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A "[[joke]]" is an incongruous or tendentious [[verbal]] [[message]], which, by discharging its [[psychic]] [[energy]], gives the listener [[pleasure]]. Characteristically a joke is not fabricated (manufactured); rather it emerges as a spontaneous, involuntary [[idea]] (Einfall) and briefly returns the person to an [[infantile]] mode of cognition. Wit is, according to [[Freud]], "the most [[social]] of activities, designed to provide pleasure through the simple and disinterested [[activity]] of the psychic [[apparatus]]" (1905c).
Freud devoted an important [[work]], Der [[Witz]] und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten (Jokes and Their Relation to the [[Unconscious]], SE, 8), to jokes and their relation to the unconscious (1905c). Published five years after The [[Interpretation]] of [[Dreams]] (1900a), this essay confirmed the usefulness of the principal [[processes]] it described, such as the transformation of [[thoughts]] into [[images]] ([[metaphor]]), [[condensation]], and [[displacement]]. Like The [[Psychopathology]] of Everyday [[Life]] (1901b), the book marks the extension of [[psychoanalysis]] beyond the field of psychopathology, without using the method of [[analysis]], but yet offering [[another]] area where it could be rediscovered. This interest in [[word]] play is found in some of Freud's later work (the contradictory [[meanings]] of [[primitive]] [[words]], dreams in folklore, [[language]], and [[schizophrenia]]), though not in respect to work on [[literature]] or the [[development]] of [[civilization]].
The [[concept]] analysis of wit is important because it allows a description of psychic processes and thus delineates the development of pleasure from a [[topographical]], [[economic]], and [[dynamic]] perspective. [[Thought]] processes in The [[Project]] for a [[Scientific]] [[Psychology]] (1950c [1895]) are here approached from a different angle, thus going beyond that found in The [[Interpretation of Dreams]]. Every successful joke indicates a victory against the [[inhibition]] that critical [[reason]] imposes on thought in the normal waking psychic [[state]]. Unlike dreams, there is no [[need]] for secondary elaboration or disguise to escape [[censorship]]. However, the joke must occur in a [[situation]] when the play of words or nonsense presents itself in a [[form]] "Isolationthat is both admissible [a joke] and ingenious [wit] by virtue of the multiple meanings of words and the infinite variety of [[negative]] relations" (1905c). Technically, the joke is related to the defense mechanism characteristic [[dream]] but it must take into account its audience and the listener's ability to correct the distortions (displacements, condensations) through which [[sense]] is communicated through non-sense. The goals of obsessional neurosisdreams and jokes should not be confused. The links first tends to express a [[desire]] by eliminating [[unpleasure]], while the second is an extension of the [[game]] that seeks to obtain some additional pleasure. Considered from the economic viewpoint, the joke is also similar to the dream (condensation) through its conciseness and, consequently, its psychic [[economy]]. This conciseness is not the result of [[conscious]] effort but the consequence of unconscious processes' effect on [[preconscious]] thought, which is then recovered in [[consciousness]]. This development consists in letting certain elements fall by the wayside and overdetermining [[others]] that will remain, thereby obtaining much greater impact. Freud's work on jokes has largely been misunderstood, although it introduces new perspectives on [[aggression]], the thought [[process]], the production of pleasure, and infantile [[mental]] activity (see [[Three]] Essays on the [[Theory]] of [[Sexuality]], 1905d). It wasn't until Donald [[Winnicott]] that [[theoretical]] work on [[children]]'s jokes and their connection to [[creativity]] was taken up again, a thoughtprospect foreseen by Freud in these [[terms]]: "In doing so they come across pleasurable effects, which arise from a [[repetition]] of what is similar, a rediscovery of what is familiar, ideasimilarity of sound, impressionetc., or feeling and which are to be explained as unsuspected economies in [[psychical]] expenditure" (1905c). [[Games]] with other words and thoughts or behaviors are broken by means serve as the point of departure not only for the pleasure of jokes but the "pleasure of [[thinking]]" (Mijolla-Mellor, 1990), which includes critical reason in its scope but escapes its inhibitory effect through the creative process that is set in motion. SOPHIE DE MIJOLLA-MELLOR See also: [[Children's play]]; Condensation; [[Formations]] of pausesthe unconscious; [[Humor]]; [[Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious]]; Pleasure/unpleasure [[principle]]; Repetition; Sense/nonsense; [[Signifier]]/signified; Sudden involuntary idea; Work (as a [[psychoanalytic]] [[notion]])[[Bibliography]] * Freud, Sigmund. (1905c). Jokes and their relation to the unconscious. SE, 8: 1-236. * Kohn, Max. (1991) Mot d'esprit etÉvénement. Paris: L'Harmattan. * Lacan, Jacques. (1998). Le Séminaire-Livre V, Les Formations de l'Inconscient (1957-1958). Paris: Le Seuil. * Rolland, Jean-Claude. (1996) Du rêve au mot d'esprit, la fabrique de la langue, ritualsL'inactuel, magical formulas5, or other such devices91-105. * Safouan, Mustapha. (1988) Désir et mot d'esprit. Apertura, 2, 93-97. Further [[Reading]] * Gilman, Sander L. (1984). Jewish jokes: Sigmund Freud and the hidden language of the Jews. Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought, 7, 591-644.
