Trauma, from Freud to Lacan : a theoretical reinterpretation from the «linguistic turn»

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to show how the influence of the «linguistic turn» in the XX century philosophy is reflected in Jacques Lacan’s analysis of trauma. In this regard, Lacan’s reception of the «linguistic turn» is considered in the programmatic text that opens his Seminar: “The function and field of speech and language in psychoanalysis.” In this text the impasse and ambiguities signaled by Sigmund Freud about how to understand the traumatic (is it something interior or exterior?) were resolved. The new perspective, laid open by the application of the «linguistic turn» to the idea of trauma, also modifies what we conceive as the localization of the unconscious (as something more exterior than interior) and what might be understood as the analyst’s position during the treatment as well.