The Locus of Speech

Abstract

This chapter is an explication of the eleventh section (“The Locus of Speech”) of “The Freudian Thing.” Lacan ties together the position of the analyst, the speaking unconscious subjectivity of the analysand, and the big Other qua symbolic order (i.e., “the locus of speech”). He goes on to justify his quasi-structuralist reconstruction of the Freudian unconscious, explaining why and how the Saussurian theory of the signifier, in particular, is invaluable for properly appreciating Freud’s discovery. The libidinal-motivational and affective-emotional dimensions of psychical life, as well as its representational-cognitive dimensions, are accounted for in quasi-structuralist terms. Moreover, Lacan maintains that a clinical-analytic focus on the Symbolic axis of language helps to guard analysis against insidious ideological influences.