Not Even Wrong

Abstract

Metaphor and metonymy are the primary and crucial cognitive tools of unconscious thought. Acknowledging this function of metaphor and metonymy might provide a unifying bridge between the disparate schools and factions of contemporary psychoanalysis. I suggest that we are more likely to find common ground, both within psychoanalysis and neighboring disciplines, if we view the unconscious mind as the area within which meaning is processed by means of metaphor, rather than the locus of a battleground between repression and instinctual forces.

Notes

Arnold H. Modell, M.D., is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School and a Training and supervision psychoanalyst, Boston Psychoanalytic Institute.