Jacques Alain Miller Marginalia

NLS Messager 31 - 2010/2011
"Marginalia": Jacques-Alain Millers comment on Freuds "Constructions in Analysis"

We are pleased to circulate the English translation of a very interesting text by Jacques-Alain
Miller: a rigorous and inventive comment on Freuds 1937 paper Constructions in Analysis.
It is the transcript of a talk he gave at the "Milanese Workshop of the EEP" in 1994; hence it
has the informal style of a seminar. We have already referred to it in our NLS Congress
Preparatory Seminars and in some of the articles sent on NLS-Messager.
I wont say more in terms of an introduction, but to recommend that you read it with your
pencil in hand and Freuds text on your lap. You'll discover snippets of phrases or passages
that have hitherto escaped your notice and youll hear the formulations that have at times
become too familiar, in a new way. That is the art of J.-A. Miller, to take hold of what in
Freuds work was an "appeal to Lacan" and what the shifts were that Lacan applied, thus
reinventing psychoanalysis.
We thank Jacques-Alain Miller for his permission to translate it. We thank Adrian Price for the
quality of the translation, which was just published in the Journal of the London Society,
Psychoanalytical Notebooks 22.
Anne Lysy
MARGINALIA TO CONSTRUCTIONS IN ANALYSIS

Jacques-Alain Miller
Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth.

Hamlet, Act II, Scene I, line 63
Im very happy to be here in these new premises in Milan, the acquisition of which is the result
of the effort youve put in together over this last year. It is therefore a show of confidence in the
future. So were saying goodbye to the superb Borromeo convent that had been housing us till
now, and were carrying on our Workshop in this new location.1
I recommend to all present that you number the paragraphs of the text. There are three
sections, I suggest numbering the paragraphs starting over at one with each new section. The
first section has five paragraphs, the second has nine, the third six.2 So we can reference the text
by giving the number of the section and the number of the paragraph within the section.
As its a text that is markedly shorter than Analysis Terminable and Interminable, we
can maybe read it more attentively, more meticulously, line by line.
[There follows C. Viganos paper.]
Instances
I havent checked the instances of the word construction in Freud prior to this text. Has
anyone studied this?
[A. Vila refers to A Child is Being Beaten.]
The reference to A Child is Being Beaten is indeed a very significant one, because the text we
have before us ends with a mention of repression in the primary period, Urzeit. One has
recourse to construction when one is aiming at a point in the unconscious that does not appear
again. Construction is the word with which Freud designates the analysts relationship with
what remains repressed, with what analytic work does not manage to restore. In a first sense,
construction designates the analysts archaeological method, in a second sense, the word
designates the analysts relationship with what was primarily repressed. In A Child is Being
Beaten, the second phase of the fantasy can never be relived or recovered by the patient. It is
the object of a construction. Perhaps a more exhaustive search for the use of the term
construction in Freud prior to the present 1937 text will be required.
Contradiction
There exists, if you will, a contradiction in the text, but one that can be explained by its internal
dialectical movement. Indeed, in paragraph four3 of the first section, Freud insists on the fact
that everything is there, everything essential is there. Unlike the archaeological object, in the
This text groups together the contributions presented during the Milanese Workshop of the European School of
Psychoanalysis on 26-7 February 1994. The French text was transcribed by J.L. Gault. The notes have been
established by the translator.
2
[TN, The most recently published translation, by Alan Bance, cuts the fifth paragraph of the first section in two,
giving the opening section six paragraphs; the sixth paragraph of section two is likewise cut in two, giving the
middle section ten paragraphs; whilst the fourth paragraph of the third section is sliced in two, giving the final
section seven paragraphs. See Constructions in Analysis, in Wild Analysis, Penguin Classics, 2002, pp. 209-22.]
3
Ibid., [TN, paragraph five in the Bance translation.] p. 214.
psychical object as he puts it4, everything is there. In this regard he even speaks about the
extraordinary privilege of the analysts work compared to the archaeologists. But the texts
dialectical movement leads him, in section III, paragraph 1, to say, on the contrary: Often
enough it fails to lead the patient to recall what has been repressed. This is where the whole
business of the primary repressed appears. Try as one might, and even though everything is
there, it so happens that not everything can come back, not everything can come to be
remembered, acknowledged.
Freuds Backward Glance
What are we scrutinising in these late texts of Freuds? They hold a particular fascination for
me. Freud is looking back at what he has accomplished. Psychoanalysis exists, it is starting to
exist, it is spreading. Psychoanalysis is starting to be modified by psychoanalysis. The practice
invented by Freud, and which was his prerogative, has now been launched into the world, and is
being modified by this very launch. For instance, here in this text, Freud discretely reproaches
his pupils with not speaking about construction. There is an apparent debate, a clear debate with
the professor who says: You make it so that you always win, and theres a more discreet
debate in the background, with the analysts themselves, and the way they are putting the
Freudian invention into practice.
In this backward glance that Freud is casting, he is putting psychoanalysis into
perspective. In his style theres something that is being stripped back. There is a kind of
straightforwardness that makes the whole field of experience quiver and resonate. This text was
apparently written to answer the opponent who says: You make it so that youre always right;
Freud replies in minute detail; and then at the end he says: All in all, our constructions are like
delusions. He has taken the objection very seriously, but at the same time there is a kind of
ultimate elegance that goes well beyond the debate with the opponent. There is this
straightforwardness, this high vantage point, and also a complexity, but a veiled one.
Everything looks straightforward, but ultimately, something remains closed off.
When Lacan started to re-read Freud, he guided himself with the first texts and not the
late ones, with the texts of discovery: The Interpretation of Dreams, The Psychopathology of
Everyday Life, The Joke and its Relation to the Unconscious. Here were at the other end. Its
no longer the discovery of the unconscious, its like the discovery of psychoanalysis. Its the
discovery of the psychoanalysts implication in psychoanalysis. Its no longer the big heroic
gallop of the early texts, the discovery of the uncharted territory of the unconscious. Its slow,
step by step, theres a difficulty thats hard to locate, and maybe well manage to locate it in
scrutinising this text, and even put it into a matheme. At the same time there are some
astonishing clinical insights, like at the end of the text where one paragraph is dedicated to the
treatment of psychosis.
At the time of Freuds first gallop, it was the intoxication of interpretation. Now, its the
time of construction. There is no intoxication of construction.
Construction is like an intermediary entity mid-way between interpretation and theory.
Synopsis
How could the three sections of this text be shared out? In the first section, paragraph 1, the
opponent arrives on the scene. And therefore the text takes on the aspect of a kind of defence of
psychoanalysis. The Italian text runs: Nel corso di questa nostra autodifese. The word
autodifeso is maybe a bit strong. The German word is Rechtfertigung, translated into French as
justification5, which is perhaps more strictly exact, but indeed, its an act of self-defence, a pro
domo defence speech, of psychoanalysis. This text fits in with the series of texts where Freud
4
5
Ibid., [TN, psychological object in the Bance translation.]

