ABSTRACT
As I thought about the question of whether psychoanalysis might itself be considered a symptom of trauma, I found myself drawn to the role of linked pairs of terms in Western thought, and especially to the thinking of Jacques Derrida, one of the most influential twentieth-century philosophers, who devised and described what has become widely known as the deconstruction of meaning. I am going to try to combine the sweep of Derrida’s ideas with the contribution of another French philosopher, Louis Althusser; I am then going to connect these ideas about ideology with ideas about dissociation and enactment; and eventually, I am going to arrive at a thought about the practice of psychoanalysis.
