71

Lacan’s thesis that “the unconscious is structured like language” has been argued and debated over and over again. Here, of course, the term language is used in the broad sense rather than in the sense of the vernacular. Which one for that matter? The reader of Lacan, however, cannot fail to be surprised by the sporadic, uncertain, and often equivocal nature of what is put forward here and there about the unconscious and its relation to such-and-such a language. In this respect, the English language, like the Japanese language, is thought to create resistance to the unconscious and to be an obstacle to psychoanalysis. The subject is hardly clear. However, several attempts to clear this up have been made, in line with Lacan’s work, but we are still very far from a theory. The field of languages, whether in the aftermath of Freud or Lacan, remains a topic almost entirely untouched, in spite of the thesis that the unconscious and the psyche are structured like language.