Verneinung, Verwerfung, Ausstossung

a problem in the interpretation of Freud

Martin Thom

pp. 162-187

in: Colin MacCabe (ed), The talking cure, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1981

Abstract

The first term in my title, Verneinung, is used at several points by Freud, but most crucially in "Negation", a paper whose German title is "Die Verneinung".¹ I want to isolate the basic concepts in this and in various other (linked) writings in order to consider the problem, touched upon in the second part of my earlier article, of the specifically psychotic mechanism that Freud seeks to define. But why, in presenting the three key terms at the head of the page, have I left them in the original German? Theoretical work implies translation, whether it be literal transfer of terms from one language to another or transposition from original document to commentary, and if one leaves a term in another language it is as if one's attempt to translate has failed. If, however, a term has no adequate translation and if one can establish that it has been inexactly translated and therefore condemned to howl on desolate margins, it is reasonable to argue for a kind of "transitional" usage of a term from the original language. But admixtures of Latin and of Norman French to an Anglo-Saxon core make of English a language well-suited to re-fashion any French or German term. Italicisations lead us into thinking that truth walks in some other gaudy meadow, and so they are at best temporary measures, spurring us on to further work.

Cited authors

Freud Sigmund