekers, Casper. “The fantasy of control: Behaviourist transgres-
sions of neoliberal subjectivity.” Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society 24.3
(2019): 303–322.
70. Žižek, Slavoj. For they know not what they do: Enjoyment as a political
factor. Verso, 2002.
72. Boucher, Geoff. “The Antinomies of Slavoj Zizek.” telos2004.129 (2004):
151–172.
73. Samuels, Robert. “Lacan after Žižek: Self-Reflexivity in the Automodern
Enjoyment of Psychoanalysis.” International Journal of Žižek Studies
2.4 (2016).
74. Johnston, Adrian. A New German Idealism: Hegel, Žižek, and Dialectical
Materialism. Columbia University Press, 2018.
75. Brüne, Martin. “Borderline Personality Disorder Why ‘fast and furi-
ous’?.” Evolution, medicine, and public health 2016.1 (2016): 52–66.
76. Láng, András. “Borderline personality organization predicts
Machiavellian interpersonal tactics.” Personality and Individual Differences
80 (2015): 28–31.
77. Pines, Malcolm. “Borderline Personality Organisation.” Psychotherapy
and psychosomatics 25.1/6 (1975): 58–62.
158 R. Samuels
78. Stone, Michael H. “Incest, Freud’s seduction theory, and borderline per-
sonality.” Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis 20.2 (1992):
167–181.
79. Sloterdijk, Peter, Michael Eldred, and Leslie A. Adelson. “Cynicism: the
twilight of false consciousness.” New German Critique 33 (1984):
190–206.
80. Robinson, Andrew, and Simon Tormey. “Zizek’s Marx:’Sublime
Object’or a’Plague of Fantasies’?.” Historical Materialism 14.3
(2007): 145.
82. Rizvi, Shireen L., and Marsha M. Linehan. “The treatment of maladap-
tive shame in borderline personality disorder: A pilot study of “opposite
action”.” Cognitive and Behavioral Practice 12.4 (2005): 437–447.
83. Reed, James. “Mechanical man: John Broadus Watson and the begin-
nings of behaviorism.” Science 244.4910 (1989): 1386–1388.
84. Hurry, Anne, Jack Novick, and Kerry Kelly Novick. “freud’s concept of
projection.” Journal of Child Psychotherapy 4.2 (1976): 75–88.
85. Weber, Max, and Damion Searls. Charisma and disenchantment: The
vocation lectures. NYRB Classics, 2020.
86. Snell, Robert. “L’Anti-Livre noir de la psychoanalyse. CBT in French/
Lacanian perspective.” (2008).
87. Pfaller, Robert. Interpassivity: The aesthetics of delegated enjoyment.
Edinburgh University Press, 2017.
88. Samuels, Robert. “The pleasure principle and the death drive.” Freud for
the twenty-first century. Palgrave Pivot, Cham, 2019. 17–25.
89. Noble, David F. “Digital diploma mills: The automation of higher edu-
cation.” Science as culture 7.3 (1998): 355–368.
90. Pfaller, Robert. “Interpassivity and misdemeanors. The analysis of ideol-
ogy and the Zizekian toolbox.” Revue internationale de philosophie 3
(2012): 421–438.
91. Samuels, Robert. “Ethos, Transference, and Liberal Cynicism.” Zizek
and the Rhetorical Unconscious. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2020. 49–63.
92. Samuels, Robert. “The unconscious and the primary processes.” Freud
for the twenty-first century. Palgrave Pivot, Cham, 2019. 27–42.
93. Lacan, Jacques, Jacques-Alain Miller, and Alan Sheridan. The four funda-
mental concepts of psycho-analysis. Routledge, 2018.
94. Bracher, Mark, et al., eds. Lacanian theory of discourse: Subject, structure,
and society. NYU Press, 1994.
7
Misunderstanding Psychoanalysis
from the Left
This chapter examines how certain tendencies of contemporary Left-

wing politics and subjectivity can undermine our understanding of psy-
choanalysis within psychoanalysis discourse. In critiquing the book
Intersectionality and Relational Psychoanalysis, I hope to show the ways the
repression of analytic neutrality results in the reinforcement of a dualistic
model of subjectivity and analysis.1 I will also address the relation between
the psychoanalysis of culture and psychoanalytic treatment. One of my
main arguments is that the theory and the practice of psychoanalysis rep-
resents an encounter between a universal model and the singularity of
individual experience and thought, and the best way to respect this dia-
lectic is to return to Freud’s fundamental concepts.2
Warning: Reader Be Aware

Before I look into this topic, it is important to point out how the psycho-
pathology of some contemporary Left-wing ideology makes it difficult to
approach this subject.3 Since so much of the discourse of the Left relies
on articulating a clear distinction between the good, innocent victim and
160 R. Samuels
the evil Other, any criticism of this discourses can be seen as an effort to
blame the victims of persecution.4 Moreover, the highly emotional way
that the antagonism between the self and the other is represented and
lived, makes it hard to examine this discourse in a scientific or neutral
manner. In fact, as we shall see, a hallmark of this ideology and subjectiv-
ity is the rejection of neutrality itself.5
One of Freud’s most important and controversial ideas was his theory
that people often imagine scenes of victimization.6 However, many peo-
ple inside and outside of psychoanalysis have rejected this theory because
it appears to dismiss the suffering of people who have been truly victim-
ized as it lets the victimizer off the hook.7 Yet, from a psychoanalytic
perspective, we can never know for sure what happened in someone’s life,
but what we do need to consider is how one responds to real and imag-
ined suffering.8 The questions of identity and identification are then key
to the theory of psychoanalysis, but in the actual practice, identity and
identification have to be called into question through the privileging of
analytic neutrality, free association, and unconscious material.9
It is my thesis that these basic aspects of analytic practice are rejected
and repressed through a return to a pre-Freudian understanding of ther-
apy.10 On the most basic level, the therapists and analysts in Intersectionality
and Relational Psychoanalysis see their roles as centered on providing
knowledge, love, and recognition to their patients. In other words, instead
of working through the transference, they aim to strengthen it by respond-
ing to their patients’ fundamental demands. Not only does this mode of
treatment reinforce defensive forms of identity and identification, but it
reduces the analytic relationship to a dualistic structure where the analyst
can be either a source for identification or a cause for frustration.11
As Lacan insists, the dualistic view of the analytic relationship blocks
the emergence of unconscious material as it substantiates primitive fanta-
sies on an imaginary level.12 Since the goal is to expose and move beyond
these limiting mental representations, the analyst has to remain neutral
so that the patient can speak without censorship or thinking about what
the analyst is thinking.13 Of course, this is a very strange type of relation-
ship, and it is perhaps this strangeness that prevents therapists and ana-
lysts from accepting the foundations of psychoanalysis itself.
7 Misunderstanding Psychoanalysis from the Left 161
Another related issue that we find throughout this book is the conflict
between the academic application of psychoanalysis to culture and the
use of theory to shape treatment. Although I do believe that psychoanaly-
sis has many important things to say about race, class, gender, and other
social issues, there is an important difference between examining culture
and psychoanalytic treatment.14 Since the analyst has to remain neutral in
order to enable free association, the analyst cannot be a social critic when
he or she is engaged in the analytic process. It is therefore necessary to
recognize a clear distinction between using analytic concepts to define
the role of the analyst and the employment of these same concepts to
examine social and cultural issues.15 In fact, as we shall see, many prob-
lems arise when we do not make this distinction, and we begin to see the
analyst as playing the role of the political activist.16 However, if the ana-
lyst has to suspend judgment and not feed the patient’s demand for love,
recognition, and knowledge, then the analyst has to also suspend political
analysis and intervention within the clinical relationship.17
Identity in Analysis
In their introduction to their book, Max Belkin and Cleonie White point
out that “the contributing authors explore how similarities and differ-
ences among the patient’s and analyst’s gender, race, and sexual orienta-
tion can be acknowledged, challenged, and negotiated” (iii). In
highlighting the role played by these social categories in the relationship
between the therapist and the patient, the authors take a decisive step
away from both analytic neutrality and free association since they believe
that the analyst must be constantly aware of his or her own identity.18
Moreover, instead of seeing analysis as centered on discovering unknown
unconscious material, there is a tendency to examine fixed identities and
identifications.
One of the main ways that the focus on fixated markers of sexual,
racial, and class identities is evident in this collection of essays is through
the notion that patients want to be analyzed by people who belong to the
same identity group.19 We see this identity-based understanding of the
transference in the following passage:
162 R. Samuels
One day, a couple of months into my work with a Mexican-American