Ibid., [TN, justification in the Bance translation.] p. 211.
replies to an opponent to defend psychoanalysis. The major example is the text on lay analysis,
which defends the possibility of non-doctors practicing analysis. As an aside, this is something
his pupils were quick to refuse, in particular the American ones. The consequence of this has
marked the entire International Psycho-analytic Association, and definitively opened up the
path to Lacans influence. The hardest thing to do is to defend psychoanalysis from
psychoanalysts.
In Analysis Terminable, we also had this reply to an objection aspect, because the
hurried man came centre stage, the man who demanded that analysis go quickly.
Constructions in Analysis likewise begins with the opponent getting up on the stage. Freud
makes use of the other guys words: You make it so that youre always right. Freud takes the
thing seriously and asks himself: What is truth in psychoanalysis? The word construction is
a bit heavy. Calling the text Truth in Psychoanalysis might have had more appeal for us.
In his paper, Vigano highlighted the questions relationship with psychoanalysiss
falsifiability. Indeed, Poppers whole argument is summed up in the first two sentences of this
text: the psychoanalyst makes it so that his words are unfalsifiable. In this text, the analyst
stands at the centre, what he says, what he does, his action, what Freud calls somewhere die
Leistung, the analysts action, or Arbeit, his work.
Lets come back to distributing the three sections of the text.
The first part is dedicated to the analysts work, in so far as this work differs from the
analysands work. Its a very subtle manoeuvre on Freuds part. What elements does the
opponent use to set out his problem? His intervention is a projection of his own position. He
stands before Freud and tells him: You make it so that youre always right, he enters into a
debate, and projects his position onto the analytic situation, as if the analytic situation were: the
analyst says something, and the other guy, the patient, enters into a debate with the analyst.
What does Freud do faced with this? He makes the patient disappear. In the whole of the first
section, there is no analysand. There is the analysts work faced with the psychical object.
And this is also the value of the comparison with archaeology which of course has always been
one of Freuds passions, and maybe Vila will talk about that a little, but above all it is that the
archaeological object does not speak, it does not say: I disagree. Troy does not get up to say:
No, I exist three layers further down.
In other words, the first section presents the analyst all on his own grappling with the
givens of the experience. The analyst works at construction. The first section is construction as
the analysts work, and as a solitary work. Its only the second section that introduces the
communication of the construction to the analysand.
In the second section, Freud once again comes up against the problem the opponent
posed him. He examines the different kinds of response the patient can give when the analyst
communicates a certain type of statement that Freud calls construction. And amongst these
reactions, there is yes, there is no, but there are also a heap of other things. The opponent
was focussed on the yes or no, true or false, I agree or I disagree. Freud opens a much
more extensive chapter, in which amongst other things there is the yes and the no, but its
not the most interesting case.
I would say that section one deals with construction as the work of the analyst; section
two with communicating the construction and the patients responses; section three opens
another perspective.
The third section constitutes a clinic of the return of the repressed: how the repressed
comes back in memory. But also: how it can come back in hallucination. And: how it can come
back in delusion. The title of this third section could be: the delusion as the patients
construction. But clearly this has a nether side, which is the construction as the analysts
delusion. This is barely indicated. The delusion is a pathological construction, perhaps the
analytic construction is a methodical construction.
The titles Im putting forward could be discussed, they could be fine-tuned, but they
indicate all the same what Freuds step is. I might be able to go further into the detail of these
three sections without encroaching on the commentary that is going to be given.
The last word of the first section is Vorarbeit, preparatory work6. The construction is
only a piece of preparatory work. Vigano mentioned this. The analyst constructs for himself.
Its preparatory work, because the second phase is to communicate it to the patient. Freud ends
his first section with the preparatory work so as to introduce the second section in which he
examines how it is communicated to the patient. Here a practical question is raised which is still
pertinent today: to what extent are constructions to be communicated to the patient?
In spite of appearances, Lacan is on the very same line as Freuds reflection, such as it
can be reconstituted, when he states that constructions are not to be communicated. Im saying
it in an abrupt way. Whats in question is the handling of knowledge in the analytic experience.
Freud himself questions the knowledge content of the construction. This could be taken as
cynical: he goes so far as to say that if what we say as analysts is not true, its not as serious as
all that. You have to read this text asking yourself: for Freud, what is operative? Its not the
exactitude of the knowledge. Its something else, which is hard to locate. Thats the debate of
the text.
Section I
The first paragraph of the text introduces the opponent. In the second paragraph, there is a very
amusing description of what the raw material of the analysts work is. Its made up of bits and
pieces: dream fragments, fragments of memories in dreams, ideas that go through the patients
mind, Einfalle, and signs, allusions, clues of repetition phenomena that inhabit the patient. Bits
and bobs. That is the raw material of the analysts work. From this raw material so to speak
we have to produce what we want. The second paragraph presents therefore the raw material
of the work as being essentially fragmentary. One could take the analytic session as something
other than a fragment. One could take it as a whole, as an argument that is pursued over three
quarters of an hour, like a narrative that aims at completeness. Freuds point of view is utterly
different: only bits occur. Why? Because what interests him is the repressed. What appears
thereof comes along in the shape of fragments. Repression means that the unconscious only
comes along piecemeal, in fragments.
Furthermore, in the third paragraph the analysts work is clarified: from the collection of
fragments, you make a whole. He invents a coherence to these bits.
Lets come back to the unfolding of the text.
The opponent appears on the scene. Freud displaces the question by showing the
solitary analyst grappling with the raw material. The fragmentariness of the unconscious calls
for construction. The very notion of construction appears linked to the notion of completeness.
One could therefore discuss at length the completeness or incompleteness of the constructions.
But to state it in a short-circuit, the real debate of the text is not completeness or
incompleteness, its much rather inconsistence and consistence. In a certain way, the text starts
off from a phenomenon of inconsistence, because whether the patient says yes or no, it comes
down to the same thing. The heart of the difficulty thats preoccupying Freud is the
inconsistence of truth. This is indeed what makes this text related to the Negation paper, as
the Italian edition points out in a note.
So, paragraphs two and three answer each other. Here fragments, there a whole. Then
in paragraph four comes the analogy with archaeology. Paragraph five underlines the
differences with archaeology. Ill leave the precise commentary to Vila whos going to do that
Ibid., p. 214.
for us later. The term psychical object that crops up in this fifth paragraph 7 is necessary
because it translates the solitary work of the analyst.
Section II
In the second section, we find intersubjectivity.
We are dealing with the response to the psychical object, to the extent that the
construction is communicated to the analysand.
The first paragraph is the introduction. In the second paragraph, Freud tackles the
problem of error. What happens if we say something false? If we, the analyst, say something
false? What guarantee do we have? The word guarantee is in the text: What guarantee [do]
we have, during the work on constructions, that we are not going wrong?8 So, we have the
problem of error, of guarantee, and in a certain sense, of the guarantee of truth. In the third,
fourth and fifth paragraphs, Freud discusses the yes and no. In the third paragraph, he states
he is going to examine the yes and no. In the fourth he examines the yes, in the fifth he
examines the no, and all in great detail. All this development is made to show paragraph 6
that its unimportant, that whats important always comes indirectly. It seems to me that the
lynchpin of this section is the term indirect9
Everything that comes directly, the direct yes, the direct no, the thats not true,
thats not right, is not what counts. What counts is what lies off to one side. This is what Lacan
would later call the mi-dire, the half-saying. One cannot speak the truth, one can only half-say
it. Freud is already demonstrating this. He is up against an object that cannot be taken head on,
and this is why he begins the text with a run-in with the professor who comes along saying,
No, youre wrong, etc.. Thats why the professor is there. Hes there to debate in the
scholastic sense, in the sense of sic et non. When you write a thesis, theres a jury to judge it,
the whole university discourse gets up on stage. In psychoanalysis, were dealing with
something else entirely. Something thats so different it cant even be pointed at with your
finger. If you say yes, its not right, and if you say no, its not right either. Its not, contrary
to what the opponent thinks, that the analyst is always right whatever the patient says, its rather
that, whatever the patient says, i.e., whether he says yes or says no, hes wrong. That doesnt
mean that the analyst is always right, like Mussolini. It means that the analysand is always
wrong in his relation to the unconscious, because this relation is itself a crooked one.
One cannot say the right thing about the unconscious in a direct way. One can only say
the right thing about the unconscious in falling off to one side, in a roundabout way. This is
how this second section needs to be studied: the analyst and the analysand grappling with the
truth of the unconscious. As Vigano reminded us, this second section ends with a sentence from
Nestroy, Everything will become clear in the course of events. 10 Here the comparison with
archaeology is no longer valid. When the first section concludes, we have the idea of a
synchronic construction: from the remains, we draw up the plans of the house as it must have
been at the start. Here, in the second section, we have the diachronic dimension. We go from
the first section where the perspective is synchronic, to the second which introduces a
diachronic perspective.
Section III
Lets briefly sum up the third section.
An astonishing principle is set out in the first paragraph:
7
[TN, paragraph six in the Bance translation (see footnote 2) where it is translated as psychological object (see
footnote 4).]
8
Ibid., p. 215.
9
Ibid., p. 218.
10
Ibid., p. 219.
In lieu of that, through the correct conduct of the analysis we succeed in firmly
convincing him of the truth of the construction, and therapeutically this achieves the
same result as regaining a memory.
This is really wonderful. The Ersatz is used in the same way as the original. The whole goal of
psychoanalysis according to Freud, according to the second paragraph of the first section, is to
recover memories. But if one cannot manage to recover them, never mind: conviction in the
truth of the construction has the same effect as a memory regained. This could be written down
as a major principle of analysis: berzeugung von der Wahrheit der Konstruktion, the
conviction in the truth of the construction is equivalent to the memory, Erinnerung. Ill write it
up here as a matheme:11
E = EWK
Its a principle that looks Einsteinian. Just as E = MC2 identifies energy with matter, the
Freudian principle identifies memory with construction.
In the second paragraph, Freud observes that communicating the construction can
provoke memories in the patient with an almost hallucinatory precision.
In the third paragraph, hallucination may indeed be that a return of the repressed. And
delusion might also be that, a return of the repressed. Perhaps the repressed memory can only
come back in a hallucinatory and delusional form. This means: perhaps truth, when it surges up,
always entails a certain margin of delusion. Its not said explicitly by Freud, but one doesnt get
the impression that for him the truth of the repressed memory is of the order of exactitude, but
on the contrary, that truth has much greater affinity with delusion. Lacan will be very gentle
when he says truth has the structure of fiction12, because in the end, in a certain sense, Freud
is saying that truth has the structure of delusion, that there is at least a close affinity between
truth and delusion, that truth manifests itself in the form of delusion.
In the fourth paragraph Freud gives some indications on the treatment of psychosis, and
he ends by indicating that between delusion and construction there is also affinity, and maybe
identity. The construction he presented to us at the beginning of the text as a method equivalent
to the scientific method of archaeology turns out to be related instead to the psychotics
delusion. The text goes from an analogy between psychoanalysis and archaeology to an analogy
between psychoanalysis and psychosis.
The very end gives an astonishing insight into the delusions of humanity, which, even
though they contradict reality, exert an extraordinary influence over mankind due to their
affinity with the repressed truth. Its the fight of the Enlightenment thinkers. Here we have in
one sentence the critique of both religion and political ideologies as being a host of delusions
inaccessible to logical criticism.
If these delusions none the less exert an extraordinary influence over people,
investigation leads to the same conclusion as in the case of the single individual. They
owe their strength to their measure of historical truth that they have extracted from
repression of forgotten past ages.13
There we have it for the synopsis of the text. Its nothing next to the detail.
11
[TN, This matheme will be familiar to the English language reader from Millers Seminar delivered five months
later in Paris on 17 July 1994, which covers much of the same ground. Published in English translation as
Towards the Ninth International Encounter of the Freudian Field in Analysis, Issue 6, 1995, pp. 14-31.]
12
Cf. Lacan, J.; The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire, in crits, The First Complete Edition
in English, Norton, New York, 2006, p. 684: [] it is from Speech that Truth receives the mark that instates it in
a fictional structure. & Lacan, J., Le seminaire, livre XVI, Dun Autre lautre, Seuil, Paris, 2006, p. 348.
13
Op. cit., Freud, S.; Constructions in Analysis, p. 222.
Recht and Richtig

