A Plea for a Broader Concept of Nachträglichkeit

Abstract

The broader conceptualization of Nachträglichkeit proposed by the author can play an active part in the process of assigning new meaning retroactively (usually through interpretation)—and even giving a meaning, for the first time (usually through construction)—to what the analysand says and cannot say. It gives us a conceptual frame of unconscious psychic temporality with which to explore how psychoanalysis produces psychic change. Winnicott’s “Fear of Breakdown” (1974) is paradigmatic of this broader conceptualization of Nachträglichkeit (see Faimberg 1998).

A clinical example is presented (Kardiner 1977) to illustrate why the author believes that her proposal remains true to Freud’s (1937) conception of psychic temporality and construction.