graduate student named Ana, I casually inquired about her reactions to me.
First, she offered her usual “I am glad that you share my background in
philosophy and can understand me.” But then I heard something new and
baffling: “I had to stop watching House of Cards recently,” added Ana with
an anxious laugh. “Kevin Spacey looks too much like you. I mean, like you,
he acts straight, even though he is totally gay.” Taken aback, I asked Ana,
“Are you wondering whether I am gay or straight?” To my surprise, instead
of saying something reassuring and deferential, which used to be her habit,
Ana continued: “When I googled you before our first session, I found out
that you are from Russia, that you are Jewish and gay. But now I read you
as a white, privileged straight man. I don’t hear your accent. (7)
As we see from this example, the neutrality of the analyst is challenged by

the desire of the patient to place the analyst in a particular set of social
and cultural identity markers.20 Since the patient wants to find an ego
ideal that can validate their own ideal ego, they seek to place the analyst
and themselves in defined social categories.21 In this structure, the narcis-
sistic transference is solidified as the fundamental demand for recogni-
tion is satisfied. While this type of relationship may appear to be soothing
to both the analyst and the patient, the question is if it is effective in
allowing for the emergence of unknown unconscious material?22
As Freud discovered, the more that an analyst reveals about himself or
herself, the more the patient will either identify with the analyst or reject
the analyst.23 In creating this dualistic relation centered on the binary
choice of acceptance or rejection, a situation of control and pleasure is
produced, but the cost of this narcissistic relation is a limiting of what can
be said or thought.24 Unfortunately, many therapists and analysts do not
accept the need for neutrality, and so they fall into the habit of reinscrib-
ing the strangeness of the analytic relationship back into the common
way of communicating and interacting. For example, Belkin mentions
how he answers his patients’ questions in a direct manner that enables
them to know what he thinks and likes: “upon entering the waiting room
to greet Ana, I found her immersed in reading White Girls (2013) by
Hilton Als. Ana inquired whether I had already read it, and after learning
that I had not, told me to check it out” (7). Although it may appear that
no harm is done to the analytic process by simply answering a question

