Psychoanalytic Excavations: The Structure of Freud's Cosmography

“Symbol formation is the initial stage of concept formation.”

“In psychology we can only describe things by the help of analogies. There is nothing peculiar in this; it is the case elsewhere as well.” Freud's (SE 20, 195)* comment indicates his awareness of the criticism as well as of the interest that his profuse use of metaphorical imagery aroused. Already in 1895 he had apologized that his case histories “read like short stories” and seem to “lack the serious stamp of science” (SE 2, 160). Why did Freud not avoid the unwelcome avalanche of detractors calling his work “unscientific,” especially since he himself clearly recognized the dangers to scientific validity accruing from the misuse of metaphors by reification into pseudo-hypotheses? In this paper we propose that Freud could not have avoided these risks because metaphorical imagery had not merely an explanatory or literary function but was an essential aspect of his theorizing that guided him in the process of concept formation. Furthermore we suggest that Freud's early infantile and childhood experiences were organized into a perceptual-cognitive pattern which then in turn guided and organized Freud's later experience of the world around him. This pattern became like a template for his evolving cognitive style and found expression in his metaphors and in his theories. Finally, we will speculate on what might have been some of Freud's early experiences which might have led him to construct his particular perceptual-cognitive patterning.