ABSTRACT
Every analyst knows that his work aims to analyse each patient as an individual, through his most personal self. The analytical situation favours transference through regression. This regression is temporal, dynamic, and topographical. If, however, one considers only the temporal regression, one ceases to consider the topographical one. Ever since A. Freud replaced the first topography by the second one, the role of the preconscious has slowly diminished. In practice the main difference between the preconscious and the unconscious is that the preconscious enters the conscious easily whereas the passage from unconscious to conscious comes up against strong resistances which are, according to Freud, a sine qua non of normality. The analysis of the preconscious and in particular the use of the patient’s analytical material has been neglected since Freud. The reason for this appears to be straightforward in that, since the preconscious can be reached by the conscious, the importance of the preconscious is negligible and language is superficial.