about a book, Lacan argued that each particular demand is actually sup-
ported by a fundamental desire for love, recognition, and understanding,
which forms the basis of the transference.25 By responding to any direct
question with a direct answer, the therapist is then reinforcing the trans-
ference, and not only is the fundamental demand not allowed to emerge,
but the analytic relationship is reabsorbed into an imaginary, dualistic
structure.26
Since this collection is centered on a relational approach to psycho-
analysis, it is not surprising that the analysts and therapists continue to
see the analytic experience as a dualistic encounter, but it is important for
us to examine how this conception of analysis misunderstands Freud’s
key concepts and their role in guiding the actions of the analyst. Due to
the fact that Freud learned that people would only be able to discover
new repressed material if they stopped thinking about what the analyst
thought about them, it is essential for the analyst to not only have an
open mind but also to resist disclosing their thoughts, feelings, and per-
sonal information.27 However, therapists and analysts like Belkin believe
that self-disclosure enables a more meaningful and supportive relation-
ship: “In retrospect, I view Ana’s question about my gayness as an invita-
tion to be queer together: to transcend the rigid binary categories of
homosexual and heterosexual, white versus person of color, male or
female, to create new meanings and possibilities for each other” (Both
patient and analyst can only access their dissociated parts via participat-
ing in jointly created enactments and by examining their personal contri-
butions to them)” (9). This notion of the analyst and patient co-creating
meaning together over their shared identities is in direct conflict with the
Freudian idea that the neutrality of the analyst allows the patient to dis-
cover things on his or her own.28 Moreover, like the concept of counter-
transference, the idea of enactment is often used to signal that the
subjectivity of the analyst is as important as the subjectivity of the
patient.29 Thus, instead of the analyst working hard to suspend judgment
and present a blank screen for projection and displacement, many con-
temporary therapists and analysts stress the need for the analysts to con-
stantly judge their own internal thoughts and feelings.30
164 R. Samuels
This notion that the therapist and the patient have to both disclose
what they are thinking at all times perverts the fundamental analytic pro-
cess and feeds a sense of narcissism for both the patent and the analyst.31
Since both want to be seen as the one who knows, the only way to avoid
conflict is through the process of imaginary identification. Belkin reveals
this issue in the following way: “Articulating and exploring the differ-
ences and similarities between me and Ana seemed not only important,
but also fraught. According to Russell Meares (1993), “the therapist’s
state of mind should resemble that to which the patient’s should be mov-
ing” (p. 184)” (10). In this melding of two minds, the goal appears to be
for the patient to identify with the ideal movement of the analyst’s own
mind.32 It is hard to see how this process enables discovery or individual
autonomy.
In light of Belkin’s promotion of an imaginary mode of transference
and identification, it is strange that he still wants to insist that the goal of
analysis is to foster curiosity and personal freedom: “While curious uncer-
tainty never completely supplants defensive not knowing, the goal of psy-
chotherapy is to foster curiosity and expand our relational freedom at the
expense of narrative and interpersonal rigidity (Stern, 2015)” (15). Since
the way to promote independence and open inquiry is through the sus-
pension of identity and identification, the question remains why Belkin
is still focused on the very rigid categories he now sees as stifling the ana-
lytic process.33 In fact, he offers an interesting metaphor for the analytic
process itself: “Thus, psychoanalytic inquiry is akin to driving a car: one
is always wondering where one is headed, while at the same time remem-
bering that one always has blind spots” (15). This notion of wondering
where you are going and recognizing that one has blind spots is an apt
description for what it often feels like to be an analyst and a patient. The
problem is that rigid markers of identity and identification often block
free association, and so in many ways, psychoanalysis is in conflict with
the application of identity politics in the clinic.34
If we want to be open to seeing all people without judgment, then it
makes no sense to focus on race, class, and gender markers. Of course,
this colorblind approach to social categories of discrimination can be
attacked for denying systemic oppression and the suffering of the victims
of prejudice, but my argument here is that for benefit of analytic
treatment, all social and political effects can be voiced and felt through
the speech of the patient; however, the analyst should avoid substantiat-
ing any form of identity and identification.35 From this perspective, the
analytic relation is not symmetrical, and yet Belkin wants to insist on an
imaginary dualism: “From the one-person perspective, the patient is in
the driving seat, while the analyst is a passenger-observer (Wachtel,
2008). However, in the two-person psychology that informs my thinking
about the intersections among ethnicity, gender, and sexual identity, the
“analysis-mobile” comes with two brake pedals and two steering wheels;
both individuals are simultaneously a passenger and a driver; each of
them is an observing participant (Fiscalini, 2004)” (15). The problem
with this symmetrical formulation is that is does not accept the funda-
mental lack of participation of the analyst, while it reinforces the narcis-
sistic relation of identification and rivalry: “Through a joint exploration
of their emotional exchanges in the “here and now,” patient and analyst
can describe both the privileged and marginalized aspects of their identi-
ties” (16). As I have been arguing, the goal of analytic treatment is to use
free association in order to uncover the patient’s repressed unconscious
material. When the analyst openly discusses his or her thoughts and emo-
tions, neutrality is lost, and the patient seeks to transfer responsibility for
knowledge onto the analyst who is idealized as the one who is supposed
to know.36 In fact, Belkin does realize one of the pitfalls of this bonding
over knowledge, identity, and meaning: “From the onset of treatment, as
we now suspect, the two of us had been ensconced in a comfortable illu-
sion that we understood both ourselves and the other person” (17). On a
fundamental level, psychoanalysis tells us that we never fully understand
ourselves or other people, and so our sense of understanding and knowl-
edge always has an imaginary aspect where we fill in the gaps and cover
over the lacks.37
The analyst’s neutrality, then, is in part derived from an acceptance of
the conflict between two consciousness and the need to protect against
the projection of meaning and understanding onto the other in the trans-
ference.38 The analyst has to also refrain from satisfying the drives and
demands of the patient as the psychoanalyst resists seeking narcissistic
gratification from the patient, and yet Belkin shows how hard it can be to
maintain this type of relationship: “Upon arriving to our first meeting,
166 R. Samuels
Ana glanced at the office décor and my clothes and remarked that
aesthetics mean a lot to both of us. I was flattered that this attractive,
sophisticated young woman chose me as her therapist” (18). It is impor-
tant to stress that the analyst seeks to remove himself or herself from this
relation of admiration and aesthetics by sitting behind the patient.39 In
staying out of view, the analyst becomes more of a blank screen, which
enables the suspending of the imaginary mirroring narcissistic structure.
In contrast to Kohut, Lacan emphasizes the need to not feed the patient’s
demand for idealization or mirroring, and so he claims that the analyst
becomes an object lacking a specular image.40
Belkin is aware of the problems contained in a narcissistic transference,
but he appears to be unable to fully commit to the position of the analyst:
“During the first phase of treatment, Ana was open to my questions and
frequently responded to my observations and interpretations with a reas-
suring “Yeah, it’s definitely true.” Although my narcissistic side was bask-
ing in what felt like Ana’s approval, something felt a bit off” (18). As
Belkin indicates, the analyst may desire to be admired for his knowledge,
but even if the patent appears to demand this type of relationship, there
is usually a part of the subject that resists this idealization of the other. In
fact, Lacan stresses that in the imaginary structure of narcissism, we often
resent the person we idealize.41 Moreover, when the patient transfers
responsibility for knowing and care onto the analyst, the patient often
feels ambivalent about handing power over to another person.42
In fact, when working with narcissistic obsessional patients, it is very
apparent that behind the patient’s desire to comply with the analyst, we
find an underlying resistance.43 Since narcissists want their ideal ego to be
recognized by an idealized Other, they become anxious and upset when
this Other fails to fulfill this position:
“Ana,” I offered, trying to sound casual, “I am a bit surprised that you seem
always in agreement with everything that I say. I can’t always be right.” Ana
smiled and admitted that she wanted to please me. Moreover, just as she
does in other social settings, she had compiled a mental list of what makes
me tick, and strategically complimented my plants and my outfits. And
then Ana secretly disdained me (just like she despised others) for being so
vain and gullible. “Why do I need to destroy people?” she later asked both
of us. “I feel bad about being manipulative.” (18)
This conflict between wanting to comply with others and the resentment
of others shows the fundamental ambivalence structuring narcissistic
relationships; on the one hand, the subject wants to be recognized as
being good by conforming to social expectations, but on the other hand,
this conformity requires a sacrifice of the self, which is resented.44
Furthermore, when a demand is made to the Other for love, recognition,
and understanding, what is really desired is for the Other to submit to the
will of the subject.45
The only way to break out of this narcissistic relationship is for the
analyst to refuse to play the part of the one who responds to the demands
of the patient.46 Of course, it can be quite difficult to constantly resist
satisfying the patient, but the only way to allow for a new type of rela-
tionship to emerge is to expose the underlying demands of the subject.47
On a basic level, the analysis must always remain strange and uncomfort-
able because this position suspends the usual ways of communicating and
interacting. The conflict, then, that we find between identity politics and
psychoanalysis is that the analyst has to bracket his or her identity in
order to enable the patient the ability to explore the relation between
social categories and subjectivity in an open and free way.48 However, as
we see from the next passage, Belkin does not trust this process, and so he
returns to an imaginary rivalry between two opposed victim identities: “I
am a marginalized Latina, an underdog with a queer sensibility; you are a
privileged, straight-acting white man,” thought Ana. “No. I am the
underdog here. After all, I am a gay Jewish immigrant, while you are a
straight American woman from a rich family,” protested my inner voice”
(19). In this conflict between social identities, the possibility for analytic
neutrality is lost, and as Belkin adds, the result is a competition for moral
goodness: “In retrospect, it seems that both Ana and I were secretly jos-
tling for some sort of moral superiority” (19). Here, we see the dangers of
maintaining the analytic relationship on the level of narcissistic identifi-
cation and idealization: The analyst cannot help but to feed the underly-
ing negative transference as a constant-sum relationship is established
where one person wins and the other loses.49 The only solution is for the
analyst to simply refuse to play this imaginary game.
Belkin’s text does provide a deep insight into the reasons why most
forms of therapy and analysis that move away from neutrality fail, and
168 R. Samuels
these reasons have a lot to do with inherent tensions within identity poli-
tics. Although this form of political activism does play a vital role in
expanding democratic rights and protections, it often can become
counter-productive when it becomes fixated on a binary battle between
idealized innocent victims and demonized perpetrators.50 Instead of
affirming the fundamental ambivalence of the subject, a splitting occurs
where one is either idealized or debased. Furthermore, as Freud found in
his exploration of masochistic fantasies and psycho-somatic disorders, the
person who is suffering often feels that their aggression towards others is
justified as they feel morally superior due to their victim status.51 Since in
this fantasy structure, the victim is always good and innocent, and you
cannot criticize the victim, revenge is justified, while reality testing and
moral reasoning can be suspended.52
As is evident in Belkin’s discussion of his work with Ana, a focus on
intersectionality in the clinic can result in the formation of defensive
identities and a splitting off of undesired parts of the self and other: “Both
Ana and I seemed married to our narrow and rigid perceptions of our
own selves and of each other. Neither of us wanted to concede that we
might be in any way the more privileged person. Moreover, focusing on
the presumed privileged parts of the other allowed each of us to feel self-
righteous” (19). In this dualistic structure, there is always the calculation
of a moral imbalance that in turn justifies a reductive understanding of
the self and the other. For Belkin, the solution to this imaginary rivalry is
the embracing of a shared process: “Until she and I became curious col-
laborators united by a common project, we kept swapping the roles of the
domineering and the subjugated (Benjamin, 2004)” (19). Once again,
the problem with this formulation is that the analytic relationship is nei-
ther symmetrical nor common.53
As Ana herself discovers, even when people ask for help, they often
resent the helper because it gives the other relational power: “At the same
time, she was reluctant to acknowledge that working with me was helpful
to her. “Telling you about my sadness feels like giving into your expecta-
tions. You’ll have a one up on me,” she mused” (20). The desire for auton-
omy and freedom thus runs into the demand for love, recognition, and
understanding, and so it is important for the analyst to avoid reinforcing
these roles in the transference even though they often represent a key to
the treatment. Since the very act of the patient coming to seek help rep-
resents a fundamental transference demand, they analyst should not have
to feed this imaginary relationship; rather the analyst desires the patient
to free associate, and this requires analytic neutrality and the non-involve-
ment in the inevitable transference.54 Furthermore, since one of the goals
of analysis is to work through the transference, it is necessary to make
sure that it comes from the patient and not the analyst. In other words,
by being a blank screen, the analyst makes it clear that the relationship is
produced through the patient’s imaginary fantasies and unconscious
demands.55
Although it does appear that Belkin was able to make much progress
in uncovering Ana’s underlying subjectivity, his participation in her
imaginary understanding blocked a full working through of the transfer-
ence. As he admits himself, his self-disclosures served to provide a source
of identification for his patient: “I might have inadvertently modeled for
Ana that it was relatively safe to come emotionally undone in our rela-
tionship, to appear unsophisticated, unsure, anxious, and even ashamed.
I shared with Ana the contents of my mind, including my efforts to toler-
ate shame” (25). The problem with this process of modeling thought and
behavior for the patient is that it feeds both the narcissistic idealization of
the analyst and the defensive resistance to analysis itself.56 Belkin expresses
the ambivalence generated by this approach in the following manner: “In
return, Ana explored her ambivalent reaction to my self-disclosure. While
she appreciated my honesty, she was also feeling vindicated, victorious,
superior – and she felt guilty about it” (26). Due to the nature of neurotic
ambivalence, even if the analyst thinks that he or she is doing something
good and helpful for the patient, the subject may resent it, and any self-
disclosure by the analyst will be used by the patient in the private court
of moral judgment.57
From Lacan’s perspective, the analyst must take on the role of being
the object for the patient, and Belkin does seem to concur with this
notion: “Before Ana and I began to play together in a metaphorical space
between fantasy and reality (Winnicott, 1971), Ana tended to use me like
a transitional object, a teddy bear: something to cuddle, hate, and muti-
late, but not destroy. While I did not particularly enjoy being treated that
way, I felt safe enough to continue, and I let Ana know that” (26).
170 R. Samuels
Although Belkin does afform being a transitional object for Ana, he

betrays this position by letting his patient know that he knows what is
going on. Since an object cannot know or communicate, it becomes the
presence of an unknowable thing within analysis, and this reminder of
the real serves the purpose of showing the arbitrary nature of the object
of our desires.58 Due to the perverse nature of human sexuality, any object
or activity can be sexualized, and thus the objects we desire have no inher-
ent value.59 In a parallel way, the transference reveals how the relationship
between the patient and the analyst is derived through the primary pro-
cesses of the patient, and so the position of neutrality clears the ground
for a full exploration of repressed unconscious material.
How Identity Politics Affects Clinical Practice

