The Psychoanalytic Quarterly 25, 1956, No. 2: Robert Fleiss. 'The Déjà Raconté. A Transference Delusion Concerning the Castration Complex.'

While the psychological content of déjà raconté and déjà vu are comparable their form is not. Déjà vu, like other states of alienation, is a sensation which does not disturb the cognitive functions. Déjà raconté on the other hand does, and must therefore be classed as a delusion. Fliess quotes several cases which seem to show that the specific anxieties which déjà raconté seeks to master concern the fear of incontinence following castration as a punishment for infantile masturbation. They are dealt with by an acute regression to the oral state in which the patient compensates himself by his possession, and incorporation, of the breast. The breast is projected upon the analyst in the form of a mouth, and this is why the symptom concerns two mouths (the patient's and the analyst's) and why the refusal of the analyst to join in the folie à deux so markedly breaks the patient's bond with him. Déjà raconté, as a 'second-time' experience, also permits active mastery of the trauma originally suffered passively.