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It is already quite something that a thing exists,
Why should one require it to be new
Roberto Calasso, Ka, 1998
When, in the future, historians look back on the current period of psychoanalysis, they may conclude that it went through a crisis in psychoanalytic understanding. Although we seem to follow the development of our discipline by situating ourselves in relation to the ideas that others defend, we only manage to do so by means of approximate personal translations, which are an attempt to establish links with authors whom we are getting to know, particularly if they do not belong to our own family of thought. And we participate in the general exchange of views with a mixture of politeness and deference in the face of what often remains foreign to us. At best, we are sceptical about the validity of the foundations on which they build their reasoning because, basically, we no longer share the principles of a common understanding.
Freud alluded indirectly to what is involved here by admitting, as he was drawing up a balance-sheet, as it were, that it was hard to say whether the hypotheses of psychoanalysis should be regarded as postulates or as the products of research (Freud, 1938).1 We end up being torn between great laxness in our exchanges and, conversely, a tendency to adopt a tough line that is not very conducive to questioning. On the other hand, this state of