In examining Belkin’s work, I have stressed the many ways that the ana-
lyst’s focus on identity politics can affect the ability to maintain analytic
neutrality. By looking at several other authors from the same collection,
we find a similar conflict between Freud’s model of analysis and the desire
to apply issues concerning, race, gender, class, and sexual orientation
within an object relations conception of therapy.60 For instance, in Avgi
Saketopoulou’s “Minding the Gap,” we are told that “in clinical work
with transgender (and otherwise queer) patients, considerations of race
and class are not only important facets of the work: they are the work”
(33). By claiming that the form and content of therapy is defined by these
identity markers and issues, the possibility for exploration by the patient
appears to be limited since free association requires speaking about any-
thing and everything.61 Once again, the point is not that these identity
issues are not important; the problem emerges when they are the only
things that matters in analysis.
As the theories and practice of identity politics continue to spread
throughout culture and academic discourse, what we often find is that
these vital issues begin to dominate every other possible area of consider-
ation.62 For example, in her chapter “Subordinated Selves,” Hannah
Pocock questions the goal of fostering individual autonomy in analysis
because individualism has been coded as masculine within Western
culture: “Benjamin (1988) has noted that the Western assumption of the
primacy of individualism in human development is implicitly gendered.
Rationality and autonomy (qualities attributed to the father in traditional
psychoanalytic frameworks) are celebrated, while empathy, emotion, and
other human capacities deemed feminine are devalued” (66). Since rea-
son and autonomy have often been attached to masculine identity, Pocock
seeks to affirm the opposite traits as essential to a feminist mode of psy-
choanalysis. In this postmodern reversal of premodern hierarchies and
binaries, the same categories of essentialized identity are being used, but
now the debased attributes are idealized, while the former ideals are cri-
tiqued.63 The problem with this strategy is that it remains tied to the same
rigid identity categories as it reinforces a reductive binary logic.
What the postmodern reversal of premodern values refuses to recog-
nize is the importance of the modern effort to suspend these categories
through the affirmation of universality, neutrality, objectivity, and rea-
son.64 At the foundation of modern democratic law is the necessary but
impossible ideal of equal treatment regardless of race, class, gender, or
sexual orientation.65 Of course, the law often fails to live up to these ide-
als, but we judge its failures in relation to this ideal. While it is true that
many postmodern social movements to promote minority rights seek to
expand and correct universal human rights, the central problem occurs
when these movements become so fixated on protecting their particular
identities that they reject the very notions of universality, equality, and
neutrality.66 As we saw in the passage above, this rejection of modern
principles often includes a rejection of reason and individual autonomy
since they are seen as being the products of white European males.
Freud’s conceptions of science, the reality principle, free association,
and analytic neutrality are all being called into question because from the
perspective of postmodern identity politics, these principles are all coded
as masculine, white, and straight.67 Here we witness the ways that politi-
cal ideologies and movements can affect how people practice psycho-
analysis since the rejection of its core concepts and practices is motivated
by a particular political discourse. Instead of seeing neutrality as a bias
against bias, it is interpreted as a masculine value promoted to erase issues
concerning race, class, gender, and sexual orientation.68 As Pocock insists,
analytic neutrality has to be rejected because it is just a cover for
172 R. Samuels
masculine power: “While these systems cloak themselves in the mantle of

neutrality, Benjamin argues that it is precisely the disproportionate valu-
ing of rationality and objective indifference to personal need that are the
trademarks of male dominance (1988)” (66). Rather than seeing neutral-
ity as an attempt to suspend identity and identification, a polarized binary
logic is applied so that one is either supporting the oppressed or one is an
oppressor.69
Coupled with this rejection of analytic neutrality, we find a criticism of
the promotion of self-reliance and individual freedom in analysis:
“Autonomy and dependency are raced as well as gendered in Western
society. Altman (2010) suggests that the idealization of freedom and
agency implicit in the American Dream requires a denial of natural
dependency needs in service of maintaining a sense of total self-reliance.
Inasmuch as self-reliance is bound up in the construction of a “good”
white American self, anything that threatens that self-image must be dis-
avowed” (66). Whereas there is much to critique about the libertarian
ideology of free individualism, psychoanalysis is grounded on the
unavoidable conflict between society and the individual.70 Instead of tak-
ing one side or the other in this conflict, the analyst suspends judgment
and allows the patient to freely explore this fundamental internal and
external division. The desire of the analyst should not be to choose indi-
vidual freedom over social obligation or society over the individual; this
unresolvable dialectic cannot be erased or avoided.
Neutrality and Free Association

Just as we cannot escape the reality of the fundamental conflict between
society and the individual, we should also affirm that psychoanalysis fol-
lows the modern solution to this problem by constructing social practices
that seek to combine universality with the protection of the individual.71
For instance, universal human rights aim to treat everyone the same by
protecting their individual freedoms.72 Likewise, psychoanalysis applies
the same theories and practices to each case in order to clear a space for
individual subjectivity to emerge. It is therefore hard to say that analytic
neutrality and free association are inherently representing the interests of
white, wealthy, heterosexual males since the aim of these practices is to

avoid prejudice, identity, and identification by suspending judgment.73
However, as Sue Grand argues in her chapter “Skin Memories,” analytic
neutrality is often seen now as an attempt to erase politics and culture
from the clinic: “So I tried to have a colorless analysis, in a psychic world
divorced from politics and culture. But in the United States, color blind-
ness is wishful phantasm; this phantasm can actually negate the others’
historical subjectivity (see K. Leary, 2002)” (103). The problem with this
argument is that the analyst should not erase anything, and the patient
should be free to voice any issue, including political and cultural ones.74
The real problem often occurs when the analyst seeks to focus on particu-
lar concerns, which are often based on individual politics and biases.
Grand adds that in her own analysis, what she really wanted her ana-
lyst to do was to play the role of her lost grandmother so that she could
overcome the trauma of separation through an imaginary identification:
“From the beginning of my analysis, I needed a reparative bond of iden-
tification. I needed my analyst to be an intact Bubbie from Brooklyn. I
was suffering from attachment trauma. I wanted a sense of sameness with
my analyst, a sameness that was both familiar and safe” (103). Of course,
many patients want to use analysis in order to heal old wounds through
the creation of an ideal relationship with the analyst, but this desire only
feeds the imaginary transference, and may not lead to the discovery of
new, often-uncomfortable unconscious material.75 Although it may
sound that I am calling for the analyst to be simply cold, impersonal, and
non-responsive, what should be stressed is that the analyst still has to
show that he or she is listening to the patient, but this listening is done
without judgment. There is thus a performance of a negative activity as
one intentionally refuses to judge or satisfy the demand for love, knowl-
edge, and recognition.76
Even if we do think that every aspect of a person’s lived experience is
shaped by race, gender, class, and sexual orientation, it does not matter
since the patient is free to say whatever comes to mind, and the analyst is
prohibited from controlling the direction of the free association. While
the analyst might ask patients what they are thinking and feeling, the goal
is to motivate free association and not to direct the discourse in a particu-
lar preconceived direction.77 Of course, this limitation of the role of the
174 R. Samuels
analyst threatens the analyst’s own narcissism, and this is one reason why
therapists and psychoanalysts have such a hard time trusting the process.
Not only does the analyst have to give up on the pleasure of being
admired for being the idealized one who knows and cares, but the temp-
tation to validate the patient also has to be avoided.78 This issue is brought
up in Pratyusha Tummala-Narra’s chapter “Intersectionality in the
Immigrant Context”: “Yet, it is critical for the therapist, when relevant,
to validate that the client’s distress stems from systemic injustice, and that
distress derived from racism, xenophobia, sexism, transphobia, heterosex-
ism, classism, and ableism is an appropriate response to injustice (Greene,
2012)” (136). It is unclear how the analyst can validate a patient’s inter-
pretation without falling into the position of the imaginary ego ideal or
the social super-ego. After all, it is up to the patient to discover their own
truth through the process of speaking without worrying about what the
analyst thinks. Relying on the validation of the therapist functions to feed
the transference and block self-discovery. Moreover, as Tummala-Narra
points out, any response by the analyst could be shaped by the analyst’s
own socialization and rigid identity: “Interestingly, because of shared
socialization experiences of compartmentalizing identity, the therapist
and the client may selectively focus on only certain aspects of the other’s
identity” (135). The best way to avoid this dynamic is for the analyst to
simply stop interpreting from a position of knowledge or identity, and
this is done by basing all interpretations on the desire to promote the free
association of the patient.79 In fact, one reason why Lacan used to end his
sessions early was that he wanted to push his patients to speak without
censoring.80 If you end a session when a patient is not free associating,
you push them to dedicate their time in analysis to this particular practice
instead of wasting their time speaking like they usually speak, which after
all, has not helped them.81
However, the lack of belief in the analytic process comes out in the
following passage: “For instance, a client’s associations to the therapist’s
gender may be a core component of the transference, or a therapist’s
attention to the client’s racial background may dominate the exploration
of conflicts related to social class” (136). The issue here is why is the
therapist paying attention to any particular issue when Freud called for
the “free-floating attention” of the analyst. One answer to this question is
that therapy is not analysis, but then we have to ask why is this chapter in
a collection on psychoanalysis and intersectionality? Since the difference
between therapy and psychoanalysis is never clearly stated, it is hard to
know what actually guides the work of these practitioners.82
It has been one of the main arguments of this book that psychoanalysis
is still guided by Freud’s fundamental concepts, and these concepts con-
tinue to shape both the practice and the theory. This argument may be
hard to accept in a time of moral relativism, but as we have seen, when
people are not guided by a set of core theories, they can rationalize any
practice.83 From this perspective, the problem with incorporating inter-
sectionality and identity politics into psychoanalysis is that it can result in
a complete undermining of the fundamental theory guiding treatment.
On the one hand, we do not need a commitment to identity politics to
transform what is discussed in analysis because anything and everything
should be voiced, yet on the other hand, intersectional theory can serve
to prevent psychoanalytic treatment because it can demonize the prac-
tices of neutrality and free association.
The Limits of Identity Politics in Analysis

