When Jonathan Lear tells us (Love and Its Place in Nature: A Philosophical Interpretation of Freudian Psychoanalysis) that Freud was formulating a theory clothed in the scientific conceptual garments in vogue in his day, he is announcing no novelty for hermeneutics. That mindsets, paradigms and choices of metaphor reflect the conceptual architecture of one's particular Weltanschauung is a truism of epistemology. However, Lear has done much more than make a sketch of the brush Freud used to paint his picture of the dynamics of psychoanalysis. Lear has shown us that Freud was doing something which even Freud himself did not understand that he was doing. (A psychoanalysis of Freud's psychoanalysis, according to Lear.)1 As if "working through" by proxy the unconscious formulations of Freud,2 Lear demonstrates, through Freud's theoretical constructs, the extent to which a man's conceptual tools will determine the shape which his house of theory will take.

Focusing primarily on Freud's commitment to the contemporary scientific notions of his day (a dedication which gave birth to his aborted "Project"), Lear masterfully clarifies how a metaphor can give birth to inferences which themselves produce even more metaphors of conceptualization. Freud, according to Lear, consistently heard patients describe cathartic resolutions of neurosis as a "coporealized discharge."3 After an emotional cathartic experience, they would comment that they felt "drained," "depleted," "exhausted," "empty."4 According to Lear, such metaphors of cathartic experiences became a mental template through which Freud looked for explanations of how the mind worked. These depictions, says Lear, were, in actuality, only fantasized theories on the part of the patients.

For instance, argues Lear, Freud, without being aware of his somewhat Wittgensteinian betwitchment, turned fantasy "theory" into a psychoanalytical theory.5 A subtle confusion led Freud to ask: "What is present which can be "discharged" and "spent?" What type of thing is discharged? Answer? Energy. According to Lear, Freud and Breuer began paving a road with conceptual bricks made from the clay of symbolic imagination. Also, according to Lear, this extension of metaphor was seemingly strengthened by another observation of Freud. Freud noted that simply making the unconscious conscious was not sufficient for a cure in many cases of hysteria, that restoration of memories per se could not become the goal of analysis. Freud found that a detached interpretive delineation of what had gone on at the patient's archaic level of consciousness may measure up to the pride of education; however, such eradication of ignorance often left the force of neurosis unscathed. It is the perplexity of this theoretical disappointment that becomes the challenge for Lear. And he does a metaphorical turnaround to address it. But before we look at Lear's own metaphors for describing intrapsychic dynamics, we need to understand how Freud dealt with this disappointment while staying true to his scientific model.

Freud and Breur were already convinced that the somatic symptoms of hysteria (which made up so much of their practice) were the products of unconscious dynamics. Following the implications of the mindset provided by the science of his day, Freud asked a follow-up question: "What is the underlying something which can cause an intrapsychic dynamic to be diverted to the body in the form of a somatic complaint? The answer again: energy. The paradigm of the expenditure of energy, therefore, culminated in another theoretical construct. When energy can't get discharged one place, it is diverted to another. So what did Freud see happening? Conversion. The original energy was converted into a somatic symptom. Freud theorized that if an emotion is robbed of its "sum of excitation," that quota (quantitative metaphor) of emotion "must be put to another use."6 According to Lear, Freud, in describing Breur's cathartic method, took the scientific formulation to its final end: The ultimate resolution was to be a "discharge of the excitation by talking," but talking which included abreaction or a "discharge" of the energy which had been diverted (converted) into the symptom.

Lear simply starts over. He, like Freud, postulates a force, but his metaphor suggests that the archaic mind (the primary process of Freud) is not responding to any separate causal agency such as energy. According to Lear, "emotions are, by their nature, attempts at rational orientation toward the world."7 Lear candidly states, ". . . the emotion has not reached full development until it is able to express an explanation and justification of its own occurrence. . . It tries to bring the unconscious orientation [archaic emotions] to the world of consciousness." 8 Lear sees this as an intrinsic developmental process, "a development thrust within the individual toward a rational orientation to the world."9 An archaic expression of emotion is, to Lear, therefore, "an archaic attempt at rationality."10 In a sense, Lear contends that essential to emotions--by definition--is an inherent entelechy whose final end is the integration of thought and feeling. (Let us remember that Lear was a student of Aristotle before he was a student of Freud!) The philosopher, Lear, has, as it were, become a psychoanalytic Empedocles, converting a substance-based metaphysic into a mental-based metapsychology. Love is seen as an "emotive" force (in contradistinction to the love vs. strife substantive concepts of Empedocles), one which is in progress toward the consummate integration of feeling and rationality.

