From analytic dialogue to published text*

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue”.

The paper focuses on some of the never-solved technical difficulties in transcribing the psychoanalytic dialogue to published text, in particular the difference between spoken and written language. The description of an analytic session or process has many points in common with the report of a dream, and sometimes the details appear just as elusive. In all analytic activities (sessions, supervision, seminars, etc.), the spoken word plays a decisive rôle. It was the spoken language that Freud made the object of his thorough analysis in his early works. Neither Freud himself nor later analysts have paid attention to the fact that the language Freud placed in the preconscious is the spoken language. The difference between the spoken language and the written text is illustrated by a short summary of so-called primary oral cultures, i.e., cultures without any form of writing, and by a description of writing as a technology. This paper deals with the frustrating experience that the analyst cannot precisely report in writing the experience of the analytic session. It is emphasized that these technical difficulties are, however, only a relative hindrance for writing, as every case history is a narration, which is only the starting point for continuous analytic activity. This means that the dialogue and the process continues.