As highlighted in the collection, even when a therapist does focus on
identity issues, this approach can itself be highly limiting: “The attention
to singular aspects of identity impedes a deeper understanding of the full
range of experiences among racial minority immigrants, including migra-
tion history; acculturation; immigration status; language; experiences of
race, gender, sexuality, social class, and dis/ability; and differences across
immigrant generations” (136). Instead of the therapist selecting a type or
form of identity to emphasize, analytic neutrality allows for a more open
mode of analysis.84 However, Tummala-Narra undermines this approach
by returning to the identity issues of the analyst: “Nevertheless, the thera-
peutic relationship offers a space in which multiple aspects of identity can
be explored, but only insofar as therapists are willing to examine the mul-
tiplicity of their own identities and their experiences with privilege and
marginalization” (136). The problem with this method is that it does not
176 R. Samuels
allow the analyst the ability to take on the position of being a blank
screen or empty mirror.
What we often find rejected in post-Freudian forms of psychoanalysis
and therapy is the notion that free association relies on the neutrality of
the analyst, and this neutrality creates an unequal and asymmetrical rela-
tionship.85 Rather than affirming the need for the analyst to suspend his
or her own thought and subjectivity, we are told that the analyst also
undergoes change while helping others to change: “Through this rela-
tionship, the therapist too is transformed as his/her/their own identity
work is re-engaged” (137). At first, it appears that the analyst would have
to change through working with others, but the analyst does not act as a
“normal” person in analysis, and the analytic relationship is not a tradi-
tional relationship. Analytic neutrality requires taking on an artificial
position, which is fortified by a clear understanding of analytic theory.86
What we are seeing today is there is a lack of understanding concerning
both the theory and the practice of psychoanalysis, and the result is that
non-analytic concerns are interjected into the analytic process.
The central problem, then, with intersectionality and identity politics
for psychoanalysis is that the focus on identity undermines the ability of
free association and the free-floating attention of the analyst. Furthermore,
as Freud discovered in his examination of the primary processes, con-
sciousness is not controlled by the intentional ego, and so Lacan is correct
to stress that the subject of psychoanalysis is barred and lacking.87 In
contrast to this lack of identity, Cleonie White focuses on the challenges
posed by imposed identities in the immigrant experience: “My patient,
Trevor, one might say, is “verbed”—that is, projected into performance of
that position as in: “I speak, I think, I dream, I am immigrant.” His posi-
tion in culture is imposed as his defining identity. So, no matter how
sturdy the immigrant’s attempts to “integrate” into the new culture, he is
met with repeated acts of rejection as his difference marks him the imper-
fect Other” (161). While we should not reject the difficulties of immi-
grant identity, it is vital to see that in relation to the unconscious and the
primary processes, we are all immigrants lost in a foreign culture of
strange representations.88 However, the way to access this immigrant sub-
jectivity is through free association and not a relationship of communica-
tion and identification.
In opposition to analytic neutrality, White calls for a relational

approach to rethinking the immigrant experience: “Is it ever possible to
articulate a different understanding of the construct “immigrant”-– one
that encompasses a conceptual framework less limited than that envel-
oped in imposed Otherness? Might we not regard this conceptual frame-
work as, itself, embedded in hope and relational possibilities?” (161).
Instead of turning to relationships as the key to re-imagining the role of
immigrant subjectivity in therapy, psychoanalysis affirms that there is a
fundamental non-relation between the self and the other.89
In fact, Lynne Layton’s chapter brings to the foreground the inherent
conflict between psychoanalysis and identity politics because political
social movements need a strong identity, but analysis requires the tempo-
rary suspension of identity and identification.90 Instead of affirming this
fundamental aspect of analytic practice, Layton attacks Freudian theory
for being the product of white, male, European privilege: “Indeed, I have
become convinced over time that what primarily keeps alive the claim in
our field that psychic reality can be understood without reference to
social location is precisely the race and class privilege enjoyed by the
dominant social groups to which our theory makers generally belong”
(172). From this perspective, analytic neutrality is made possible by privi-
lege and the repression of race and class concerns. However, with this
rejection of analytic neutrality and free association, we see how identity
politics can threaten the foundations of analysis itself.
It is vital to stress that I am not saying that race and class are not
important topics for analysis; rather, my point is that any important
issues will emerge in analysis if the analyst and the patent allow them-
selves to be open to every topic without censorship.91 In fact, the focus on
particular race and class issues by the analyst will only act to restrict the
free exploration of the patient. In rejecting this foundation of analytic
practice, Layton elaborates what other issues are essential to psychoana-
lytic treatment:
I have taken relational understandings of the co-construction of analyses

(e.g., Mitchell, 1988), of the patient’s interpretation of the analyst’s subjec-
tivity (e.g., Aron, 1996; Hoffman, 1983), of the questioning of analytic
authority (e.g., Hoffman, 1998), of the assumption that the therapist’s
178 R. Samuels
unconscious bears significantly on the treatment, and of the belief in the

inevitability of enactments and impasse (e.g., Levenson, 1972), and I have
added to these tenets the suggestion that the unconscious and conscious
micro-processes that mark all analytic sessions are inflected by culture and
by the cultural inequalities within which subjectivity develops. (176)
Although it would be absurd to claim that culture does not affect what is
said in analysis, the question is whether the analyst or therapist should
direct the patient’s discourse in any particular direction. I have argued
that the analyst still needs to interpret, but these interventions are directed
towards the sole purpose of promoting free association.92 It is therefore
misguided to see analysis as a co-construction equally concerned with the
subjectivity of the analyst and the patient.
Notes
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3. Samuels, Robert. “Pathos, Hysteria, and the Left.” Zizek and the
Rhetorical Unconscious. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2020. 33–47.
4. Ryan, William. Blaming the victim. Vol. 226. Vintage, 1976.
5. Merrill, Roberto, and Daniel Weinstock. Political Neutrality: A
Re-evaluation. Springer, 2014.
6. Israëls, Han, and Morton Schatzman. “The seduction theory.” History of
Psychiatry 4.13 (1993): 23–59.
7. Esterson, Allen. “Jeffrey Masson and Freud’s seduction theory: a new
fable based on old myths.” History of the Human Sciences 11.1
(1998): 1–21.
8. Ferro, Antonino. Seeds of illness, seeds of recovery: The genesis of suffering
and the role of psychoanalysis. Routledge, 2004.
9. Franklin, Girard. “The multiple meanings of neutrality.” Journal of the
10. Boothby, Richard. Death and Desire (RLE: Lacan): Psychoanalytic Theory
in Lacan’s Return to Freud. Routledge, 2014.
11. Smith, Joseph, H. “Ego psychology and the language of Lacan: transfer-
ence and affect.” Psychoanalysis and contemporary thought 14.1 (1991):
143–182.
12. Ian, Marcia. “Freud, Lacan, and imaginary secularity.” American Imago
54.2 (1997): 123–147.
13. Caudill, D. ““Lacan’s social psychoanalysis”.” The Subject of Lacan Eds K
Malone, S Friedlander (State University of New York Press, Albany, NY) pp
(2000): 297–315.
14. Johnson, Barbara. The feminist difference: Literature, psychoanalysis, race,
and gender. Harvard University Press, 1998.
15. Gerson, Samuel. “Neutrality, resistance, and self-disclosure in an inter-
subjective psychoanalysis.” Psychoanalytic Dialogues6.5 (1996): 623–645.
16. Guralnik, Orna. “Sleeping dogs: Psychoanalysis and the socio-political.”
Psychoanalytic Dialogues 26.6 (2016): 655–663.
17. Flax, Jane. Disputed subjects: Essays on psychoanalysis, politics and philoso-
phy. Routledge, 2012.
18. Rozmarin, Eyal. “Better identity politics.” Psychoanalytic Dialogues 20.2
(2010): 181–190.
19. Grinberg, León, and Rebeca Grinberg. “The problem of identity and the
psychoanalytical process.” International Review of Psycho-Analysis 1
(1974): 499–507.
20. Akhtar, Salman. Immigration and identity: Turmoil, treatment, and trans-
formation. Jason Aronson, 1999.
21. Jekels, Ludwig, and Edmund Bergler. “Transference and love.” The
22. Kohut, Heinz. How does analysis cure?. University of Chicago Press, 2009.
23. Schneider, Stanley. “Transference, counter-transference, projective iden-
tification and role responsiveness in the supervisory process.” The Clinical
Supervisor 10.2 (1993): 71–84.
24. Wilson, Mitchell. “The analyst’s desire and the problem of narcissistic
resistances.” Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 51.1
(2003): 71–99.
25. Dervin, Daniel. “Where Freud was, there Lacan shall be: Lacan and the
fate of transference.” American Imago 54.4 (1997): 347–375.
26. Rodriguez, Leonardo, and Silvia Rodriguez. “On the transference.”
Analysis 1 (1989): 165–185.
180 R. Samuels
27. Shill, Merton A. “Analytic neutrality, anonymity, abstinence, and elec-