Ill point out two terms that crop up all the time in the text: Recht and richtig. Recht means
right in English, and droit in French, and richtig means just in the sense of justice as in
justness. Each time, the question is one of knowing whether what has been said is just or not,
is right or not, if one has the right to say it or if one doesnt have the right to say it. These
terms run through the whole German text. At the end of the first paragraph, we have
Rechtfertigung, justification14, and then a little further down its a question of Richtigkeit, the
justness of the construction. These terms are woven into the text.
[There follows A. Vilas paper.]
and its Pathos
What Freud calls analysiss extraordinary privilege compared to archaeology is not that the
patient then replies that the Vnus de Milo doesnt answer, that the truncated column doesnt
say how it was when it was complete, its the fact that in analysis, unlike archaeology, nothing
is lost. The classic adage runs: Nothing gets lost, nothing gets created concerning the
unconscious, Freud is saying that nothing gets lost.
Ill quote the astonishing sentence from the first part of paragraph five in the first
section: As is well known, we have reason to doubt whether any psychical formation ever
suffers really complete destruction.15
As is well known where do we know this from? This amounts above all to saying:
in the unconscious, all that is known. Its the subject supposed to know, the supposition that
everything remains written and is never effaced. Quite simply, its written under repression.
The unconscious revolves, its a memory, a hard drive, but one thats under repression. And
only little bits of it appear, and in an erratic fashion. Everything essential is preserved 16. There
we have it all, its all there. Here, we have bits. To build the construction is to make a
simulacrum of this whole from the bits, a simulacrum of the completeness of the unconscious.
Can one really manage to retrieve completely this lost part? In Constructions in
Analysis, as in Analysis Terminable and Interminable, Freud is faced with the evidence that
theres always a remainder. This is why Lacan writes capital A with a bar. This bar is never
completely lifted, it is even what he called the signifier of the Autre barr, the barred Other. Its
what always remains out of step between the whole and the bits. If theres something that
makes construction necessary, then its that
One could imagine that the construction evaporates when one has retrieved the whole of
the unconscious. A complete construction may well be ideal, says Freud, but he also says that
over time one only communicates fragments of construction to the patient, which serve above
all to re-launch association. The first virtue of the analysts speech is the push-to-speak. This is
why Lacan pinpoints the analysts position with the petit a, in so far as petit a has an effect of
division on the analysand-subject. The analyst is the one who makes the subject speak as a
divided subject, a subject struck with the bar of repression.
Its noteworthy that this article ends on primary repression. This means that after all is
said and done, one has to proceed as if the construction has the same value as memory. This is
the Einsteinian principle of analysis. One has to proceed as if the signifier of the construction
had the same value as the analysands memory. What does all that lead to? To a reflection on
what is truth?
14
Ibid., p. 211 (see footnote 5).

Ibid., p. 214 [Translation modified].
16
Ibid.
15
On anxiety, I agree that importance should be given to the fourth paragraph of the third
section, which highlights a connexion between the approach to the repressed and the approach
to anxiety. Its undoubtedly to be distinguished from anxiety hysteria where anxiety constitutes
a recurrent state of the subject, and sometimes even a permanent one. Can one say that there the
subject lives in such proximity to the repressed that he is constantly anxious? In subjects who
dont have this special affinity with anxiety, one can occasionally see a truth emerge that causes
anxiety.
To solve the question what heals?, one has to start off from the question what makes
one ill? This is the question Freud treats in this text, both in the second paragraph of the first
section, and the penultimate paragraph of the third section. He widens the scope of his formula
that the patient suffers from memories. In this sense, it would be appropriate to apply to
delusion something I once said about hysteria: that the patient suffers from his memories.17
The final thesis widens the scope to include psychosis within the thesis Freud had put forward
on neurosis based on hysteria. One suffers from what one has placed under the bar. So, how
does one heal? By lifting the repression. The important term in this section is Verleugnung,
which Freud brings into relation with Verdrngung. There was once a repression, Verdrgnung,
this is the historical dimension of repression, and today the subject is saying no, his reaction
in the face of the truth is to say no, to deny it. This is Verleugnung. Analytic work is to obtain
the appropriate form of consent, consent to the unconscious as repressed. Thus the whole text
bears on the question of knowing what the true consent is. It is not simply to say yes. It is to
be seen off to one side. It is the consent of Being.
This is what makes for the texts character of pathos. If what makes the patient ill is the
memory qua repressed, if what heals the patient is the acknowledgement of the repressed, what
is to be done when one cannot make the whole of the repressed come back? This is where the
Ersatz comes in. One could almost say that where the repressed holds firm, the only thing left is
to believe the analyst. At the same time Freud says that this isnt suggestion, that he doesnt
know what it is, that he has never practised suggestion on any of his patients.18
This text is the pathos of S of barred capital A. The idea of a completely healthy
unconscious is not vouched for in analytic experience. The ideal of completeness is obsolete. In
this text, which is closely related to Analysis Terminable, one perceives an appeal to
another regime of analysis. This text is already an appeal to Lacan.
In the very conduct of the analysis, things dont get structured in the way Freud had
reckoned. The E=UWK principle is almost no longer thinkable in Freud, within Freuds
coordinates. Freud acknowledges this himself: Under what circumstances this occurs and how
it is possible for an apparently incomplete substitution to have this full effect, is a topic for
future research 19 , le indagini future daranno una risposta, future research shall give a
response. Its not an exaggeration to say that this steps outside Freuds conception. It really is
an appeal to Lacan. The Freudian equivalence is only thinkable within the element of truth,
Wahrheit. Truth is not exactitude. It isnt a delusion either, but it is structured like a fiction.
In the end, Lacans point of departure in Function and Field of Speech and Language
is to consider that the construction is made by the analysand. The construction falls more to the
analysand than to the analyst. The very course of the analysis is a construction on the part of the
analysand. The analysis is like the construction of a narrative, an epic, on the part of the subject,
making the bits and pieces into a narrative. If the construction stays on the side of the analyst,
one has to speak in terms of the patients conviction, and the door is open to suggestion. This
research that Freud calls for, Lacan is the one who will carry it through.
17
Ibid., p. 221 [Translation modified].

