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In the [[Freudian ]] [[model]], <i>[[word]]-presentations</i> correspond to [[verbal ]] [[language]], and <i>[[thing]]-presentations</i> correspond to [[visual ]] [[images]]. They differ as [[signifier ]] differs from [[signified]]. In [[Freud]]'s view, although [[unconscious ]] [[thing-presentations ]] and [[thought ]] antedate [[word-presentations]], which are [[preconscious]]-[[conscious]], he assigned a special [[role ]] to verbal language in the [[mechanism ]] whereby unconscious [[processes ]] <i>became</i> conscious.In the associationist perspective of his prepsychoanalytic [[work]], in [[particular]], in <i>On [[Aphasia]]</i> (1891b), where Freud first presented the antithesis between thing- and word-presentations, [[the thing]]-presentation constituted an open [[complex ]] of images, whereas the word-presentation was a closed entity whose special task was to gather the "[[associations ]] of the [[object]]" together as the "complex" that constituted the object's [[identity]]. What Freud was apparently referring to here was less the [[presence ]] of something [[being ]] represented than the [[difference ]] between two series of associations, one of which is closed and the [[other ]] open-ended. The specific role of language is to produce [[meanings ]] that lie not in things prior to the advent of language but rather in thought before the advent of [[words]].Upon discovering the unconscious, Freud came to question this nominalist [[theory ]] of [[knowledge]], inherited from John Stuart Mill, and embraced the [[idea ]] that unconscious [[thinking]], and by extension thing-presentations, were prior to language and word-presentations. At the same [[time]], however, spoken language acquired a privileged role in the [[mental ]] processes whereby things become conscious. As early as "A [[Project ]] for a [[Scientific ]] [[Psychology]]" (1950c [1895]), the word-presentation was seen as a [[substitute ]] for the [[hallucinatory ]] [[satisfaction ]] of a [[wish]]. This [[theoretical ]] conception of the [[relationship ]] between [[pleasure ]] and language comports with [[psychoanalytic ]] [[clinical ]] [[practice]]: in <i>Studies on [[Hysteria]]</i> (1895d), Freud said that in the [[treatment ]] [[process ]] there is a [[need ]] to replace [[acts ]] with words to permit the [[abreaction ]] of [[repressed ]] wishes. Freud thus stressed how the motor aspect of language can facilitate an emotional release, in connection with the revival of a [[memory]], that is less costly than alternative adequate reactions (tears, revenge, etc.).Seen in this light, language constitutes the [[secondary process ]] (the processes of the ego) and the process of emergence into [[consciousness]], though it is [[true ]] that Freud never denied the possibility of thing-presentations becoming conscious directly, as for [[instance ]] in [[dream ]] images and [[hallucinations]]. Verbal thinking nevertheless remained the [[ideal ]] tool of [[psychoanalysis]], for it allows all parts of the [[psychic ]] [[apparatus ]] to be accessible at all [[times ]] to the thought process. In fact, the impartiality of language makes it possible for the [[demands ]] of the pleasure [[principle ]] to be placed in abeyance.No [[doubt ]] this property of language later spurred Freud to assert that word-presentations, by virtue of the "[[hypercathexis]]" of thing-presentations, "make it possible for the [[primary process ]] [the processes of the id] to be succeeded by the secondary process" and for "a higher [[psychical ]] organization" to emerge, namely the preconscious [[system ]] (1915e, p. 202). In "An [[Outline ]] of Psychoanalysis" (1940a [1938]), however, he proposed a more restricted view, arguing that language did not in fact constitute the preconscious, though it was an important feature of it. He then acknowledged that for language to develop, the secondary process and the ego must have organized and there must also be in [[place ]] a preverbal [[form ]] of thinking correlated with the [[economic ]] equilibrium between the principles of inertia and constancy. In this connection, in the "Outline" Freud spoke of the opposition between free and bound [[energy ]] (p. 164), thus confirming his view that at an early, prelinguistic [[stage]], the preconscious-conscious system binds the affects with ideational representatives in a process that is the corollary of [[primal ]] [[repression]]. In this context, Freud viewed preconscious thought as depending on the [[formation ]] of the [[categories ]] of [[space]], time, [[causality]], and permanence during the first two years of [[life]], categories that supply the foundation for the [[development ]] of language.Should we subscribe to Jacques [[Lacan]]'s view that language is the precondition of the unconscious and that with regards to the mental organization necessary to constitute [[objects]], "it is the [[world ]] of words that creates the world of things" (2002 [1953], p. 65)? Or

