ABSTRACT
The psychoanalytic treatment is a “talking cure”, but the setting and the rule of free association depend on the deployment of speech as well as on its destabilization. The psyche is constituted of drives and psychic work pertains to the drive, whereas the work of language concerns putting representations into words. Putting things into words or language necessarily involves an activity of representation—a fundamental activity of the human mind and the basis of Freudian theory. In short, speaking of “the demands of representation” implies seeking to define the general conditions necessary for its existence and for its functional and economic value. The relation between representation and thinking was discussed by Freud as early as 1911 in “Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning”, where he describes the suspension of motor discharge as being dependent on the process of thinking which is developed from the presentation of ideas. Representations move around freely along associative chains allowing for “figurability”.