Ibid., Cf. p. 216: [] I can say that such an abuse of suggestion has never once occurred throughout my
career.
19
Ibid., p. 219.
18
Lets come back to the little discussion we had at the start on the complete and the
incomplete. The memories are there, the unconscious remembers everything, thats our
supposition. At the same time, the ego doesnt have all that at its disposal. By virtue of this,
how does the subject play his part in relation to the unconscious qua subject supposed to know?
This question runs through the text.
Construction and Interpretation, Knowledge and Truth
I agree that Lacan respects the Freudian binary: construction/interpretation.
The Lacanian analyst has to construct, theres no doubt about it.
Moreover, if something like supervision [contrle] exists, its above all the supervision
of the analysts constructions. Its not advisable to direct an analytic treatment without making
a construction, without structuring the case. Its not impossible to conduct an analysis without
doing so, and thats why its highly advisable to do so. Its highly advisable because its not
absolutely necessary. Many analysts leave it up to the patient, and thats already something
when they leave it up to him because many stop him. But whats advisable is to make a
construction, and then to modify it according to the elements that crop up.
It still remains that in Freud, the interpretation looks like a little construction, a fragment
of construction. This is what he explains at the start of the second section: the construction is
the large, the interpretation is the small. The interpretation is like an element of construction,
its a little pill of knowledge, whereas the construction is all the knowledge. Interpretation and
construction look to be homogenous, though for Lacan interpretation and construction are two
very different modes.
In Lacan, construction and interpretation stand in opposition like knowledge and truth.
The construction is an elaboration of knowledge, whilst the interpretation has something of the
oracle. Lacan refers very little to construction as such, he takes little interest in it because in his
work its called structure. There is no symmetry between construction and interpretation.
Either the construction is an elaboration that falls to the patient, or its the analytic device itself
thats involved. The construction Lacan speaks about is the construction of the fantasy, which is
accomplished through the effect of the analytic operation. In taking up Freuds text in detail
were going to be seeing this problematic peeping through the finish of some sentences.
Constructions in Analysis helps one grasp the concept behind Lacans construction of the
fundamental fantasy.
One needs to take into account the fact that Freud considers the conviction obtained in
the patient, the assent he can give to the analysts constructions, to have nothing to do with
suggestion. This may be disputed, but the fact that Freud denies it needs to be taken into
account. Moreover, precisely in this text, he gives a sustained criticism of the patients yes.
Were not dealing with someone for whom the patients direct and immediate assent is
sufficient. On the contrary, the text questions any direct statement concerning the unconscious.
Therefore one has to wonder what Freud is aiming at when he speaks about the patients
conviction, like when he asks that the analyst be convinced of the existence of the unconscious.
Lets leave Freud be, and try to find out what we understand by this conviction, and
whether we have it.
Theres a whole classical problematic of having faith. Do I have faith? Can I have
faith like one has an object? Does having faith mean that one doesnt pose the question of
knowing whether one has faith? Freud doesnt ask for faith in the unconscious, and he doesnt
ask for faith in the analysts construction either. Lets ask ourselves what this conviction can be
when someone as demanding as Freud employs this term. Were dealing with someone who
says: You answer me yes, that has no value. You tell me no, that doesnt have any value
either. So, on this basis, what then is conviction in the existence of the unconscious?
10
There are elements of a response in Freud, even if its not entirely explicit. What proves
conviction is fundamentally the response that lies off to one side. What is really convincing is
when you say no, and somewhere in your reply, it says yes. Its not the profession of faith in
the unconscious. You say no, but it says yes. The problematic of assent rests on the entirety
of the subject in the confession of what he believes or what he thinks, whereas here the
problematic of confession is founded on the contrary on a divided subject. Its phenomena of
division that produce conviction in analysis. Its a wholly different logic. What Freud calls
conviction in the existence of the unconscious is to have repeatedly noted subjective division. Is
that enough? It could be discussed, but in any case, its not an act of faith. Its rather a
conviction that is in itself unconscious.
There are people who practice analysis and who are absolutely not convinced of the
existence of the unconscious. That doesnt stop them from sometimes orienting themselves in
the experience. For example, above all they have an idea of the jouissance in speech, that the
subject asks only to enjoy his speech in analysis. Is that equivalent to conviction in the
existence of the unconscious? No it isnt. That has plugging effects on the side of the patient,
rather than opening up the field of division phenomena.
How does one know if someone who is an analyst, or who wants to be one, believes in
the existence of the unconscious? With what is called the Pass, you get to glimpse something of
that. What someone relates of their analysis can give an idea of how the analysis produced a
certain sensitivity in him to division phenomena. Thats the least of it. To be Analyst of the
School, its not enough to simply believe in the existence of the unconscious.
Neue Bedeutung
One can identify the unconscious with the subject of the unconscious, one is even well-advised
to do so, in so far as that means adjusting oneself to the subjects division, to the fact that the
subject always says more than he knows, than he reckons he knows, i.e., it means that in his
speech theres something thats written, and which goes beyond what he has at his disposal.
Thus, many interpretations lean on the relationship between speech and writing. Thats what
makes for equivocation. The very example Freud takes here, the equivocation of Jauner, only
becomes patent in writing itself.20
Ive just given you something important there. Where is the its written in analysis? If
you dont take the unconscious as the subject of the unconscious, then youre taking it as a
memory, where everything is already written, and its a matter of getting to read whats already
written. On the contrary, if one takes the unconscious as a subject, the its written lies in
speech itself.
In practice, we find the its written in speech. On the other hand, we never bring the
subject to the pure its written of memory, because everything will depend on the meaning he
will give to the so-called memories, on the function the signifiers of the memory will take up.
And precisely, theres a limit: between memory and construction, the difference is almost unlocatable, and the closer one comes to truth, to the primary repressed, the more the difference
between memory and construction tends to vanish.
We cannot feed a chronological conception of historical truth, if only because we take
into account the function of retroaction, following Freuds instructions. There is no doubt a
chronological dimension, but the signification, the truth of what took place at a point in the past
depends on a fact that belongs to its future. Its from the future that a fact from the past gets its
meaning. This is the lesson of The Wolf Man, and this is what the first section of the Rome
Report sets out.21 What is historical truth? Its not the exactitude of what took place, its the
reorganisation of what took place through the perspective of what will be. This prevents one
20
21
Ibid., p. 218. See also The Psychopathology of Everyday Life.

