JeanPaul_Sartre_JeanPaul_Sartre_Basic_Writing
JeanPaul_Sartre_JeanPaul_Sartre_Basic_Writing JeanPaul_Sartre_JeanPaul_Sartre_Basic_Writing
Psychoanalysis255universal symbolism. Rather the psychoanalyst will have to rediscover at each step asymbol functioning in the particular case which he is considering. If each being is atotality, it is not conceivable that there can exist elementary symbolic relationships(e.g., the faeces = gold, or a pincushion = the breast) which preserve a constantmeaning in all cases; that is, which remain unaltered when they pass from one meaningfulensemble to another ensemble. Furthermore the psychoanalyst will never lose sight ofthe fact that the choice is living and consequently can be revoked by the subject whois being studied. We have shown in the preceding chapter the importance of theinstant, which represents abrupt changes in orientation and the assuming of a newposition in the face of an unalterable past. From this moment on, we must always beready to consider that symbols change meaning and to abandon the symbol usedhitherto. Thus existential psychoanalysis will have to be completely flexible andadapt itself to the slightest observable changes in the subject. Our concern here is tounderstand what is individual and often even instantaneous. The method which hasserved for one subject will not necessarily be suitable to use for another subject or forthe same subject at a later period.Precisely because the goal of the inquiry must be to discover a choice and not astate, the investigator must recall on every occasion that his object is not a datumburied in the darkness of the unconscious but a free, conscious determination—whichis not even resident in consciousness, but which is one with this consciousness itself.Empirical psychoanalysis, to the extent that its method is better than its principles, isoften in sight of an existential discovery, but it always stops part way. When it thusapproaches the fundamental choice, the resistance of the subject collapses suddenlyand he recognizes the image of himself which is presented to him as if he were seeinghimself in a mirror. This involuntary testimony of the subject is precious for thepsychoanalyst; he sees there the sign that he has reached his goal; he can pass on fromthe investigation proper to the cure. But nothing in his principles or in his initialpostulates permits him to understand or to utilize this testimony. Where could he getany such right? If the complex is really unconscious— that is, if there is a barrierseparating the sign from the thing signified— how could the subject recognize it? Doesthe unconscious complex recognize itself? But haven’t we been told that it lacksunderstanding? And if of necessity we granted to it the faculty of understanding thesigns, would this not be to make of it by the same token a conscious unconscious?What is understanding if not to be conscious of what is understood? Shall we say onthe other hand that it is the subject as conscious who recognizes the image presented?But how could he compare it with his true state since that is out of reach and since he
256Jean-Paul Sartre: Basic Writingshas never had any knowledge of it? At most he will be able to judge that thepsychoanalytic explanation of his case is a probable hypothesis, which derives itsprobability from the number of behavior patterns which it explains. His relation tothis interpretation is that of a third party, that of the psychoanalyst himself; he has noprivileged position. And if he believes in the probability of the psychoanalytichypothesis, is this simple belief, which lives in the limits of his consciousness, able toeffect the breakdown of the barriers which dam up the unconscious tendencies? Thepsychoanalyst doubtless has some obscure picture of an abrupt coincidence ofconscious and unconscious. But he has removed all methods of conceiving of thiscoincidence in any positive sense.Still, the enlightenment of the subject is a fact. There is an intuition here which isaccompanied by evidence. The subject guided by the psychoanalyst does more andbetter than to give his agreement to an hypothesis; he touches it, he sees what it is.This is truly understandable only if the subject has never ceased being conscious of hisdeep tendencies; better yet, only if these drives are not distinguished from his consciousself. In this case as we have seen, the traditional psychoanalytic interpretation doesnot cause him to attain consciousness of what he is; it causes him to attain knowledgeof what he is. It is existential psychoanalysis then which claims the final intuition ofthe subject as decisive.This comparison allows us to understand better what an existential psychoanalysismust be if it is entitled to exist. It is a method destined to bring to light, in a strictlyobjective form, the subjective choice by which each living person makes himself aperson; that is, makes known to himself what he is. Since what the method seeks is achoice of being at the same time as a being, it must reduce particular behavior patternsto fundamental relations—not of sexuality or of the will to power, but of being—which are expressed in this behavior. It is then guided from the start toward acomprehension of being and must not assign itself any other goal than to discoverbeing and the mode of being of the being confronting this being. It is forbidden to stopbefore attaining this goal. It will utilize the comprehension of being which characterizesthe investigator inasmuch as he is himself a human reality; and as it seeks to detachbeing from its symbolic expressions, it will have to rediscover each time on the basisof a comparative study of acts and attitudes, a symbol destined to decipher them. Itscriterion of success will be the number of facts which its hypothesis permits it toexplain and to unify as well as the self-evident intuition of the irreducibility of the endattained. To this criterion will be added in all cases where it is possible, the decisivetestimony of the subject. The results thus achieved—that is, the ultimate ends of the
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Psychoanalysis255universal symbolism. Rather the psychoanalyst will have to rediscover at each step asymbol functioning in the particular case which he is considering. If each being is atotality, it is not conceivable that there can exist elementary symbolic relationships(e.g., the faeces = gold, or a pincushion = the breast) which preserve a constantmeaning in all cases; that is, which remain unaltered when they pass from one meaningfulensemble to another ensemble. Furthermore the psychoanalyst will never lose sight ofthe fact that the choice is living and consequently can be revoked by the subject whois being studied. We have shown in the preceding chapter the importance of theinstant, which represents abrupt changes in orientation and the assuming of a newposition in the face of an unalterable past. From this moment on, we must always beready to consider that symbols change meaning and to abandon the symbol usedhitherto. Thus existential psychoanalysis will have to be completely flexible andadapt itself to the slightest observable changes in the subject. Our concern here is tounderstand what is individual and often even instantaneous. The method which hasserved for one subject will not necessarily be suitable to use for another subject or forthe same subject at a later period.Precisely because the goal of the inquiry must be to discover a choice and not astate, the investigator must recall on every occasion that his object is not a datumburied in the darkness of the unconscious but a free, conscious determination—whichis not even resident in consciousness, but which is one with this consciousness itself.Empirical psychoanalysis, to the extent that its method is better than its principles, isoften in sight of an existential discovery, but it always stops part way. When it thusapproaches the fundamental choice, the resistance of the subject collapses suddenlyand he recognizes the image of himself which is presented to him as if he were seeinghimself in a mirror. This involuntary testimony of the subject is precious for thepsychoanalyst; he sees there the sign that he has reached his goal; he can pass on fromthe investigation proper to the cure. But nothing in his principles or in his initialpostulates permits him to understand or to utilize this testimony. Where could he getany such right? If the complex is really unconscious— that is, if there is a barrierseparating the sign from the thing signified— how could the subject recognize it? Doesthe unconscious complex recognize itself? But haven’t we been told that it lacksunderstanding? And if of necessity we granted to it the faculty of understanding thesigns, would this not be to make of it by the same token a conscious unconscious?What is understanding if not to be conscious of what is understood? Shall we say onthe other hand that it is the subject as conscious who recognizes the image presented?But how could he compare it with his true state since that is out of reach and since he