Int J Psychoanal (2009) doi: 10.1111/j.1745-8315.2008.00117.

How translations of Freud’s writings have influenced

French psychoanalytic thinking1

Jean-Michel Quinodoz
53a Chemin des Fourches, 1223 Cologny, Geneva, Switzerland –
quinodoz.jm@tele2.ch

(Final version accepted 26 October 2008)

Translations of Freud ’s writings have had a lasting influence on psychoanalytic

thinking in France. They have, all the same, given rise to some conceptual distor-
tions as regards the ego and the id, the ideal ego and the ego ideal, and splitting.
Lacan’s ‘return to Freud ’ certainly reawakened interest in Freud ’s writings; how-
ever, by focusing mainly on Freud ’s early work, Lacan’s personal reading played
down the importance of the texts Freud wrote after his metapsychological papers
of 1915. The fact that there is no French edition of Freud ’s complete works makes
it difficult for French psychoanalysts to put them in a proper context with respect
to his developments as a whole. The Oeuvres Compltes [Complete Works]
edition may well turn out to be the equivalent of the Standard Edition, but it is
as yet far from complete – and, since the vocabulary employed is far removed
from everyday language, those volumes already in print tend to make the general
public less likely to read Freud. In this paper, the author evokes certain questions
that go beyond the French example, such as the impact that translations have
within other psychoanalytic contexts. Now that English has become more or less
the lingua franca for communication between psychoanalysts, we have to face up
to new challenges if we are to avoid a twofold risk: that of mere standardization,
as well as that of a ‘Babelization’ of psychoanalysis.

Keywords: French language, historical dimension, International Journal of Psycho-

analysis, L’Année Psychanalytique Internationale, Œuvres Complètes de Freud,
psychanalyse, translating Freud, translations

Almost 100 years of vicissitudes

I would like to examine in this paper the repercussions of the translations of
Freud’s writings on psychoanalytic thinking in France. This study concerns
not only the impact of these translations from a strictly linguistic point of
view, but also the consequences they have on the practice, technique and
theory of psychoanalysts in France. Just as Freud’s theories were to some
extent ‘Anglicized’ as a result of Strachey’s Standard Edition translation,
they have over the past decades become ‘Gallicized’, an influence of which
French psychoanalysts themselves seem to be relatively unaware.
French psychoanalysis is known and appreciated throughout the world, in
particular thanks to its exploration of the neuroses, of Freud’s metapsycho-
logy and of the relationship between linguistics and psychoanalysis. What is
less well known, however, is the fact that the ups and downs of the transla-
tions of Freud’s writings have contributed to a considerable extent to
1
Translated by David Alcorn.

ª 2009 Institute of Psychoanalysis

Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and
350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA on behalf of the Institute of Psychoanalysis
2 J.-M. Quinodoz

shaping the pattern of psychoanalysis in France as we know it today. From

that point of view, two factors have played a decisive role: firstly, the fact
that, as yet, there is no complete edition of Freud’s writings in French that
would give uninitiated readers an overall view of how they developed over
time; and, secondly, Lacan’s obvious preference for Freud’s investigation of
the neuroses led French psychoanalysts to pay more heed to that early part
of Freud’s work than to anything posterior to his Papers on metapsychology
(Freud, 1915–1917). The ‘Gallicization’ of Freud’s theory is a sufficiently
far-reaching topic for it to deserve a more in-depth study. However, given
the complicated nature of the issues involved, I have decided on a more sub-
jective approach based essentially on my experience of working with psycho-
analysts in the context of the International Psychoanalytical Association.2
In addition, my knowledge of foreign languages, in particular, of German,
and my familiarity with many of the various contemporary psychoanalytic
movements have enabled me to take a broader view of French psychoanaly-
sis. That is also why I wanted to have my ideas on this topic published in
an international review, in order to bring a ‘third party’ reference into my
thoughts about French psychoanalysis. I hope that this paper will encourage
colleagues whose native language is not French and who belong to other
psychoanalytic schools of thought to think about these matters.
Over and above the example of French psychoanalysis, this paper high-
lights not only the linguistic but also the intercultural challenges that con-
front us in our discussions among psychoanalysts. The widespread use of
English does have its advantages in terms of means of communication for
our discipline, but its very predominance could well push into the back-
ground the specific nature of minority schools of thought in psychoanalysis
and intensify its dissipation. For these reasons, I think that, in our discus-
sions, we shall have to make more room for questions concerning transla-
tions and their implications for communication within psychoanalysis.