Op. cit., Lacan, J.; The Function and Field, pp. 211-66.
11
from reducing the unconscious to a simple memory where everything is already there, and it
restores its value to speech, to the speech act. Whats difficult is to have a concept of the
unconscious that would be compatible with the speech act. Thats why Lacan makes the
unconscious qua memory into what he calls the subject supposed to know. The subject
supposed to know is the unconscious, but its also an effect of the operation, a semantic effect
that wears off with the outcome of analysis. All that changes a great deal the idea one can have
of conviction in the existence of the unconscious.
Where Freud spoke of conviction in the existence of the unconscious, Lacan speaks of
the fall of the subject supposed to know. What ultimately does one believe in? The knot of
conviction is centred on the speech act, and on the its written in speech. The its written is
also the power of repetition. On several occasions in this text, Freud speaks about repetition, the
repetition of affects, as he says, the repetition of the subjects reactions, which we see coming
back by virtue of the transference. To me, this seems to concern the construction of the fantasy:
we see the subjects constant modes of response and jouissance being isolated. The rule
appears.
Construction in the Freudian sense needs to be accorded its full place in practice.
Sometimes this is done in terms of stages, with the feeling that Freud is being turned into retroanalysis. But thats not what Freud is. Look at his example of construction being
communicated to the person being analysed, at the end of the first paragraph of the second
section:
Until your nth year you saw yourself as the sole and undisputed proprietor of your
mother, then a second child came along, and with him a serious disappointment.
Your mother left you for a while, and afterwards she never again devoted herself
exclusively to you. Your feelings for your mother became ambivalent, your father
acquired a new signification for you.22
Its very amusing. It appears that to limit the mother-child relation, a second child is needed.
The younger sibling is the one who introduces the Name-of-the-Father.
An example is never completely chanced upon. Why this one? The example of these
repressed memories you only get to through the analysts construction is the elders childs
trauma when the younger sibling arrives. Someone recently made a whole typology of universal
history in terms of older and younger siblings, its very curious. There has been an event, the
arrival of the second child, its a trauma, e suo padre acuisto per lei un nuovo significato. The
child pushes the father to the back, and then the second child arrives, and at that moment the
father takes on a new signification, a neue Bedeutung. This stops history in Freuds sense being
reduced to development, and it stops the unconscious being conceived of as the static reserve of
a certain quantity of content.
In a text that counted a great deal for Lacan, Lvi-Strauss said: The unconscious is
23
empty . When Lacan writes the barred subject, he is effectively writing the unconscious as
empty. It is without doubt different to think of the unconscious as being empty and to think of it
as being full. Theres an its written for each subject, theres a constant mode of response, but
this is not the content of the unconscious.
Matheme and Delusion
It is accurate to say that the most developed way of making case constructions in Lacans
orientation is the matheme. I dont see why analysts shouldnt use mathemes to structure the
cases they have in analysis. Constructions in Analysis, is Mathemes in Analysis, except that
one cannot see what would stand to be gained in communicating them to the patient. Based on
this, one can say indeed that the matheme of the analytic discourse is one of Lacans
22
23
Op. cit., Freud, S.; Constructions in Analysis, p. 215 [Translation modified].

