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What is understood by exploration of the unconscious today, more than a century on from The Interpretation of Dreams (Freud, 1899)? What meaning is attached to the term «unconscious» and what organization of thought (theories, methods and techniques) is considered appropriate for investigation of the unconscious? Numerous recent publications1 show that the tacit consensus on the significance of the word «unconscious» and on psychoanalysis as the procedure for its investigation no longer holds good, and that a range of sometimes widely divergent views have developed. I propose to demonstrate, albeit only partially and in summary form, that a number of implicit assumptions, some of which I shall endeavour to make explicit, are inherent in the phrase «exploration of the unconscious», which is so important both clinically and in regard to individual ideation and affects. For this purpose, I shall select three spheres or levels of meaning and reference.
The phrase «exploration of the unconscious» contains an implicit reference to «space», both metaphorically and in specific philosophical and psychological terms. The reference is twofold, since the idea of a space in which research moves is already implicit in the term «exploration» and because the «unconscious» as an object of exploration is implicitly assumed to be endowed with an extension, with some form of spatiality. In psychoanalysis, however, the concept or category of a «space» of exploration differs in character from that used in other fields. For example, in geographical exploration space is «neutral» in terms of the content, objects and situations to be explored, in so far as it provides the basic categorial references. It takes the
A shorter, less complete version of this contribution was presented at the XVth Congress of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society held on 27-30 May 2010.