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Some of the main difficulties in translating Freud stem not from the complexities of his conceptualization, but from his poetic perception of the human condition, and from his playful relationship with language which always accompanied his work as a researcher. Altounian discusses in detail many examples of the visual and metaphorical aspects of Freud's language. With the study of these various examples she hopes to introduce the reader to the various dissatisfactions and sense of impotence that pursue the translator in trying to render Freud's relationship with his "beloved mother tongue." The emotional overtones of Freud's language, when he deals with certain aspects of the tragedy of human destiny, his denunciations of the vanity of civilized institutions, are very difficult to render. His text is rich in semantic leitmotifs when he is functioning as an explorer or a researcher. It is extremely difficult to capture their linkages to different associative systems, yet they have an intrinsic and analytic function in Freud's road to discovery, along which he takes the reader. The author discusses the primordial role Freud attributed to language, a role which the translator must understand and appreciate thoroughly in his or her attempt to render Freud's texts.