Lvi-Strauss, C.; Structural Anthropology, Vol I, Penguin, London, 1972, p. 203.
12
constructions. He wouldnt have been afraid to call it one of his delusions either. Any effort to
structure material is a delusion. Clearly, the question arises of scientific delusion, which is
much more worrying than the others because it responds from the other side, in nature, or
rather, in the real.
Remembering Versus Constructing
First of all Vila structured his paper on the contrast between ricordare and costruire. This
conforms to what Freud says: the analysand will have to ricordare it and the analyst to
costruire it. It would be marvellous for ricordare and costruire to be completely different. The
analysand has to remember, to relive, in an Erlebnis, to suffer and feel in his flesh and in his
soul, and the analyst has to construct, to measure up like the archaeologist. Now, the whole
movement of the text is how is it that elements belonging to two such different registers are
substituted one for the other? The schema of retroaction, the idea of truth in movement and
which gets rectified, which gets modified, allows for an understanding of how ricordare and
costruire come to be mixed up. All ricordare entails an internal costruire. The memory is not a
raw trace, its always a memory that has been reorganised after the event. Therefore, I agree
with Vila about the contrast between ricordare and costruire, on the condition that one see how
on the horizon of the text, the two terms converge, cross over, and interlock.
Various
In using the word rectificare, I suppose Vila is referring to what Lacan explains in The
Direction of the Treatment, on Freuds first movement which is to rectify the patients
subjective position so as to introduce him to the analytic discourse. 24 I think we have to let this
moment keep its particularity. I dont think we can give this structure to every construction.
I agree with the difference Vila underlines between narrative truth and objective truth,
and I agree too about the contrast between the creation of a new signifier and the memory that
is already there. But it gives a very wide meaning to Freuds expression construction is only
preparatory work25, whereas I would readily give it a more restricted meaning. In the first
section, Freud presents the construction as the fruit of the analysts solitary work, and its in
this sense thats its preparatory work, because next it will have to be communicated. You give
a much fuller meaning to preparatory, you make it a fundamental value. Do you think thats in
Freud? You say: Construction opens up and interpretation closes off. If thats your own
theory, I find it very interesting, but I havent come across it in Freud.
Your theory is giving me an idea: to say the contrary: interpretation opens up,
construction closes off. The repressed unconscious presents itself in fragmentary form.
Interpretation strikes one of these elements, whereas construction binds up several elements.
Therefore, one would tend rather to say: interpretation strikes a chord and construction binds.
Construction is first introduced here as the analysts intellectual work. Bit by bit the
thing becomes more animated. First when the analysands replies come along, yes, no, I
never thought of that. Then the production of homologous material, the most significant
response in Freuds view still being the negative therapeutic reaction. The truer it is, the worse
the patient is, or the more he is threatened with being worse off. Were very far from the
discussion with the learned professor, who thinks that everything transpires between human
beings in terms of debates: I say yes, I say no, true, untrue. Here, it happens in the body: being
well, being unwell, being anxious. Were leaving behind construction as an intellectual
exercise. At the end, in the third section, one wonders: what is hurting the analyst like that for
him to have to make a construction. Its also Freuds question in Analysis Terminable.
24
Op. cit., Cf. Section II, What is the place of interpretation in Lacan, J.; The Direction of the Treatment and
The Principles of its Power, crits, pp. 495-503.
25
Op. cit., Freud, S.; Constructions in Analysis, p. 214 (see footnote 6).
13
What makes the analyst ill with psychoanalysis itself? In what sense are we trying with analytic
theory to pass off the ill that psychoanalysis itself does us?
Detail
We have to come back to the detail of the text. In Italian, like in French, we lose the value of
the first paragraph. If you look at the German text, everything happens between Recht and
richtig. What does it mean to be right, and who has the right to say what? The entrance of the
well-respected researcher needs to be scrutinised. We ought to find out who said that. This
research ought to have been done in the Vorarbeit of the seminar. Freud says its someone for
whom hes always had a high regard because he treated psychoanalysis fairly at a time when
most people did not feel compelled to do so.26
The last sentence [of the opening paragraph] is a bit flat in Italian: Of course, the
practising analyst will learn nothing from this justification that he did not know already. 27 Its
very amusing. This is to say that its an esoteric text, and at the same time, oddly enough, its
already foreshadowing the subject supposed to know: every analyst is already supposed to
know what Freud is going to say, every analyst already knows it. A bit later on, Freud indicates
how this sentence is to be taken. He sets great worth on the fact that analytic work is divided
into two parts, theres the work the analysand does, and the work the analyst does:
[] analytic work consists of two quite different parts, [] it takes place in two
separate sites, involving two different people, each of them allocated a different
task. For a moment you ask yourself why your attention was not drawn to this
fundamental fact a long time ago [].28
There, we understand. Freud means that everyone knows already, but no one drew the
conclusions that had to be drawn.
The sentence every analyst already knows is part and parcel of Freuds implicit debate
with his pupils. Doubtless in 1937 theyve already come to the time when everyone already
knows everything. When someone comes forward to bring along a piece of work, the analysts
straight away cover their ears saying theyve already heard it. Its a mode of receiving work
thats very frequent in the analytic world. Its true, one always repeats the same thing, and its
not funny. But theres also a work on whats obvious, on what everyone already knows, which
demands a lot of attention. In psychoanalysis, one is always working on what everyone knows
already, because if the unconscious means something, its that. One works on what everyone
already knows, and thats why its very hard to find anything new, but also to spot whats new
when its there. Just for a piece of work to look the same is not enough to disqualify it. One has
to be attentive to the detail of what emerges.
Paragraph two would need to be discussed in detail, and precisely the clinical
description Freud gives. Its a concise theory of repression. What Freud considers as being
repressed are certain experiences, Erlebnisse, and the affective motions they give rise to. The
repressed is the subjects living experiences and his affects. Its not enough for him to say
experiences, he has to add affects29: one can already see the necessity of implying the object
a in this business. Freuds clinic is a straightforward one: We know that his present symptoms
and inhibitions are the result of [] repressions.30 The Italian translation is more accurate than
the French, because the German states Folge, i.e., consequences. Freud treats symptoms and
inhibitions as consequences of repressions. This term Folge can be found in the title Some
26
Ibid., p. 211.
Ibid.
28
Ibid., p. 212.
29
Ibid., [emotional impulses in the Bance translation]
30
Ibid., p. 211.
27
14
Psychical Consequences of the Anatomical Distinction Between the Sexes31. The relation of
consequence is a signifying, logical relation par excellence.
The Freudian definition of the symptom makes it a consequence of repression. How do
you heal? You lift repression. What happens if you cant manage to lift repression? Something
strange comes in its place: conviction in the truth of the construction. In this whole text you can
see the relation of substitution functioning. You grasp why Lacan was able to re-write to such
an extent Freuds oeuvre with the concept of metaphor. Where Freud says substitution, Lacan
says metaphor, using Jakobson to give his matheme to the Freudian concept of substitution.
In this paragraph, Freud accentuates the fragmentary character of the unconscious, such
as it presents itself as material: fragments of those memories in [] dreams []. 32 Next,
incidental ideas33, its Einflle, what comes along, what falls on your path. Lastly, indications
of the repetition of affects belonging to the repressed 34. These then are the three elements
Freud singles out. This selection has great interest. How is this to be structured? The dream
memories, thats the imaginary. The incidental ideas brought along by free association, thats
within the symbolic element. And one could say that the indications of the repetition of affects
concern more the real.
I observed that Freud is accentuating the fragmentary character of the unconscious as
raw material, to make room for the presentation of the analysts work as liaison. So what
meaning is to be given to what Freud says at the beginning of the third paragraph: What we
want is a reliable image of the forgotten years of the patients life? That goes very far. In
German, Freud says das Gewnschte, where we have Wunsch, desire, the wish. What
corresponds to the analysts Wunsch? It would be a vollstndiges Bild, a complete picture.
