ABSTRACT
The debate on the 'starting-point' of psychoanalysis provides an ideal opportunity to question again the evidence for the Freudian discovery. Although 1900 is generally given as the date of the 'beginning' of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud had actually coined the term some years previously after his discovery of the unconscious and his theorisation of it on the basis of the closely-related concepts of defence, resistance, and repression. In this chapter, the author attempts to locate the initial moment of a turning-point or change of direction within the development of Freud's theory—in other words, the point at which his notion detaches itself from an associationist conception, and becomes strictly specific and analytical. This was achieved from the moment Freud took into account the structure of language. By replacing the enigma of intentionality with a logical impasse, Freud re-situates the central issue of the cause in the realm of the subject, thus opening up the domain of unconscious desire.