This appreciation of a dynamic inherent to archaic emotions leads Lear to view the individual as constantly being shoved toward a "higher level of organization."11 Archaic emotions are never truly transformed; they are not even transcended. It is as if Lear sees this integration, not as moving one aspect of the mind into a separate plateau of existence, one which we call conscious thought. The archaic emotions are, as it were, carried forward; they become part of the newly formed consciousness of a person. The new self is more akin to a translation than a transformation. And this suggests another metaphor for allowing us to do an analysis of Lear's analysis somewhat as he has done to Freud.

Without getting into metaphysics and making global statements about the nature of reality, we can at least approach our experience from the phenomenological standpoint. We experience ourselves as emotional beings. And regardless of how much clarity we may or not get from Lear's distinction between archaic emotions and desire,12 a little reflection will probably force us to admit that our experience of emotion leads us to validate one of his assertions: that emotions are not to be viewed as a static entity. We experience emotion as if it has meaning. But meaning normally denotes cognition, not emotion. It is here that we begin to recognize a tendency of language to cause a divorce in an otherwise happy family of terms. Just as Lear feels that Freud was led astray by a metaphor born of scientific concepts, maybe language tricks all of us into a conception of cognition as separate and distinct from emotional experience. However, cognition and emotion aren't so neatly registered as citizens of two separate universes. It is doubtful whether we ever have any type of emotion without experiencing it as having some kind of meaning. And similarly, it is doubtful if we ever think anything in a manner that is completely devoid of emotion. We often use expressions such as "It feels like that means . . ." Metaphors for understanding even archaic emotions express our phenomenological appropriation of a communication of meaning; it is as if emotions are telling us something. Maybe all the discussions of the somatic expressions of hysteria are best expressed by using language as a metaphor itself.

Language can be a metaphor as well as contain metaphors. We often describe the appropriation of meaning from experience by saying, "Wow, that really tells me something." This projection onto events of an appropriation of meaning , a type of psychological animism, shows our existential sense of history, i.e., that we are interpreters. However, few would attribute a separate reality to some inner being residing within history, some metaphysical mind doggedly pushing Hegelean-fashion for us to listen to it. (Except for a somewhat flippant statement in his Introduction about "faint echoes of Viennese professors," Lear gives little attention to this challenge of Positivism concerning the lack of meaning of metaphysical statements.) Consequently, staying aware of the ability of language to overload metaphor with reality, we must distinguish between an interpretation of the dynamics within us (our archaic mind) and a postulation of the operation of some separate metaphysical reality, be it an elan vital (Bergson), Spirit (Hegel), Will (Schopenhuer), or Love (Lear). Just what was Freud--and Lear--and all psychoanalysts--doing when he basically posed the challenge: "What are our dreams telling us?"

A careful analysis of Lear's concept of love reveals that he used the term to express a very active dynamic, one which is not willy-nilly leading a person in just any direction. He describes emotion as having a rationale within it, one which is damned and determined to be heard. Indeed, Lear portrays love as an emotional Neanderthal on its way to becoming a cognitive Homo Sapien.

All metaphors are highly susceptible to an emaciation of meaning when highly exposed to the cold analysis of discursive thought. (Another edition of the famous obituary citing a death from a thousand qualifications?) It is precisely this point which makes the language/communication metaphor so potent for supporting the analysis which Lear has so masterly done. And even if we contend that Lear gets caught up in the same "bewitchment" of language of which he implicitly accuses Freud (love vs. energy), from a phenomenological standpoint his analysis of the dynamics of analysis is nothing short of genius. Just as we are apt to say that all myths guide us to truth on some level, so we can certainly say that Lear's concept of love helps us see that the archaic stages of the mind are actively moving toward individuality. He shows us that mind is dynamic, that its foundation is not one of static emotion: "Psychoanalytic interpretation removes the superficial appearance of irrationality in our emotional responses in dream life," says Lear.13 "What analysis does, then, is to rescue the rationality of an emotion."14 If I understand Lear on this point, he is saying that emotional chaos is simply the rational not understood. I do not believe he is saying that archaic mind contains a force within it which is metaphysically separate from the mind itself.