FIRST PERIOD: MANY TRANSLATIONS, BUT INACCURATE

ONES (1920–1956)

The earliest translations of Freud’s writings into French

It was in 1920, in Geneva, that the first translation into French of one of
Freud’s writings3 was published – Five lectures on psycho-analysis (Freud,
1910a [1909]), translated by Yves Le Lay, with a foreword by Edouard Clap-
arde, who was both a medical practitioner and a psychologist. That trans-
lation, of course, appeared in print some 25 years after Studies on Hysteria
(Breuer and Freud, 1895d [1893–95]) was published. If we examine the
Claparde edition, we can see that the translator sometimes took great

2
The French-language societies involved are the Paris Psychoanalytical Society [Socit Psychanalytique
de Paris, SPP], the French Psychoanalytical Association [Association Psychanalytique de France, APF],
and the Belgian, Canadian and Swiss Psychoanalytical Societies [Socit Suisse de Psychanalyse, SSPsa].
3
In 1913, an Italian periodical, Scientia, had published a French translation of The claims of psycho-
analysis to scientific interest [1913j], which seems to have gone unnoticed at the time (Assoun, 1980).

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 Translations of Freud’s writings and French psychoanalytical thinking 3

liberties with Freud’s original text – and this is a common feature of these
early translations. From 1922 on, several publishers brought out other trans-
lations, carried out by different translators – first of all, Payot with S. Jan-
klvitch, then Gallimard with B. Reverchon-Jouve, and Alcan with
I. Meyerson. It is worth pointing out that, from 1920 to 1927, none of these
translations was carried out by practising psychoanalysts. Subsequently,
after several trips to Vienna, Marie Bonaparte translated and encouraged
the translation of several of Freud’s papers, which were published by Gal-
limard; some of these were carried out with the help of Marie Bonaparte’s
secretary, Anne Berman. Later still, between 1928 and 1935, several psycho-
analysts translated other papers by Freud, which were published in the
Revue FranÅaise de Psychanalyse.

Freud’s ideas met with much resistance

In France, there was a great deal of resistance towards Freud’s conceptions
so that it was difficult for them to penetrate into French thinking. There
was first of all the neurological attitude prevalent in French psychiatry, as
well as the philosophical tradition inherited from Descartes. To those obsta-
cles was added the tendency of the translators to modify foreign-language
texts in order to adapt them to French ways of thinking; that tendency was
expressed as a desire to ‘Gallicize’ Freud, in other words, to create what in
fact would amount to a psychoanalysis ‘ la franÅaise’. ‘‘Basically, the idea
was to rewrite Freud so that the French might understand him – and this
amounted to modifying and even falsifying his thinking’’ (Bourguignon and
Bourguignon, 1983, p. 1275). We should also not forget that the heighten-
ing of nationalism that prevailed during and after World War I gave rise to
a great deal of suspicion as regards any ideas that sounded ‘Germanic’.
Nonetheless, Freud’s ideas were warmly welcomed in the French-speaking
region of Switzerland, which is at the crossroads of German and French
culture, so that the first psychoanalysts from that region became in fact the
first to ‘carry’ Freud’s ideas over the frontier. To mention a few names:
Raymond de Saussure, who was analysed by Freud in 1920, Henri Flour-
noy, Charles Odier and John Leuba were among the founder members not
only of the Paris Psychoanalytical Society but also of the Revue FranÅaise de
Psychanalyse and were instrumental in organizing the first Congress
of French-speaking psychoanalysts, which was held in Geneva in 1926
(Quinodoz, 2003).

