Words and wordlessness in the psychoanalytic situation.

Full Abstract

The difference between words and wordlessness in the psychoanalytic situation is examined in the context of a detailed clinical example. Various pairs of terms that have been used to account for this difference are mapped onto it:
word and act, thought and feeling, public and private experience. Each of these sets of differences suggests certain relations between consciousness and the unconscious, and each implies a position about the nature of language. All three prove to be incomplete or inadequate ways of accounting for the difference between words and wordlessness in the clinical setting. The divergence, though, is well described by the difference between self-reflection and unformulated experience. Reflection is then presented as situated in the unformulated background meanings that contextualize it. It is because of this contextual embeddedness that self-reflection can have the kind of depth, resonance, power, and nuance more commonly associated with the nonverbal. In the creation of an explicit meaning, we simultaneously reconfigure the wordless background, thereby creating new possibilities for other meanings.

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Author information

Author/s: Stern, Donnel B (DB);

Affiliation: William Alanson White Institute, USA. Sternhift@aol.com

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Case Reports; Journal Article

Journal: Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (J Am Psychoanal Assoc), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-; vol 50 (issue 1) : pp 221-47

Dates: Created 2002/05/20; Completed 2002/12/04; Revised 2004/11/17;

PMID: 12018866, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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