It is noteworthy that it is only of the order of Wunsch, i.e., of unrealisable desire.
Nothing in this text, and nothing in Analysis Terminable allows us to believe that Freud is
really thinking of the possibility of obtaining a complete picture.
This is where Freuds reminder comes in: there isnt just the analysand, theres the
analyst too. [] here we have to remember that this analytical work consists of two quite
different parts []. One could say what banality! And yet, the very accent Freud lays in
pointing this out means that everyone knows, but makes nothing of it. This translates something
very precise: the inclusion of the analyst as an internal factor of analysis. Freuds first position
in the treatment was quite exterior to the patient. It was the position of the objective scientist,
and he was gradually drawn in, caught up in the relation. Thats what the discovery of
transference is. As in Analysis Terminable, the analyst appears to him as a problem, and
perhaps the problem of psychoanalysis.
Here Freud is constructing the analyst parallel to the analysand. We know what the
analysand has to do in the analysis, he has to remember, he has to suffer, to enjoy, by recalling.
But what of the analyst during this time? A line of reflection in psychoanalysis starts off from
here. Not simply: what does the analyst do during this time? but what is the subjective status
of the analyst in the discourse? What therefore is this position which allows for effects of this
kind to be obtained? I see in these sentences of Freuds the first hint of that question that would
occupy analysts for a long while. This is where the word construction comes in, parallel to
memory. The analysand has to remember what has been repressed, and the analyst has to
construct what has been repressed. Where the analysand doesnt remember, the analyst has to
construct.
31
Freud, S.; Some Psychical Consequences of the Anatomical Distinction Between the Sexes, in The Standard
Edition of the Complete Psychological Works Vol. XIX, London, Hogarth Press, 1961, pp. 241-58.
32
33
Ibid. [thoughts that occur in the Bance translation]
34
Ibid. [indications of the recurrence of emotions attached to what has been repressed in the Bance translation]
15
Freud makes construction an activity of the analyst which corresponds to the patients
activity of remembering. It also responds to the mysterious question: And what does the analyst
do during this time? Well, the analyst constructs. Freud uses the word task, Aufgabe. Lacan
would divide things up differently: on the analysands side, he puts not only recollection, but
also construction, thus all of the task lies on the analysands side, and what falls to the analyst is
the act, not the task. It is the symbolic authorisation to proceed to the analysands task.
According to Lacan, the analyst will have the act, the analysand the task.
The analytic act consists in symbolically authorising the analysands task. It is to reply
to Freuds question by putting the analyst at the place of what guarantees the validity of the
analytic exercise.
In the fourth paragraph, Ill content myself with pointing out the expression Freud uses
concerning both the analyst and the archaeologist, the right to reconstruct35, das Recht zur
Rekonstruktion. The analyst, like the archaeologist, authorises himself, starting off from
fragmentary elements, to reconstruct a totality, without being sure of its validity. This presents
itself here in the shape of a right, das Recht. Freud is presenting an argument of legitimacy. But
this doesnt stop him, at the end of the text, dropping the whole Recht argument so as to link it
to the construction of delusion. Initially, he defends the right to construct, next he goes beyond
right.
Ill just point out in paragraph five the expression, the repetitions of reaction36. Well
maybe see tomorrow the exact meaning that can be given to the word reaction, but lets say
straight away that for Freud this is a response that has an affective quality.
Now Im going to take the last sentence of this section:
This is where our comparison of the two types of work ends, for the main difference
between them is that, whereas for the archaeologist reconstruction is the whole aim
and the end of his efforts, for the analyst construction is only preparatory work.37
One cannot interpret any old how. The archaeologist does not communicate his results to the
monuments, whereas the analyst communicates the construction to the patient.
The Plan of Section II
When one has found the structure, the plan becomes logical.
Focchi distinguishes the clinical part from the epistemological part. The clinical part is
the first paragraph [of the second section], the epistemological part is the eight further
paragraphs.38 Its a somewhat unequal binary.
In the first section, the analyst was alone, at work. Now there is the construction, the
communication of the construction. The first paragraph of the second section speaks about that:
how are construction and communication articulated? One could think that the construction is
going to be complete, and that when that happens, one will communicate it to the patient. On
the contrary, Freud says that its not like that, one communicates bits of construction, the
patient produces material and again one communicates a bit of construction. Thats what Focchi
has called an alternating movement. In the previous section, the construction appeared as a
mode of linking up fragmentary elements of the material. Here Freud shows that the
construction itself is communicated in bits, and not as a whole in one go.
The second half of the first paragraph presents the articulation between construction and
interpretation. Interpretation is conceived of as a brick in the construction. The example Freud
gives us deserves to make us pause, as if the obliteration of the elder by the younger sibling
were a major example of the holes in the history.
35
Ibid., p. 213.
Ibid.
37
Ibid., p. 214.
38
[TN, the further nine paragraphs in the Bance translation. See footnote 2]
36
16
What moments in this section are you calling epistemological? The first moment is the
one where Freud examines the question of the inexact construction. The second moment is the
one where he examines the indirect modes.
So, the first paragraph is indeed the communication-material alternation. The second
paragraph is the inexact construction. Freud says unrichtig, which means unjust 39 . He
examines the truth or falsehood of the construction in itself. What guarantee do we have that
the construction were making is true? What happens if its false? In other words, the question
bears on the truth of the construction in itself. Next, paragraphs three, four and five examine the
question of Ja and Nein: they concern the truth of the construction according to the patient.
Next, the sixth, seventh and eighth40 deal with the modes of indirect confirmation, i.e., when
its not with a yes or a no that the reply is given, but when the subject testifies to his
surprise, when he makes a slip, when in fact he betrays himself by avowing the opposite of
what he wanted to say. Freud says: Now there, thats richtig, its just. It concerns the truth
of the construction as contingent upon the response from the unconscious, truth according to the
unconscious.
The epistemological part can be ordered like this: three approaches to the truth of the
construction. Is it true in itself, and what happens if its false? Is it true or false according to the
patient? Is it true or false according to the unconscious?
According to Freud, what counts is the response from the unconscious, and here, the
unconscious doesnt lie. It says it off to one side, but one can always trust it. And one cannot
use suggestion on it. If you let the patient speak, you cannot use suggestion on him. There is a
locus of authenticity and guarantee. These are effects of surprise. Thus one can see why Freud
began with that curious dialogue with the researcher who says: All that cant be serious, youre
always right. Its a dialogue at the level of the imaginary, which can be found again in
paragraphs three, four and five [of this second section] where the two interlocutors are in a dual
position: one of them says yes, the other one says no; one says yes and the other says
yes. And Freud shows precisely that in analysis this is not where the essential part occurs. The
analyst deals with something other than an opponent, a semblable who contradicts. The Ja and
the Nein go back and forth between a and a, whereas its a matter of establishing
communication between the subject and capital A, the big Other.
Truth cannot be spoken on the imaginary axis, where both parties are symmetrical. In all
the examples Freud takes, truth is spoken in getting it wrong. One can only catch hold of the
truth by getting it wrong. The quote Freud gives, from the Polonius character in Hamlet, your
bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth41, is very Lacanian. Eventually, this would become
Lacans text, La mprise du sujet suppos savoir42.
In Madrid in January I said rather rapidly that to speak is to lie, and someone found that
wonderful. He found it so wonderful that it worried me. Clearly, one doesnt have permission to
lie in analysis. Its precisely in the effort to speak the truth that the impossibility of saying the
whole truth can be gauged. It takes intentionality to speak the truth. Thats the problem when
liars analyse themselves. Its very hard to lie willingly for very long. For a while, its possible.
And in analysis, who does one lie to when one lies? One lies to oneself. The analyst has to
conduct things in such a way that, should the subject lie, he lies to himself. To speak is to lie, in
the sense that the signifier lies, the signifier is semblance. Jouissance is not semblance, its on
39
Ibid., [TN, mistaken in the Bance translation] p. 215.

