The Nonverbal Unconscious: Collision and Collusion of Metaphor

Abstract

Adopting the Lakoff and Johnson view that conceptual systems of the mind are inherently metaphoric and embodied, I examine theoretical metaphor in psychoanalytic theory as an example of the use of metaphor more generally in the mind. I have chosen concepts of the nondynamic unconscious to explore representative metaphors. These include the theories of W. Bion, C. and S. Botella, and D. Stern. This article first outlines recent interest in the nondynamic unconscious and then examines the theories of Bion, the Botellas, and Stern in detail. Differences and similarities among the theoretical metaphors are explored. I suggest that theoretical metaphors progress both through the attempted destruction of existing metaphor and reshaping of existing metaphor into new meanings. I am interested in finding among the metaphoric collisions that there may be hidden collusions that can potentially lead to unifying concepts.

Notes

Robert S. White, M.D., is on the faculty at Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis and is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine.

¹Of course, over time, Bion's Greek letters have become metaphors in themselves. In this article, I treat his Greek letters as metaphors.

²This account of elements and functions is taken from what Ogden (2004a) calls early Bion, up to and including Learning From Experience, where he does not depart significantly from Klein. Only in the later papers (Bion, 1995) does he move beyond Kleinian theory (Symington and Symington, 1966).

³The Freudian definition of disavowal would include an active force coming from the ego that pushes the disavowal.