Pape's (1991) clear paraphrases only demonstrate again two problems with Lacan's work. First, Lacan's obscurity leads Pape and others to an explication of what is being said instead of assessing the value of what is being said. Second, key concepts, such as “the Real” rest on a pre-psychoanlytic idea of psychic causality. For Lacan, words, events, or traumata cause symptoms directly, unmediated by defense. This idea Freud rejected with the “seduction hypothesis.” Lacan's mistake about “the Real” parallels his mistakes about “the Symbolic.” His linguistic thinking about the Symbolic rests on Saussure's behaviorist idea of mental functioning as “signification.” His ideas about the Real likewise rest on a pre-psychoanalytic idea of unmediated causality from external event to internal.