The Babel of the Unconscious

Dear Sir:

I would like to congratulate Drs Amati Mehler, Argentieri and Canestri for their article 'The babel of the unconscious' (I.J.P.A., 70: 569, 1990). Polyglotism is an important issue in the history and present practice of psychoanalysis, and there have been few works indeed addressing its significance and technical management.

I had a personal analysis in my mother-tongue and another one in a different language. I have analysed patients in a language other than my mother-tongue. I have analysed patients who preferred using two languages in the same session. I analysed one who, although sharing mother-tongue with me, chose to speak a second language for the first two years of his treatment. These experiences are fairly common, especially in Europe (see, for instance, Flegenheimer's recent article 'Languages and psychoanalysis …', I.R.P.A., 16: 377, 1989).

Amati Mehler et al. wondered 'How can the condition of multilingualism become a vehicle that enhances structuring defences or pathology?' (p. 572). In my experience, speaking a language other than the mother-tongue in analysis gets used unfailingly at the service of isolation of affect. It is also very frequently the fantasy that through the second language ideal aspects of the self get conveyed. Significant narcissistic pathology may pass unnoticed when the analysis is conducted in a language other than the mother-tongue if the possibility of the latter phenomenon is not taken into consideration.

Amati Mehler et al. mention that some analysts 'insist' that the analysand uses the mother-tongue; it is supposed to be 'a desirable technical expedient' (p. 575). 'Insistence' seems to me an unnecessary suggestive manoeuvre. As a result of the analysis of the resistance against using the mother-tongue (the language of 'thing representations') sooner or later an analysable patient will become aware of protective utilization of his isolation of affect and the narcissistic gratification inherent in the illus