tive self-disclosure.” Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association
52.1 (2004): 151–187.
28. Lynn, David J., and George E. Vaillant. “Anonymity, neutrality, and
confidentiality in the actual methods of Sigmund Freud: A review of 43
cases, 1907–1939.” American Journal of Psychiatry 155.2 (1998):
163–171.
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8
Conclusion: Still (Mis)Understanding
Psychoanalysis
The main argument of this book has been that psychoanalytic practice
and theory is based primarily on five fundamental concepts, and when
these principles are misunderstood, the specificity of this discourse is lost.
As we have seen, one of the ways that Freud’s original practice is under-
mined is through the refusal to accept the neutrality of the analyst, which
enables the free association of the patient.1 It turns out that many thera-
pists and analysts today simply reject the very idea of suspending judg-
ment and understanding in order to allow patients to say whatever comes
into their minds. Perhaps it is the difficulty in giving up a position of
power that prevents people from assuming the analytic position.2
The resistance to analytic neutrality has also been tied to the political
claim that the concept of neutrality was derived from privileged white
male Europeans, and so it must be a form of oppression and prejudice.3
However, what Freud shows in his use of this notion is the idea that the
reality principle requires a bias against bias, and so even if neutrality is the
product of a particular culture and class, its power undermines all par-
ticular interests.4 In fact, the concept of neutrality is a key aspect of seeing
psychoanalysis as a science. Since the goal in modern science is to judge
evidence from a neutral perspective, the need to suspend self-interest and
186 R. Samuels
cultural values in the pursuit of truth and reality requires radical self-
honesty, and we find this same driving force behind psychoanalytic prac-
tice and theory.5
In claiming that psychoanalysis is a science, I am countering the notion
that this discipline has to turn to other fields in order to gain the respect
that is granted to valorized sciences like neuroscience and evolutionary
psychology. In fact, I have argued that these other respected discourses
are often not actually sciences because they rely on a misguided under-
standing of human subjectivity.6 Instead of seeing how humans make a
break with biology and evolution through the open nature of their drives,
many brain scientists seek to equate the human mind with the brains of
other animals and computers.7 Moreover, in the quest to determine the
meaning of consciousness, they fail to see how the human mind is able to
go beyond material reality when internal mental representations are con-
fused with the perception of the external world. In repressing the psycho-
analytic theory of the primary processes, these new disciplines seek to tie
consciousness to inherited mental programs derived from natural
selection.8
There is also the tendency in neuroscience and evolutionary psychol-
ogy to conflate non-conscious mental process with the unconscious. As I
have insisted throughout this book, the problem with this theory is that
it excludes the essential notion of repression.9 Since it is hard to under-
stand how someone can lie to themselves, the splitting of the self between
the truth and the lie is replaced by a simple acknowledgement of a lack of
awareness. As I have shown, even an astute psychoanalyst like Lacan
tends to confuse the unconscious with the primary processes, and one of
the results of this conflation is that the ethical dimension of repression is
lost.10 Since we tend to repress thoughts and feelings that lead to shame
and guilt, our protection of an idealized ego leads to a splitting of the self.
As Freud first found in his work with hysterics, repression entails that not
only do neurotic symptoms not make sense to the medical profession,
but they also do not make sense to the subject.11 In creating a break from
anatomy and cognitive continuity, hysteria reveals the radical nature of
human subjectivity.
Since neurotic symptoms manifest a gap between cause and effect,
they provide a challenge to science and the medical disciplines. However,
8 Conclusion: Still (Mis)Understanding Psychoanalysis 187
what we are seeing today is a repression of both hysteria and psychoanaly-

sis itself as a result of the growing dominance of biological determinism
coupled with the combination of capitalism and managed healthcare.12
Since psychoanalysts and therapist often rely on insurance payments,
they are forced to accept the standard model of diagnosis, which tends to
eliminate psychoanalysis and privilege pharmaceutical solutions.13 In
turn, the pharmaceutical interests also rely on a biological model in order
to base psychological disorders on chemical imbalances, and university
researches rely on Big Pharma to support their research, while govern-
ment agencies also push a medical model for mental health issues. The
question of whether psychoanalysis is a science, then, has tremendous
implications since a misguided notion of science drives the success of the
brain sciences and the repression of psychoanalysis.
As Freud argued throughout his work, a key to science is the accep-
tance of the limitation of our knowledge.14 This humility is required
because we need to recognize that there is a fundamental difference
between reality and our representations of reality. Moreover, since science
is about discovering something new, it has to be open to encountering
what it does not know.15 The problem, then, with the new brain sciences
is that they often claim to have total knowledge because they eliminate
the difference between nature and culture. By claiming that our social
and psychological reactions are derived from natural selection, the gap
between reality and our representations is lost.16 Meanwhile, the elimina-
tion of free will and social mediation results in an anti-social ideology
where humans are conceived as being computerized animals who pursue
pleasure and self-preservation at all costs. The paradox of this dominance
of the pleasure principle is that the pursuit of total freedom and enjoy-
ment ends up in total self-destruction.17 As we see in the case of addic-
tions, by giving into our drives and impulses, we end up harming ourselves
and the people around us.18
Freud affirmed in his Project for a Scientific Psychology that the pleasure
principle is determined by a law of inertia, which means that we are
driven to use as little mental and physical energy as possible. Not only do
we seek to outsource our physical labor to technology, but we are also
seeking to outsource our minds to automation. The real meaning of the
death drive, then, is that the pursuit of pleasure is equivalent to an escape
188 R. Samuels
from the self, the other, and reality.19 Psychoanalysis is therefore needed
more than ever because it is the only discourse that understands this self-
destructive drive shaping human thought and behavior.
Unfortunately, as this book has documented, psychoanalysis is being
repressed both inside and outside of psychoanalysis. Since its major con-
cepts are easily misunderstood, it has been easy to see Freud’s theory as
being outdated; however, I hope I have shown that this vital discourse is
still guided by a handful of essential concepts. Of course, many people
will reject this argument because it idealizes Freud as the one who already
always knows. Furthermore, if I pose myself as the only one who really
understands Freud, then I only serve to heighten the idealizing transfer-
ence. However, Freud’s work also includes a safe-guard against identifica-
tion and idealization. Since the goal of analysis is to allow for the free
association of the patient, anything that prevents the free discovery of
unconscious material must be considered to be a resistance to the truth
itself. From this perspective, the discourse does not belong to Freud or
any of his followers; rather, the theory provides a space for a practice that
has no limits or inherent content. As a pure practice of radical self-
honesty, psychoanalysis is an open discourse without identity or
identification.
Notes
1. Poland, Warren S. “On the analyst’s neutrality.” Journal of the American
Psychoanalytic Association 32.2 (1984): 283–299.
250–310.
3. Rose, Jeff, and Karen Paisley. “White privilege in experiential education:
A critical reflection.” Leisure Sciences 34.2 (2012): 136–154.
6. Hughes, Austin L. “The folly of scientism.” The New Atlantis(2012): 32–50.
8 Conclusion: Still (Mis)Understanding Psychoanalysis 189
7. Tallis, Raymond. Aping mankind. Routledge, 2016.

