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The authors discuss “telling the untellable” in psychoanalysis and in literature. They consider several of Freud's writings from this standpoint and draw conclusions about psychoanalytic clinical reports in general. A scientist must invent new paradigms to explain anomalies and accidents that do not fit into traditional paradigms. Similarly, a writer must not only invent or discover new forms of telling for the stories that escape telling, but also expose himself to the impossible in order to summon up new resources to tell the untellable. That has been the function, at the same time both critical and heuristic, of narrative literature, from Flaubert to Proust: to tell what it is impossible to tell.
The attempt to enable the analysand to tell the untellable characterizes analytic treatment as well, and is reflected in clinical writings about analysis. The analyst cannot avoid venturing into a narrative, and often this is an adventure he loves. However, the analyst must take into account both his method and its effects. The and here takes on a very strong meaning that, among other functions, situates and contrasts psychoanalytic narrative in relation to literature. The literary writer does not have to justify his narrative.