Repetition
repetition (rÈpÈtition) Freud's most important discussion of the repeti-
tion compulsion (Wiederholungszwang) occurs in Beyond the Pleasure Prin-
ciple (1920g) where he links it to the concept of the DEATH DREVE. Freud posited
the existence of a basic compulsion to repeat in order to explain certain clinical
data: namely, the tendency of the subject to expose himself again and again to
distressing situations. It is a basic principle of psychoanalysis that a person is
only condemned to repeat something when he has forgotten the origins of the
compulsion, and that psychoanalytic treatment can therefore break the cycle of
repetition by helping the patient remember (see Acting Out).
In Lacan's pre-1950s work, the concept of repetition is linked with that of
the COMPLEX - an internalised social structure which the subject repeatedly and
compulsively re-enacts. At this time Lacan often translates Freud's Wiederho-
lungszwang as automatisme de rÈpÈtition, a term borrowed from French
psychiatry (Pierre Janet, GaÎtan Gatian de ClÈrambault).
While Lacan never completely abandons the term automatisme de rÈpÈti-
tion, in the 1950s he increasingly uses the term 'insistence' (Fr. instance) to
refer to the repetition compulsion. Thus repetition is now defined as the
insistence of the signifier, or the insistence of the signifying chain, or the
insistence of the letter (l'instance de la lettre); 'repetition is fundamentally
the insistence of speech' (S3, 242). Certain signifiers insist on returning in
the life of the subject, despite the resistances which block them. In scHEMA L,
repetitionlinsistence is represented by the axis A-S, while the axis a-a'
represents the resistance (or 'inertia') which opposes repetition.
In the 1960s, repetition is redefined as the return of jouissance, an excess of
enjoyment which returns again and again to transgress the limits of the
PLEASURE PRINCIPLE and seek death (S17, 51).
The repetition compulsion manifests itself in analytic treatment in the
TRANSFERENCE, whereby the analysand repeats in his relationship to the analyst
certain attitudes which characterised his earlier relationships with his parents
and others. Lacan lays great emphasis on this Symbolic aspect of transference,
distinguishing it from the Imaginary dimension of transference (the affects of
love and hate) (S8, 204). However, Lacan points out that although the
repetition compulsion manifests itself perhaps most clearly in the transfer-
ence, it is not in itself limited to the transference; in itself, 'the concept of
repetition has nothing to do with the concept of transference' (Sll, 33).
Repetition is the general characteristic of the signifying chain, the manifesta-
tion of the unconscious in every subject, and transference is only a very special
form of repetition (i.e. it is repetition within psychoanalytic treatment),
which cannot simply be equated with the repetition compulsion itself (S8,
208).