The symptom: From Freud to Lacan

Abstract

This article deals with both, the 'theory of symptom' in Freud, as well as, Lacan's re-reading of it, in the dimension of the symbolic-through the vein of the 'unconscious, structured as language' and, in the dimension of the real-from the point of view of the 'driving unconscious'. Thus, it points to two dimensions of the symptom: firstly, 'the symptom-metaphor', an unconscious formation, supported by the satisfaction of a wish with a repressed sense, which can be deciphered; and secondly, 'the enjoyment letter-symptom', different from the other unconscious formations, once the wish-fulfilment involved in it, has a problematic and paradoxical feature: it is a 'real satisfaction', but 'inside out', beyond the pleasure principle and linked to the death instinct.