ABSTRACT

In this chapter the author discusses the theory of psychoanalysis. The theory of psychoanalysis must be an explanatory schema describing the nature of human communication. The author starts with a catalogue of the processes of communication, and sees the place of psychoanalysis within it. The author wants to start by separating human communication into three modes: practical communication; intellectual or speculative communication; and emotional communication. In psychoanalysis, a great number of activities that are in the service of survival become part of a communicative language through which the individual is able to come into contact with hidden parts of himself. Communication with this inner emotional self and its activities lies at the heart of the psychoanalytic enterprise. For psychoanalysis the emotional language is primary, and what needs to be demonstrated is the way in which activities geared to the biological functioning of the organism are taken up into the language of communication.