Lear never mentions the works of Susanne Langer15 and Ernst Cassirer.16 However, he seems to agree with Langer that expression is simply the nature of the mind. The distinction between the two is Langer's claim that this activity has no practical purpose.17 Lear sees more in the mind than mere expression. He states that what may appear to the secondary process as the absence of a rationale, an "inappropriate idea," may actually be appropriate on another level. To Lear, what the proto-mental is doing is developing. The progression culminates in a different kind of operation, one which, once brought to fruition, can no more discursively describe its former state (primary process) than one can give the length of a room in Fahrenheit.

Maybe our epistemological box is simply our destiny of being limited to understanding through symbolism of one order or the other, but not one order by the other. (From the functional standpoint, this may be the distinction which we call Right versus Left Brain processing.) Maybe we are somewhat condemned to use images which do little more than suggest what psychological realities are to us. From this subjective confinement, everything from myth to metaphor becomes no more than the operations of language types, distinct formulations of experience as meaningful. Applying this symbolizing function of mind to psychoanalysis itself may help clarity exactly what has happened in the development of its constructs.

At the risk of making a metaphor explode into irrelevance by over-extension, we may more appropriately describe the traditional "conversion" of hysteria, not as some diversion of energy into another form, but as a "damned-determined" doggedness of the archaic mind to express itself, with hysterical symptoms being somatic expressions or, as it were, somatic pantomimes. Pantomimes are essentially linguistic. They are simply a manner of "talking" without words. Following this analogy, the somatic pantomime is more like a "translation" than a "conversion." 18

And how would this language/communication metaphor apply to the dynamic of defense or repression? The somatic pantomime can be expressed as the archaic mind's refusal to be quieted. In essence it is a shift to another language. But this shift is also a regression to a proto-language. When the ego refuses to integrate one's emotional integrity (what you feel can't be judged--because your feelings are authentic) into a higher form of conscious thought and explication, it, in effect, forces the communication dynamic to its more primitive stage. Consequently, extreme somatic "acting out" becomes more like an archaic yell for expressing a message than simply the product of a blind energy; it takes a distinctive pantomime-type form which is more than a passive reflex product of affect.19

Many will perchance feel that giving the language/communication metaphor a front seat for speaking on behalf of psychological dynamics is a prostitution of real science and scientific discussion. However, all thought is essentially symbolic thought. Even the good doctors of tough-minded empiricism can not escape this fact. For example, modern-day physicists know full well that a rock is not really solid; it is a whirling mass of energy (whatever that symbolizes!). Yet these tough minded scientists get along quite well in using words like "solid".20 Any description which moves to theoretical dynamics, whether purported by analytical psychology or not, is, of course, feeling around in a dark room, one which will never be lighted. The test of the success of such symbolization will always be its justification by virtue of the pragmatics of the entire affair. But this is the nature of such theoretical realms. We must use models. And we must be ready to revise our models. However, in either case, we must remember that models aren't true or false any more than languages are true or false.

If I assert a proposition in English and then say the same thing in German--and then ask which one of the statements is truer than the other--you would called me confused. You would immediately tell me that I had said the same thing. But only in one sense did I say the same thing, a fidelity to a common meaning. In a very strange sense, Lear seems to go to great extremes to tell us what Freud was saying that Freud didn't know that he was saying. However, maybe Lear hasn't actually told us anything very different, just a very clear and different way of letting us experience with him (and with Freud) what makes up the symbolic world of psychoanalysis.

If Lear is criticizing Freud, it is possible that he is merely showing the need for a better language (metaphorical tool) to express his concepts. This leads us to attempt to do the same trick with Lear, i.e., to clarify exactly what he indicates happens to a person when "the archaic mind is directed onto (what from the point of view of the archaic mind is) the right object." 21 Lear's description of the appropriate bonding of emotion and its appropriate object gives little more than a hint of some mysterious connection which is prerequisite for the resolution toward which all psychoanalysis aims. However, according to Lear, it is in this experiential soil that a cure must be rooted. Even here the language metaphor may assist us in understanding the particular nature of the integrative experience which Lear so forcefully describes as a linkage of emotion to the appropriate object.

Forcing two children to shake hands after a bitter rift gives form to conflict resolution but brings little change in attitude. However, many tales testify to the emotionally binding power of a "let's-shake-on-it deal." Somehow, the latter engages a depth for the participants which suggests that the ritual acts as an emotional catalyst. Also, the primitive role which rite and ritual played in the experience of early cultures was certainly more than the execution of behavior expressing specific scenes of a mythical drama. The mysteries were life-changing because they produced a deep sense of participation. The participant did not stand back and participate as if by simple mental narration; he was caught up in a creative force which the behavior mediated. It became a psychodrama of the utmost intensity as symbol became more than sign. Word and image moved from conception to contagion.

