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An important moment in the history of surrealism is the convergence of the concern for language and the interest in psychoanalysis and psychiatry. The surrealists argued that the pathological is not meaningless and that it is a mode of expression which has its own validity. It is possible that Lacan's famous slogan 'the unconscious is structured like a language' may owe much to the surrealists' attention to the linguistic expression of psychic phenomena. It has been suggested that some surrealist texts prefigure aspects of Lacanian theory. Indeed, it could be argued that the surrealists were the first to realise that psychoanalysis is essentially a question of language. They fully understood why the method introduced by Freud and Breuer was given the name 'the talking cure' by Anna 0., one of Breuer's patients. Besides language, the surrealists were interested in certain aspects of femininity. 'Woman-as-victim' is a common theme in surrealist art.

Aimee was not only a patient of Lacan's, but was also a cause celebrity for the surrealists. Lacan's thesis included a selection of Aimee's copious writings, which were produced at the height of her psychosis and which virtually stopped when it abated. The literary qualities of Aimee's work were much appreciated and discussed by members of the surrealist movement of which Lacan was a part.