ABSTRACT
The idea of vertigo involves that of equilibrium, but it should be remembered, as I have tried to explain in Chapter 10, that in moving on from the first idea to the second we are also changing our mode of discourse. Vertigo appears because of the conflict between two inner voices which the analysand cannot reconcile since they are in different keys. Equilibrium, on the other hand, corresponds to an integrating voice trying to combine contraries that are integrable because they are in the same key-the feeling of disequilibrium appears when the analysand prefers one of the contraries to the other. I believe that the search for equilibrium is inseparable from the study of vertigo, because it reflects an integrating tendency of the analysand to surmount his vertigo, and because it takes over from vertigo to the extent that the analysand manages to reduce the split between his omnipotent infantile attitude and his more highly developed attitude.
