ABSTRACT

The notion of inner discourse extends the notion of countertransference. It is based on the listening in analysis to movements experienced by the analyst and secondarily relayed to the patient. This chapter provides a short clinical sequence to situate the establishment of this singular listening and its development during the analysis. The regressive path of analysis had to go back through long periods of concealment. It was these periods that engulfed the inner discourse, a space of figuration or of breakdown, but also of unknown subversion. The inner discourse, though marked by moments of searing intensity, is a slowly forged construction. Sometimes, time is needed before a narrative is established, as if there is a strong and muffled opposition to the transition of images into words: the recognition of the presence in oneself of this discourse is the sign that the transference has taken hold and that the sexual has attained a status that permits its construction and elaboration.