should we determine instead that the unconscious is a prerequisite of language, that the organization of the [[topography ]] of the mental apparatus precedes and accounts for the emergence of language? The issue is important, for it decides the status of language relative to the discovery of the unconscious and of [[childhood ]] [[sexuality]].The crux of the question is Freud's conception of the [[thing-presentation]]. The empiricist notions Freud employed tend to reinforce the idea that the thing-presentation refers only to the mental reproduction of things, just as the [[concepts ]] of [[image ]] and [[mnemic trace ]] [[suggest]]. Contrasting with this Freudian [[empiricism ]] is Lacan's promotion of an unconscious "[[structured ]] like a language"—an intellectualizing approach according to which language gives the world [[meaning]].Both approaches lose [[sight ]] of the fact that thing-presentations are the outcome of the psychic work of internalizing and reappropriating mnemic traces bound up with the hallucinatory satisfaction of wishes. This work of representing and figuring the object is the foundation of fantasizing and has its roots in cathectic [[activity ]] that antedates [[perception ]] of objects. The object presents itself in the first instance by way of an [[affect]]. This [[totality ]] can never be represented figuratively in a [[complete ]] way or expressed in words in a [[discourse ]] adequate to it.In its relationship with the secondary process, language appears defined essentially by its communicative function. But it is at the same time [[subject ]] to the primary process, which tends to [[strip ]] it of this function and to bring into question the signifying-signified relationship, thus introducing a factor ultimately against the [[linguistic ]] system itself. When a similarity between [[signifiers ]] serves to justify a conclusion that the things signified are similar, words, as Freud famously observed, are "treated like things" (1900a, pp. 295-296; 1915e, p. 199). Freud's study of [[dreams ]] and psychoneuroses brought him to this view. Yet dreams only partially bring into question the relationship between signifier and signified, between word-presentation and thing-presentation. As Freud reiterated, dreams modify not the "words themselves" but rather "the thing-presentations to which the words have been taken back" (1916-1917f, p. 229). In short, "treating words as things" means making words not into things but into other words, other [[signs]], that retain their referential function despite successive substitutions.The primary process, meanwhile, can also alter the relationship between the linguistic [[sign ]] and the [[referent]]. For example, in [[schizophrenia ]] the elimination of the semantic relationship between signifier and signified also threatens the linguistic sign in its referential function to a thing in the [[external ]] world. Indeed, [[psychosis ]] implies a failure in the counter-[[cathexis ]] of the hallucinatory [[representation ]] of wishes, which makes it possible for the preconscious to operate. This failure gives rise to a defensive hypercathexis of language, which, though it constitutes an attempt at recovery by "regaining the [[lost object]]" (1915e, pp. 203-204), nevertheless relies on a like massive cathexis of the object.In this context, any word may carry the excitatory force of the primal [[scene]], that is, the force of a [[sadistic ]] combination of two poorly differentiated imagos. In the thought of schizophrenics, hypercathexis of language is basic to their linguistic distortions and "[[concrete]]" thinking, which in actuality, from the point of view of the relationship between language and [[reality]], is an eminently abstract kind of thought. But concrete [[schizophrenic ]] thought can foster the [[illusion ]] that language is forever cut off from the world, whereas in fact the sign can have no meaning [[outside ]] of that opening onto the outside world (thought) that is its very foundation.The [[symbolic ]] function, and hence language, are linked to an economic process indicated by [[instinctual ]] cathexis. Freud's description (1920g, pp. 14ff) of an eighteen-month-old [[child ]] playing with a reel on a string (the <i>[[Fort-Da]]</i> [[game]]) shows how, in this economic process, the work of symbolic [[substitution ]] operates by means of signs that [[represent ]] the [[mother]]'s [[absence ]] and indicate acceptance of this fact, as distinct from mere signals (as for instance the child's earlier tears), which are addressed to a mother who is effectively [[present ]] and are meant as a [[practical ]] response. [[Inhibition ]] of the aim of the [[instinct]], which results in a shift to tender [[feelings ]] toward the object and acceptance of a delay in satisfaction, then allows [[sublimation ]] and [[symbolization ]] through play, gesture, and language.Thus [[the symbolic ]] function, seen here in the process of the subject's [[working ]] over the [[absent ]] object, does not arise from a learning process or from an experienced contiguity between word and thing. Rather, it is the means of articulating the [[double ]] [[nature ]] of the sign and its differential [[value ]] in the linguistic system. This symbolic function is achieved through the work of [[negation ]] carried out in [[silence]], manifesting itself notably in the early [[split ]] between ego and object, and finding its true fulfillment, as distinct from its raison d'être, in language. As it accedes to [[speech]], this representational function has less to do with language reduced to its role as [[signal ]] than it does with language as sign, with the sort of sudden advance that can sustain the acceptance not only of a [[loss ]] but also of a previously instituted [[social ]] convention regarding the loss.

# [[Freud, Sigmund]]. (1891b). On aphasia: A critical study. New York: International Universities Press.

# ——. (1916-1917f [1915]). A metapsychological [[supplement ]] to the theory of dreams. SE, 14: 217-235.# ——. (1920g). Beyond the [[pleasure principle]]. SE, 18: 1-64.# ——. (1940a [1938]). An outline of [[psycho]]-[[analysis]]. SE, 23: 139-207.

# Freud, Sigmund, and [[Breuer]], Josef. (1895d). Studies on hysteria. SE, 2: 48-106.# [[Lacan, Jacques]]. (2002). [[The function and field of speech and language in psychoanalysis]]. In hisÉcrits: A selection ([[Bruce Fink]], Trans.). New York: W. W. Norton. (Original work published 1953