8. Misulia, Mark. “Aping Mankind: Neuromania, Darwinitis, and the
Misrepresentation of Humanity.” First Things 223 (2012): 65.
9. Anderson, Michael C. “Repression: A cognitive neuroscience approach.”
Psychoanalysis and neuroscience. Springer, Milano, 2006. 327–349.
Drafts. 1966. 281–391.
12. Horwitz, Allan V. DSM: A History of Psychiatry’s Bible. JHU Press, 2021.
Pivot, Cham, 2017. 115–136.
15. Moraitis, George. “Knowledge and ignorance in psychoanalysis.” The
Annual of Psychoanalysis, V. 28 28 (2013): 151.
17. Rosenberg, Benno. “(Erotogenic) Masochism and the Pleasure Principle
1.” Reading French Psychoanalysis. Routledge, 2014. 516–527.
18. Mills, Jon. “Reflections on the death drive.” Psychoanalytic Psychology
23.2 (2006): 373.
19. Fromm, Erich. Escape from freedom. Macmillan, 1994.
Index
A Brain, 1, 2, 4, 13, 29–35, 37–39,

Affect, 11, 16, 19, 20, 22, 23, 38, 41–46, 55, 186, 187
43–45, 48, 170–172, 178
Animals, 11, 30, 31, 33–35, 37, 39,
40, 42, 45, 46, 48, 92, 96, C
108, 134, 135, 144, 186, 187 Capitalism, 109, 138, 140, 141, 143,
Animism, 46, 66, 149 146–149, 187
Anxiety, 22, 23, 32, 44, 54, 66, Compulsion, 11, 16, 17, 19, 135
80, 82, 150 Conformity, 86, 87, 94, 150, 167
Consciousness, 8–14, 16, 17, 19, 20,
29–36, 38–49, 64, 65, 68, 69,
B 73, 74, 77–84, 138, 165,
Behaviorism, 3, 138, 141–145, 176, 186
148, 149 Contradiction, 38, 113, 145
Biological determinism, 30, 31, 37, Counter-transference, 121, 163
43, 46–48, 51 Cynical conformity, 150
Biology, 3, 13, 30, 37, 44, 47–50,
56, 71, 88, 90, 92, 93,
135, 186 D
Borderline personality Death drive, 7–9, 133–136, 141,
disorder, 92, 147 150, 187
Palgrave Lacan Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13327-5
192 Index
Demand, 8, 14–16, 23, 38, 45, 55, Ethics, 72, 73, 105–111
86, 89–94, 106, 107, 110, Evolution, 13, 30, 34, 37, 42–44,
113, 115, 121, 132, 136, 150, 47–49, 52, 90, 92, 93,
160–163, 165–169, 173 120, 186
Democracy, 140 Evolutionary psychology, 44, 47,
Descartes, Rene, 10, 24, 68, 83, 56, 92, 186
84, 86, 118
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders (DSM), F
50–54, 56, 93 Fantasy, 66, 76, 109, 111, 117–119,
Displacement, 12, 17, 31, 32, 34, 131–133, 136, 137, 139, 148,
36, 38, 46, 49, 65, 67, 132, 150, 160, 168, 169
139, 141, 144, 148–151, 163 Fetish, 142
Dreams, 10, 11, 13, 14, 20, 22, 34, Free association, 1, 3, 16, 24, 46,
35, 66–71, 75–78, 80–83, 68, 72–76, 80, 81, 84, 85,
112, 137–139, 141, 144, 176 107, 109, 110, 114, 115,
Drives, 2, 8, 15, 23, 35, 37–39, 42, 118, 119, 138, 139, 160,
43, 47, 49, 51, 53, 56, 63, 70, 161, 164, 165, 170–178,
76, 82, 87, 89–96, 107, 119, 185, 188
120, 131, 134–136, 141–144, Freedom, 14, 30, 43, 136, 147, 152,
147–150, 153, 165, 186–188 164, 168, 172, 187
Drugs, 39, 44, 53, 54 Free will, 43–45, 187
Freud, Sigmund, 1–4, 7–24, 30–38,
40–44, 46, 47, 49, 52, 55, 56,
E 63–96, 105, 108–112, 114,
Ego, 2, 10, 14, 19–24, 38, 40, 66, 117, 118, 120, 122, 131–138,
67, 69, 75, 78–85, 87, 94–96, 140, 142–144, 146, 147, 149,
108, 110–113, 115–121, 136, 152, 159, 160, 162, 163, 168,
139, 162, 166, 176, 186 170, 171, 174–176, 185–188
Ego ideal, 87, 94–96, 108, 110, 112,
115, 143, 152, 162, 174
Emotion, 11, 23, 30–32, 38, 41, 42, G
44–49, 79, 144, 150, 165, 171 Gaze, 80–84, 95, 96, 151
Enjoyment, 133, 134, 136, 151, 187 Guilt, 19, 32, 36, 37, 42–44, 77, 89,
Enlightenment, the, 3, 23, 116–118 138, 139, 149, 152, 186
Index 193
H K
Hallucination, 9–11, 13, 14, 20, 30, Knowledge, 8, 15, 20, 21, 49, 52,
40, 65, 66, 70, 79, 81, 83, 136 75, 78, 90, 94, 114, 116, 118,
Hegel, G. W., 3, 134, 140, 132, 136, 140, 145, 146, 149,
141, 146–148 150, 160, 161, 165, 166, 173,
Horwitz, Allan, 50, 53–56 174, 187
Hypnosis, 16, 86, 95, 96, 114–115
Hysteria, 16, 17, 20, 21, 137, 139,
146, 186, 187 L
Lacan, Jacques, 2, 3, 11, 12, 14, 15,
17, 18, 24, 42, 63–96, 105–107,
I 110, 111, 116, 118, 119,
Id, 38, 147 121–124, 131–134, 137–140,
Ideal ego, 80, 82, 87, 94, 108, 139, 142, 147–148, 151, 153, 160,
162, 166 163, 166, 169, 174, 176, 186
Identification, 49, 75, 78, 80, 87, Language, 2, 11, 12, 17, 46, 64, 65,
94–96, 108, 110, 112, 114, 68, 74, 111, 122, 132–134,
116, 119, 121, 122, 144, 160, 138, 144, 153, 175
161, 164, 165, 167, 169, 172, Left, the, 159–178
173, 176, 177, 188 Linguistics, 4, 12, 13, 17, 35,
Identity politics, 3, 164, 167, 168, 67, 74, 75
170–172, 175–178 Love, 15, 86, 90, 92–96,
Ideology, 3, 52, 109, 145–152, 159, 106–108, 110, 136, 142, 143,
160, 171, 172, 187 150, 160, 161, 163, 167,
Imaginary, 10, 14, 22, 31–33, 66, 168, 173
78–82, 87, 94, 96, 110, 112,
121, 122, 124, 132, 135–137,
142, 160, 163–169, 173, 174 M
Intentionality, 14, 21, 36, 40, 41, Marx, Karl, 3, 137–142,
65, 66, 78–80, 82–84, 146–149
95, 96, 173 Marxism, 137, 138, 143, 146,
Intersectionality, 168, 174–176 148, 149
Memory, 9–13, 17–20, 22, 30, 33,
34, 37, 46, 49, 65, 67, 68,
J 73–77, 109, 118
Jouissance, 133, 134 Metaphor, 3, 4, 11, 12, 18, 32, 33,
Jung, Carl, 89 69, 80, 105, 164
194 Index
Metonymy, 12, 70 Pleasure principle, 1, 2, 7–9, 11, 14,

