Freud, Psychoanalysis, and Symbolism Agnes Petocz CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Freud, Psychoanalysis, and Symbolism Freud, Psychoanalysis, and Symbolism offers an innovative general theory of symbolism,derived from Freud’s psychoanalytictheory and relocatedwithinmainstreamscientificpsychology.Itisthefirstsystem- atic investigationof the developmentof Freud’s treatmentof symbol- ismthroughouthispublishedworks,anddiscoversinthosewritingsa broad theory which is far superior to the widely accepted, narrow, ‘official’ view. Agnes Petocz argues that the treatment of symbolism must begin with the identification and clarification of a set of logical contraintsandpsychologicalrequirementswhichanygeneraltheoryof symbolism must respect, and that these requirements have been neg- lected by existing accounts across a number of disciplines. Her newly proposed ‘Freudian Broad’ theory of symbolism, by contrast, does meettheserequirements,butonlyafterithasbeenrehabilitatedwithin a revised psychoanalytic context. An important contribution to the ongoing development of a coherent and scientifically acceptable ver- sionofpsychoanalytictheory,Freud,Psychoanalysis,andSymbolismalso offers a radical reconceptualisation of the unconscious and repression and of the role of language. Agnes Petocz isalecturerintheDepartmentofPsychologyatthe University of Western Sydney Macarthur, Australia. She has degrees in classics and psychology and has published in the areas of psycho- analysis and philosophy of mind. This Page Intentionally Left Blank Freud, Psychoanalysis, and Symbolism Agnes Petocz PUBLISHED BY CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS (VIRTUAL PUBLISHING) FOR AND ON BEHALF OF THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 IRP 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia http://www.cambridge.org © Agnes Petocz 1999 This edition © Agnes Petocz 2003 First published in printed format 1999 A catalogue record for the original printed book is available from the British Library and from the Library of Congress Original ISBN 0 521 59152 X hardback ISBN 0 511 00839 2 virtual (netLibrary Edition) For Anna and Dani non omnino moriemini This Page Intentionally Left Blank Contents List of figures page viii Preface ix Introduction 1 Part One: Exegesis and Extraction 7 1 From disorder towards the focus of inquiry 9 2 The ‘Freudian Narrow’ (FN) theory of symbolism 21 3 The ‘symbol’ in Freud’s early writings (1893–1899) 36 4 Continuation and elaboration (1900–1913) 56 5 The ‘core years’ for the FN theory (1914–1917) 98 6 The treatment of symbolism in Freud’s later writings (1918–1940) 125 Part Two: Consolidation and Defence 149 7 The problem of the ‘system unconscious’ 151 8 The problem of language 178 9 Ernest Jones’s contribution 198 10 The ‘Freudian Broad’ (FB) theory of symbolism 215 11 Symbolism: logical constraints and psychological requirements 239 Epilogue 266 List of references 269 Index 278 vii Figures 1 The ‘symbol’ in Freud’s early writings page 46 2 Jones’s contribution to the FB theory 213 3 Summary of the logical constraints and psychological requirements 241 viii Preface This book hadits origins in two questions relatedto symbolism, and in my dissatisfaction with the existing answers. Firstly, given the central place of symbolism and symbolic activity in human behaviour and mentallife,isitpossibletohaveageneral,unifiedtheoryofthesymbol? Secondly, if symbolism is so obviously important, why has it been almost completely neglected by the very discipline which claims to be concerned with human behaviour and mental life – psychology, especially scientific psychology? At present, the answers to these two questions maybe foundin theextensive non-psychologicalliterature on symbolism.Inthisliterature,whichspansmanydifferentfields–philos- ophy, sociology, anthropology, hermeneutics, semiotics, aesthetics, and soon–andwhichis,perhapsnotsurprisingly,fullofcontroversies,one observation which is made time and time again is that symbolism is inherently elusive; that the complex and multifaceted nature of the symbol rules out not just a coherent scientific treatment, but any kind of general theory. Thus, the answer to the first question is: ‘no’; and theanswertothesecondquestionis:‘becausesymbolismisbeyondthe reach of science’. In this book I challenge those answers. I do so by bringing together threelinesofargument,noneofwhich,tomyknowledge,haspreviously beenproposed.Thefirstlineofargumentreversesthetypicaltreatment of symbolism. Rather than survey the multitudinous manifestations of the symbol in human life, and conclude that a general theory is out of thequestion,myowntreatmentfocusesthediscussionaboutsymbolism onto what should be the primary task, that of identifying the criteria for an adequate general theory. It seems to me that any unified theory of the symbol must respect certain logical constraints (one of which, sig- nificantly, is that it be a psychological theory) and must, thereby, meet certainpsychologicalrequirements.When theserequirementsarespelled out (as they are in the final chapter of the book), it becomes clear that it has been the lack of awareness of them, and the consequent failure to meet them, rather than the infinite variability and complexity of the ix