[TN, paragraphs six, seven, eight and nine in the Bance translation. See footnote 2.]
41
Ibid., Shakespeare, W.; Hamlet, Act II, Scene 1, quoted by Freud, p. 215.
42
Lacan, J.; La mprise du sujet suppos savoir, in Autres crits, Seuil, Paris, 2001, pp. 329-39 [TN, the title of
this text, currently unavailable in English translation, could be rendered as Getting the Subject Supposed to Know
Wrong].
40
17
the side of the real. One can likewise turn things around by saying: real-lie.43
Lie and Truth
Perhaps we could examine the question of why Freud thinks the danger of suggestion is no such
thing in a well-conducted analysis. This is how he expresses himself:
Let us lend an ear to a comforting piece of information gained from our experience
of analysis. What it teaches us is that it does no harm if we sometimes go wrong and
present the patient with an incorrect (unrichting) construction as the probable
historical truth.44
It could have been thought, given what Freud presented before, that if its unrichtig, its a
catastrophe. Since we have the alternation scheme, as the antiphonal chanting of analyst and
analysand, a piece of construction followed by the production of material, it could be thought
that if the analyst chants wrongly, if he gives constructions that are unrichtig, then the duo
comes apart. Freud says the contrary. Relaying a false construction is not so serious. Clearly, if
the analyst is always unrichtig, beside the point, that would end up making things difficult.
Naturally, it represents a waste of time; and if somebody invariably relays mistaken
constructions to the patient, he will make a poor impression on him []: but one
such mistake is harmless.45
What does Freuds confidence here rest on? Its a confidence in the unconscious. Should we
say something unrichtig to the patient, well, that doesnt have any effect on him, i.e., there is
not what Freud calls reaction. Here we can see what meaning this word reaction has in
Freud. Its a response that comes from the unconscious. In such a case, the false construction
falls away as though it had never been put forward.46
Freud adds just afterwards: in many cases you have the impression that, to quote
Polonius, your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth. By means of the Shakespeare quote,
Freud says something very precise: not only that the inexact interpretation doesnt do any harm,
but that it can even give rise to interesting material, as if here the principle were being
confirmed that ex falso sequitur quodlibet. From truth, there only follows truth, but from
falsehood, truth may also ensue. If we make the construction the antecedent, and the material
the consequence, one can very well have the following situation: with the bait of a false
construction, valid material is created. In French we say plaider le faux pour savoir le vrai, to
plead the cause of falsehood in order to get at the truth.
Its a considerable loosening of the antithesis between truth and error, or between truth
and lie. When the unconscious is involved, things are more complex. If you think of the
example Freud takes, the Jauner/Gauner example 47 , which in Italian is farabutto, its the
unconscious that appears a bit farabutto in all this. It always speaks the truth, but it says it by
worming its way through, insinuando.
A Remark
In the first sentence of the second paragraph of section two, Freud indicates that he wont be
speaking about the art of communication: In this paper our attention is exclusively centred
upon work in preparation for constructions. Next he introduces the patients reactions, asking
whether our constructions are true or false, and how we can learn this from the patients
responses. But he leaves aside questions about when constructions have to be communicated, in
43
[TN, le rel ment is homophonic with rellement, really. Cf. Lacan, J., Limpossible saisir, lesson of 10
March 1977, in Ornicar ? Issue 17/18, Spring 1979, p. 17].
44
45
Ibid.
46
Ibid.
47
Ibid., p. 218 (see note 19).
18
what way they have to be communicated, what parts of the construction have to be
communicated, etc.
The Reply Off to One Side
When Freud says that the unconscious lies, it is to show that ultimately, in the lie itself, it is
speaking the truth. Lacan takes this up. The young homosexual woman, wanting to please
Freud, straight away dreams of marriage, children, and so on. Therefore, in dreams, she finds
the correct orientation to the other sex as approved of by society and her family. And Freud
says that its to seduce him, that they are dreams dreamt for him. The unconscious is lying. This
is what Lacan underscores. Its that, to receive a child from a man was, before the emergence of
her homosexuality, her deepest desire, the first form of her version towards the father.
Therefore, does the analyst really have to do with the lie in analysis? One mustnt allow oneself
to be taken in by the significations put forward by the dream, by the unconscious, but the
attitude of wariness, the non-dupe attitude, doesnt suit the analyst either. It is rather a matter
of always trusting the kernel of truth that is there, in the lie too, the delusion, and the
hallucination. Freuds text ends on the kernel of truth, Wahrheitskern. A persons lies reveal
this kernel of truth more than all the rest.
On the other hand, the dream has to be set apart from the other reactions Freud speaks
about, because the very definition of the dream makes it a lie, to the extent that it is the
fulfilment of a desire. As such, it is mendacious. Its always truer when its a nightmare,
because the nightmare is the surprise that awakens. The term surprise isnt in the text, but
Focchi was right to introduce it, because it structures the whole section on the indirect.
Freuds preference for the indirect is striking. The patients yes only has any value if its
followed by further indirect confirmations. This lies at the centre of Freuds demonstration:
confirmation, yes, but indirect confirmation. In rare cases the no
proves to be an expression of justified rejection; far more frequently it expresses a
resistance that may be provoked by the content of the construction put forward, but
can equally well derive from some other factor in the complex analytic situation.48
What are these other factors? One might think that its the imaginary relation in analysis, the
desire to say no to the analyst, all the aspects of the transferential relation I mentioned, in such
a way that Freud depreciates all direct confirmation. Direct confirmations are on the imaginary
axis:
It may turn out that you gain very few clues as to whether your guess is right or not
from the direct comments of the patient after the construction has been put to him.49
Depreciation of everything that amounts to direct confirmation. On the other hand: It is all the
more interesting that there are indirect kinds of confirmation (indirekte Arten der Besttigung)
that are completely reliable.50
Where the patient says: I never thought of that, one may translate: Yes, in this case
youve touched the unconscious. The negation has the value of a certificate of authenticity.
The unconscious speaks a different language from the ego. Here the ego shows itself to
be a function of misrecognition, says Lacan. Therefore there is a translation that is internal to
analytic practice. In the eighth paragraph51, one can see for example that he is speaks about the
negative therapeutic reaction. When the construction is really just right, the patient is really
much worse off.
We need to try to locate with accuracy the shift Freud brings about in relation to his
starting point. The starting point is that the analyst puts forward a statement, the construction,
48
Ibid., p. 216.
Ibid., p. 217.
50
Ibid.
51
Ibid., [TN, the ninth paragraph in the Bance translation. See footnote 2.] p. 218.
49
19
and then the patient says yes or no, in reference to this statement. Its a question of finding
out who is right, the analyst who has uttered this statement, or the patient. In this scheme of
things, the patient is in a position of metalanguage in relation to the statement of the
construction. He speaks about it as if it were an object. In the second section, Freud completely
changes this set-up: the yes and the no are part of the material, they are not in a position of
metalanguage. We dont have the patient speaking about a statement, we have the
communication of the construction and the appearance of material, the appearance of a certain
number of reactions, amongst which there is the yes and the no, but these two replies have
no privilege, and are even depreciated. The professors conception is one of petit a, petit a, the
two symmetrical characters who confront one another to know who is right. Freuds schema is
a schema of there is no metalanguage. What the patient says is structurally part and parcel of
the material. There is no confrontation at this level. When there are confrontations, it always
happens on the imaginary axis.
Therefore, Freud shifts the very meaning of the debate, the structure of the question. This
can be seen at the start of the third paragraph of section two, when he says:
From the foregoing it will already be clear that we are not at all inclined to ignore
the signals that are given out by the patients reaction when we tell him about the
construction.52
Freud insists on the respect with which we treat the signals that provide us with the patients
reactions, but that means that for him the yes and the no no longer govern the question. They
are merely the patients reactions. This is no scholastic joust where it would be a matter of
knowing whos right, its a matter of being on the trace of a truth that reveals itself as it flees, a
truth about which no thesis can be made, because a thesis is delivered, it is defended in a viva,
whereas the unconscious speaks just once, off to one side, then slips away. It says yes just
once, and barely at all, or else half-says it, and then slips off.
Examples
Freud presents an extra-analytic example of indirect confirmation. Its fairly provocative, this
husband who gets his wife examined because shes refusing to have sex with him. Freud
doesnt seem to have taken the position of analyst here. In any case, he hasnt analysed the
patients hysteria. Hes said to her that if she goes on like that, her husband is going to fall ill,
and then the husband chips in on the dangers it poses for his delicate health.
Can a rule of selection be found for the examples Freud has taken in this text? Why
exactly has he taken these four examples? Im posing the question.
Out of Kilter
My first remark is that Binascos very thorough work has given me an idea, through the stress
he laid on the category of the real, based on the third section. Its quite justified because its a
question of the return of the repressed in psychosis, and this return happens in the real. As there
are three sections to this text, one could say that the first section, built on the opposition
between the fragment and the whole, unfolds in the imaginary register. The entertaining
character of the second section is down to its exploration of the dimension of the symbolic, with
quotations of very precise statements, effects of translation, playing on the signifier. The third
section sets out the question of the real, as Binasco demonstrated.
My second remark is that the sequence Freud is already explaining in the first section is
the following: the subject has Erlebnisse, dominant experiences with affects to accompany
them. Firstly there are Erlebnisse, secondly there is Verdrngung, the repression of these
Erlebnisse, hence the necessity of memory, Erinnerung, in order to retrieve the re-found
Erlebnisse. Therefore, there is indeed an idea, as Binasco has pointed out, of a privilege of
52
Ibid., p. 216.
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reviving in the present, and this has always been Freuds watchword: in analysis, the patient is
there to remember. This is why the first paragraph of the third section is so essential. It states
that a piece of construction can be a satisfying Ersatz of the memory. This means that a
statement, a piece of signifier, has the value of the memory. It means there is equivalence
between Erinnerung and construction. It means that, in a certain way, the memory is an
elaboration, just as the construction is. To take up Lacans term, its a signifying elaboration.
This is how Freud came to formulate that what is repressed is historical truth. This expression
mixes memory and construction. Historical truth is not pure development, nor is it the
straightforward event. The conclusion of Constructions in Analysis is that ultimately what is
repressed is truth, Wahrheit. The equivalence between the memory and the construction with
regard to truth is decisive for opening up the path to Lacan.
My third remark is that the text develops in the following way. The second section has
highlighted the function of the indirect. Theres a spot one can no longer navigate towards
directly, one has to speak off to one side. Its in speaking off to one side that one speaks rightly.
The third section, from a formal point of view, also emphasises this out of kilter.
Indeed, what remark does the clinical consideration of hallucination and delusion start off
from? Freud has noticed that when he would communicate a construction, he would obtain a
production of memories, but always off to one side of the event. Thats the point.
But what they recalled was not so much the event itself that formed the content of the
construction, but details closely related to this content [].53 Here we have the crux of the
matter. Here there occurs the phenomenon Binasco pointed out, the phenomenon of
berdeutlich, the extra-clear54 phenomenon. As Lacan speaks of the piu-di-godimento, here
its a piu-di-chiarezza. Its an extra connected to this very out of kilter, a surplus clarity
signalled by the out of kilter.
Freuds thesis is that the repressed wants to reappear, that the repressed wants to be said.
The soll Ich werden that Maria-Teresa brought up means that the repressed wants to exist, to
come back to light, like limbo wants to be incarnate. But the repressed only comes back at the
cost of being out of kilter, as if there were a clinamen of the repressed. This example is an
example of memory, Erinnerung. From there, Freud suggests we consider that both
hallucination and delusion correspond to the same mechanisms. He extends to psychosis a
mechanism he had been restricting to neurosis. He says that hallucination is like a dream,
delusion is like a dream, and this corresponds to the return of the repressed, out of kilter. What
does that mean, that hallucination and delusion correspond to the same structure as the neurotic
mechanisms? It means that at bottom of the hallucination and the delusion there is a repressed
truth. This is the crux of his clinical demonstration.
Lets take this scheme of the out of kilter, the off to one side, the clinamen. If the
upward thrust of the unconscious, the represseds will to be said, were to be directly expressed,
straight down the line, it would end up at the analysand, he would be the one who remembers.
But as its out of kilter, it ends up at the analyst. The analysts constructions are made right
where the patient cannot manage to remember, as if the return of the repressed deviated at one
point onto the analyst.
Its very dangerous to say that, because it lets you think that there is a communication
from one unconscious to another. One can delude oneself on this score, and seriously so. But all
the same this describes something of the analytic experience, which can be treated without any
pathos, starting off from the phenomena of the signifier. What the patient says is completed on
the side of the analyst. It is in this way that Lacans graph includes the patients discourse
looping back to the locus of the Other. Freud doesnt say that the return of the repressed drifts
over towards the analyst and manifests itself in the shape of a construction, but its indicated,
53
54
Ibid., p. 219.
Ibid., [TN, unusually clear in the Bance translation.]
21
because its after saying, in the first paragraph of the third section, that further research will be
needed in order to know how the construction can be equal to the memory, that he launches into
his remark on the out of kilter memory, hallucination and delusion.
At the end of the text he achieves a kind of unification of the analytic clinic a very
surprising one that simplifies all its contours.
Weve run out of time to go any further. There will be a leftover.
Translated from the French by Adrian Price
Originally published in the Cahier de lACF-VLB, Issue 3, Rennes, October 1994, pp. 4-30.
22

Jacques Alain Miller Marginalia

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NLS Messager 31 - 2010/2011

"Marginalia": Jacques-Alain Millers comment on Freuds "Constructions in Analysis"

NLS Messager 31 - 2010/2011

MARGINALIA TO CONSTRUCTIONS IN ANALYSIS

Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth.

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Ibid., [TN, psychological object in the Bance translation.]

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Recht and Richtig

Ibid., p. 211 (see footnote 5).

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Ibid., p. 221 [Translation modified].

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Ibid., p. 218. See also The Psychopathology of Everyday Life.

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Op. cit., Freud, S.; Constructions in Analysis, p. 215 [Translation modified].

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Ibid., [TN, mistaken in the Bance translation] p. 215.

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