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The philosophical influences, cultural conditions and different translations of Freud’s opus that shaped psychoanalysis in French speaking countries are different than those that defined the conditions in which psychoanalysis developed in English speaking countries. In opinion of many French psychoanalysts, the translation of Freud’s work in English played a role in moving psychoanalysis closer to psychology and to cognitive sciences (Tessier, 2005). The translations in French were less uniform, until Laplanche undertook the publication of the OCFP in the 1980’s (Laplanche, 1989a), but contributed greatly to specific directions through lexical and semantic choices. For example the German word Seele was translated as “Mind” in English and , in French as ”Psychè” - to which Laplanche objected and insisted to use the word âme (soul) which changed the philosophical context of the reading. The word “ Vorstellung ” is translated in English by “idea”, which is the usual translation, but is very different from the French translation which is “ représentation ”. Another example would be Verdrangung , in English “repression” and in French “ refoulement ”. One can note the social, even penal connotation, of the word repression, and the hydraulic metaphor of the French translation. In line with the above, French also note that in English-speaking psychoanalysis, with the exception of Ego-psychology, splitting has replaced repression in the description of psychic functioning (Tessier, 2005), which is not so in French psychoanalysis. In the context of the differences in relation to Freud’s writings, the importance of language, representation and representability, and what it entails for the understanding of sexuality, of the drives and of the unconscious is stressed in French psychoanalysis. Elaborating on the Freudian metapsychology of the dynamic unconscious, infantile sexuality and drive theory (Freud 1900, 1905,1914, 1915), French intersubjectivist psychoanalysis explores the dimensions of otherness within and without, which lies at the core of existence and expands the concept nachträglichkeit or après-coup. While in general, contemporary French psychoanalytic theorization postulates the intimate bond between the unconscious and the drive, an important theme is the close examination of the “construction” of drive from basic physiological reflexes. Drive is regarded as mutable, perpetually in transition, proliferating in all mentation, and created anew in certain intersubjective experiences. Overall, distinct characteristics of French psychoanalysis include: 1. Recognition of the usefulness of the topographic theory (Lacan, 1966) and a specific reading of the structural theory (Green, 2002); 2. Implementation of technical changes in the treatment of non-neurotic patients, especially in the handling of the transference (Green’s l’autre semblable/similar other , in: Green, 2002) and countertransference (Faimberg, 2005); 3. Study of the manner in which preverbal traumas are inscribed but not represented in the psyche and implementation of new techniques necessary to incorporate them in the psychoanalytic treatment (Green, 2002, 2004); 4. Focus on work with representation, symbolization, and progression from action registers towards thought registers. 5. A different definition of the ego ( le moi ) that is subjective, more a self than the defensive creature of Ego psychology. Within this context, everything that is ego is listened to as emerging from the unconscious. There is an absence of the idea of a conflict free sphere. The moi is also composed of unconscious objects and part objects. 6. Analyst’s stance involves close attention to patient’s reaction to distance. There is an awareness of the analyst as object linked unconsciously with subject. The asymmetry is strictly maintained. 7.
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