Emotions may be bound to primal scenes, those emotionally charged situations in which an "initial sensitizing event"22 established a particular Gestalt of meaning fused with emotion. Let us further propose a theory which builds on the metaphor which Lear used at times, the "bonding" of emotion to specific configurations. Given such an emotional infusion (not a development which culminates in emotion as if emotion were merely a product of the experience), any adequate replay or recovery of a primal emotive scene would require an experience of recall which far exceeds an intellectual reconstruction. Simply recounting as if from a distance would be a counterfeit version of a true appropriation. And this leads us back to using the language metaphor for clarification.

One who speaks English as his mother tongue can translate an English sentence into a German sentence or even "say it in German" (or any other language). However, knowing that his translation is adequate may represent only that he has made the vocal sounds which someone who actually knows and speaks German would recognize. However, he has not really said it in German.23 It is well known that one is really speaking a newly acquired language when he is thinking in that language.24

The "talking cure" or the "making the unconscious conscious" which Lear equates with the linkage of emotion to the right object may be best described as a participation rather than a representation, even a representation of lucid recounting of events and scenes. However, even this level of "understanding emotionally" would bring the dynamics merely to an essential duplication of the early emotive Gestalt; and repetition--even with emotional valence--would be no more efficacious for "bringing a cure" than would the gaining of an awareness that one is playing out a pattern in transference situations (which is certainly not simply an intellectual substitution of characters). What Lear seems to be saying is that a new emotional orientation must be made in the midst of the emotional appropriation of the primal scene. The analysand must step back into history mentally and emotionally; and, in the midst of the emotional impact of the scene, reframe the situation into a new Gestalt. Reframing is different from correction. Reframing is a stance from which one can appreciate the original configuration as sensible--even brilliant--given the mythopoeic perspective available to the ego at the time. (The author has called this appreciation the "sub-logical" aspect operating in neurosis and the "excellence of neurosis." ) This appreciation of the sagacity of the ego's original response allows the analysand to forgive himself (feeling the need of forgiveness being the basis of the repression in the first place) in the sense that he has seen that his guilt wasn't appropriate in the first place.

The real integration is, therefore, similar to the solution purported by the adherents of language analysis. The so-called philosophical problems are rooted more in confusion and misapplication of terms than to real issues. When the analysand really translates adequately the rationale of his emotions, he will find that what he was "saying about himself and others" was correct given the situation as experienced at the time. And from this new translation of early emotional conclusions, he now recognizes that he can go on without a feeling of contradiction. It's as if archaic "baby-talk" has been carried to a higher level of expression without condemnation of the early elementary forms of authentic efforts to make a statement about the desire for love. Lear has become a psychoanalytical Gorgias, one who clarifies the meaning of our emotional language in a way that not only lets us see what the archaic mind is saying, but in a way that moves translation into transformation. For this creative analysis of analysis, psychoanalysts will be in his debt for many years to come.

Bill Stroud, of Oxford, Mississippi,, has an extensive background in three areas: theology, philosophy and psychology (B.D, Th.D., Ph.D). Although semi-retired, he is active as a speaker, free-lance writer and a workshop presenter for educational and service agencies. He presently is an adjunct professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Ole Miss University.

18. Lear categorically denies that dreams should be taken as on the order of language, citing their lack of grounding in convention. (Lear, Love and Its Place in Nature, Note 5, p. 71.) Restricting the meaning of "language" to a definition whose essence includes convention, of course, logically excludes dreams because they do not follow such pre-established routes of symbolism. However, pantomime may rest on our ability to recognize images as more than 'signs" (somewhat as Darwin cited our ability to recognize universal expressions of emotions such as the smile, etc.), although we don't speak of its having a syntax or a grounding in convention to give it meaning. Back to text.

19. Lear distinction between wish and desire reflects a developmental aspect which sees desire as a more highly developed stage of affect. (Love and Its Place in Nature, p. 75 ff.) It is this rationale of development which the language metaphor accommodates. His distinction seems similar to Basch's categories of development, i.e., from affect to feeling to emotion. (Michael Franz Basch, Understanding Psychotherapy: The Science Behind the Art. New York: basic Books, Inc., 1988, p. 78.) Back to text.