La force du langage

Abstract

The object of this paper is to show that the language involved in a talking cure takes on two distinctive forms : that of compulsive utterance on the one hand and that of associative listening on the other. Compulsive speech on the subject's part, however, generally implies a process of identical repetition. In order to undermine the latter, the analyst's activity of listening should thus aim to reinstate the essential object that is implied in an affective form of listening and that is based on the feeling aroused by speech at its very deepest level. This reinstallation can, on the other hand, create a dependency on the listening role of the other. Whilst this dependency is assuredly rooted in nostalgia for the oceanic object, it also no doubt springs from a refusal to experience hallucinatory satisfaction in order not to then be obliged to mourn the latter. © Presses Universitaires de France.