ABSTRACT
In spite of appearances to the contrary, psychoanalysis has been, since its inception, concerned as much with the non-representational as with the representational aspects of the human mind. By “representational” we refer to what Freud calls “Vorstellungen” and which, as we show later in this chapter, can be subsumed under the three Peircean kinds of signs that can be actively used by the mind—icons, indices, and symbols—with symbols (especially verbal) being the purest form of representation. The non-representation aspects point to what cannot be handled as signs of any sort.