Mirror stage, 80, 87, 116 21–24, 30, 32, 34–38, 40–47,
Modern, 12, 13, 17, 24, 88, 109, 49, 70, 76, 77, 90–93, 115,
115, 118, 140, 143, 149, 171, 116, 118, 131, 133, 134, 136,
172, 185 143, 144, 150, 151, 187
Postmodern, 117, 171
Preconscious, 32, 41, 68, 139
N Premodern, 143, 149, 171
Narcissism, 78, 82, 93, 94, 112, 116, Primary processes, 1, 2, 7, 9–12, 14,
119, 122–124, 164, 166, 174 17–24, 30–36, 38, 40, 46, 49,
Neurons, 12, 13, 34, 74 50, 63–69, 75–77, 79–85, 89,
Neuroscience, 2, 12, 13, 19, 95, 96, 115, 118–120, 131,
29–56, 92, 186 136, 138, 139, 141, 143–146,
Neutrality, 3, 72, 73, 107, 109, 111, 148, 152, 153, 170, 176, 186
113–124, 159–163, 165, 167, Projection, 46, 56, 65, 66, 69, 79,
169–177, 185 111, 139, 149, 163, 165
Psychiatry, 50–53
Psychosis, 14, 65, 66
O Psychotherapy, 55, 164
Object a, 96
Obsessional, 139, 145, 166
Other, 15, 84, 86, 87, 92–95, 109, R
110, 112, 121, 122, 133, 136, Racism, 174
143, 144, 147, 153, 160, Real, 43, 54, 65, 66, 71–73, 75–79,
166, 167 84, 85, 96, 118, 119, 122, 132,
133, 136, 140, 142, 143, 145,
148, 152, 160, 170, 173, 187
P Reality principle, 1, 2, 7, 9, 21–24,
Perception, 9–11, 13, 18, 20–23, 30, 30, 43, 63, 72, 73, 75, 96,
34, 35, 40, 46, 65, 66, 73, 74, 115, 116, 118, 119, 131, 136,
77–79, 108, 118, 119, 142, 153, 171, 185
152, 168, 186 Reason, 11, 15–17, 19, 23, 24, 40,
Perversion, 31, 42, 92, 147 43, 45–48, 54, 70, 72, 76, 77,
Pharmacology, 39, 92 82, 90, 92, 96, 106, 108,
Philosophy, 10, 78, 79, 82, 112–114, 116–118, 124, 133,
118, 162 134, 136, 140, 144, 145, 147,
Pinker, Steven, 57n4, 61n64, 189n16 150–152, 167, 168, 171, 174
Index 195
Recognition, 15, 80, 86, 87, 90, 94, Self-destruction, 44, 92, 134,
106, 108, 122, 136, 150, 147, 187
160–163, 167, 168, 173 Sexism, 174
Repetition, 2, 10, 23, 63, 71–77, 96, Sexuality, 8, 19, 20, 31, 42, 48, 49,
113, 134–136 88–90, 92, 134, 170, 175
Rhetoric, 4, 11, 32, 35, 46 Shame, 19, 32, 36, 37, 42–44, 77,
Right, the, 3, 10, 109, 111, 112, 89, 138, 139, 149, 152,
123, 142, 166, 168, 171, 172 169, 186
Signifier, 11, 12, 17–19, 64, 65, 67,
69, 70, 73–77, 88, 90, 94,
S 144, 151, 152
Samuels, Robert, 25n5, 26n17, 28n48, Sloterdijk, Peter, 146
28n50, 57n4, 57n13, 58n21, Solms, Mark, 29–49, 51, 52, 56
58n29, 59n38, 60n55, 60n58, Speech, 23, 24, 72, 76, 84, 87, 111,
61n61, 61n63, 61n64, 61n68, 132, 133, 138, 165
62n77, 99n32, 100n55, 100n60, Splitting, 168, 186
102n93, 103n96, 103n97, Subjectivity, 3, 13, 30, 32, 36,
126n19, 126n27, 127n45, 43, 47, 66–68, 80, 123,
127n46, 127n49, 128n52, 136, 138, 144, 145, 147,
128n58, 128n67, 154n13, 148, 150, 152, 153, 159,
154n14, 154n25, 154n27, 160, 163, 167, 169, 172,
155n34, 155n35, 156n48, 173, 176–178, 186
156n59, 157n71, 157n73, Substitution, 12, 17–19, 31, 32, 34,
158n81, 158n88, 158n91, 36, 38, 46, 49, 67, 74, 92,
158n92, 178n35, 181n43, 132, 139, 141, 142, 144
181n44, 181n50, 182n62, Super-ego, 19, 37, 66, 108, 115,
182n64, 182n66, 182n69, 131, 133, 135, 136, 147, 148,
182n72, 183n74, 184n90, 152, 174
188n4, 188n5, 189n13, 189n16 Symbolic, 3, 11, 12, 14, 17–20, 23,
Sartre, Jean Paul, 43, 68, 71 30–35, 39, 46, 49, 63–68, 71,
Saussure, Ferdinand de, 67 73, 75–78, 80, 122, 132–136,
Science, 1, 2, 4, 12, 13, 23, 24, 29, 140–144, 151
31, 37, 46–48, 51–53, 55, 56, Symptom, 16–19, 35, 50–52, 56,
72, 73, 75, 115, 118, 119, 66, 80, 91, 106, 110, 113,
140, 141, 171, 185–187 114, 137, 145, 146, 186
196 Index
T U
Thinking, 2, 10–13, 18–21, 24, 30, Unconscious, 1, 7, 31, 63, 106, 131,
66, 70, 76, 78, 79, 82, 85, 160, 186
119, 120, 144, 150, 151, 160, Universal, 3, 81, 142, 159, 171, 172
163–165, 173
Transference, 1, 2, 7, 9, 14–16, 49,
55, 56, 63, 71, 84–88, 90, W
93–96, 106–112, 114, 115, Wilson, Mitchell, 2, 105–124
119–122, 131, 136, 139, 143,
144, 151–153, 160–170, 173,
174, 188 Z
Trauma, 76–78, 84, 173 Žižek, Slavoj, 3, 131

(Mis) Understanding Freud With Lacan, Zizek, and Neuroscience

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THE PALGRAVE LACAN SERIES

SERIES EDITORS: CALUM NEILL · DEREK HOOK

The Palgrave Lacan Series

Cover illustration: ImageGap / iStock / Getty Images Plus / Getty

3 Neuroscience and the Repression of Psychoanalysis 29

6 Zizek and the Empty Unconscious131

7 Misunderstanding Psychoanalysis from the Left159

8 Conclusion: Still (Mis)Understanding Psychoanalysis185

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 1

In Chap. 6, I read Slavoj Zizek’s The Sublime Object of ideology as an

and so it is necessary to translate many of his representations from the

The Pleasure Principle and the Death Drive

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 7

So far, however, we have only given an incomplete description of the con-

Here Freud posits that pleasure is defined by a law of mental inertia—

Competing with the drive to eliminate all stimulation and tension, we

posited as primary counter-forces, which make possible the storing of

To clarify this connection between thought and hallucination, we can

mary processes following on experiences of satisfaction; and they are not

but what he adds to these structures is the key mutation of hallucination

According to a modern mechanistic theory, consciousness is no more than

Moreover, since we cannot control these processes, the sense of intention-

Transference and the Demand

As a core principle of psychoanalysis, when the baby’s cry is interpreted as

Every observer of hysteria is at once struck by the fact that hysterical

In this definition of hysteria, the key aspect of symptoms is the compul-

production of this event in memory now occurs as though A had taken

nalized.42 Due to this lag between infantile sexual experiences

The Defensive Ego of Attention

Attention consists in the situation of expectation being established even in

By claiming that attention is directed by concerns for quality, Freud is

The Reality Principle

process of symbolic association, which is in conflict with the role of selec-

“Thus, thought which is accompanied by the cathexis of indications of

3. Freud, Sigmund. “Beyond the pleasure principle.” The Standard Edition

33. Kovecses, Zoltan. Metaphor: A practical introduction. Oxford University

In the last chapter, I defined the central concepts of psychoanalysis, which

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 29

symbolic substitution and association (the primary processes).6 Moreover,

An Imaginary Unity

is that from Freud’s perspective, emotions are a form of cognition, and so

The Computer Brain

about what to do in response to such information)” (12). This descrip-

The Pleasure Principle Revised

In this re-introduction of desire into dreaming, Solms stresses how the

Its fundamental assumption was that manifest (nowadays called ‘explicit’

He observed that patients adopted a far-from-indifferent attitude to their

At first glance, this definition of the role of repression in creating the

Instead of stressing the ethical and moral roots of repression, Solms

Pleasure and the Unconscious

But here I had stumbled upon a major contradiction in Freud’s classical

In turning to his conception of natural feelings, Solms is able to argue

What is so interesting is that in a book dedicated to solving the riddle

Antonio Damasio concurs: ‘Decorticated mammals exhibit a remarkable

The first thing to stress in this discussion of animal behavior is that we

Are You Unconscious?

Most of moment-to-moment psychological life must occur through non-­

3 Neuroscience and the Repression of Psychoanalysis 29

6 Zizek and the Empty Unconscious131

7 Misunderstanding Psychoanalysis from the Left159

8 Conclusion: Still (Mis)Understanding Psychoanalysis185

The Pleasure Principle and the Death Drive

Transference and the Demand

The Defensive Ego of Attention

The Reality Principle

An Imaginary Unity

The Computer Brain

The Pleasure Principle Revised

Pleasure and the Unconscious

Are You Unconscious?

Most of moment-to-moment psychological life must occur through non-

Nurture and Nature

From Theory to Practice

Defending the Science of Psychoanalysis

The Unconscious and the Primary Processes

The unconscious is thus considered here to be the effect of the pre-existing

The Dream of the Subject

Repetition and Desire

Repression and Consciousness