ABSTRACT
The silent, elusive movement of the emotional experience becomes a word when it crosses an invisible border, beyond which lie thoughts and speech. However, this transition from experience to speech entails an essential loss. Experience is simplified and objectified, and the individual is drawn farther away from the emotional truth of his being. Thought, right after providing a name, is fascinated by its own power and consequently forgets the reality represented by that name. This is the essential argument that Buber tries to articulate: objectification has replaced the encounter, and today one encounters thoughts and words, not the reality that preceded them. Buber’s analysis seems to be an attack on the tendency of the mind to objectify and then relate to the abstract thought as if it were a real entity (Avnon, 1998). The psychoanalyst, too, might become enthralled with the words and forget the inconceivable, elusive reality that preceded them.