Terminology still in its early stages

The various translators very soon came up against problems of terminology.
For that reason, a Linguistic Committee for Harmonizing French Psycho-
analytic Vocabulary was set up in 1927. There was immediate agreement on
translating Verdrngung [repression] by ‘refoulement’, Besetzung [cathexis] by
‘investissement’, and for Trieb [drive], ‘pulsion’ was preferred to ‘aimance’
[‘pulling towards’]. Das Ich [the ego] gave rise to some hesitation between ‘le
moi’, ‘l’ego’ or ‘le je’ [the I] – in the end, ‘le moi’ was preferred. For das Es
[the id], there were also several ideas: ‘le soi’ [the self], ‘cela’ [that] and ‘le

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4 J.-M. Quinodoz

Åa’ – initially this was in fact the term chosen, but one year later, after
Freud’s opinion was sought, ‘le soi’ was adopted. I shall come back to this
point later in this paper. Some other terms were agreed upon, but the Com-
mittee was short-lived: in 1928, after only four meetings, it was disbanded.
The translators were asked to refer to Marie Bonaparte who, given her
ongoing contact with Freud, undertook to co-ordinate psychoanalytic
vocabulary in French.

Few psychoanalysts, many translations

If we consider the translations published between 1920 and 1938, we can see
that a considerable number of Freud’s major writings were available to
French-speaking readers before the outbreak of World War II. Eighteen out
of the 22 volumes of Freud’s writings had appeared in print, plus approxi-
mately 30 articles, published mainly in the Revue FranÅaise de Psychanalyse.
The inventory drawn up by R. Dufresne (1971) quite clearly shows that the
translations of Freud’s writings into French were much more numerous and
went much further back in time than is generally thought. A. and O. Bour-
guignon drew the conclusion that:
In spite of all our quite legitimate reservations, the first twenty years of translation
work have undoubtedly been positive. Of course, it will all have to be done over
again; but without all the work, no matter how imperfect, done by those pioneers
in the inter-war period, we would be completely at a loss.
(1983, p. 1265)
By 1938, only four of Freud’s books remained to be translated into
French: Studies on Hysteria, Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety, Moses and
Monotheism, and An Outline of Psycho-Analysis. The outbreak of World
War II in 1939 put a stop to all editorial work on psychoanalysis for more
or less the following ten years. In 1948, Anne Berman’s translation of Moses
and Monotheism was published by Gallimard. Thereafter, she translated the
following papers, which were published by the Presses Universitaires de
France in their ‘Library of Psychoanalysis’ series, under the editorship of
Daniel Lagache: An Outline of Psycho-Analysis (in 1950), La technique
psychanalytique [The Technique of Psychoanalysis] (in 1953), Studies on
Hysteria (in 1956) and a selection of Freud’s letters to Fliess under the title
La naissance de la psychanalyse [The Birth of Psychoanalysis] (also in 1956).
In addition, Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety, translated by P. Jury and
E. Fraenkel, was published in 1951, so that, by the mid-1950s, all Freud’s
writings were available to French-speaking readers.

On the whole, not particularly successful

Translations that were somewhat imprecise and at times a long
way off the mark
They were not all bad, but some were better than others. On the whole, nev-
ertheless, they were ‘‘outrageously inexact’’ as Bourguignon et al. (1989, p.
8) put it. The lack of precision in most of them introduced certain distor-

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 Translations of Freud’s writings and French psychoanalytical thinking 5

tions in the transmission of Freud’s thinking that even today have an impact
on French psychoanalysis. The different translators of that period took sig-
nificant liberties with Freud’s original text. Admittedly, it is often difficult
to resist the temptation to ‘disconnect’ from the original text when faced
with a really difficult problem of translation, but here the ‘betrayals’ were
many in number:
[ ... ] mistakes in the terms used, words missed out, passages omitted, misunder-
standings and misinterpretations, comments and paraphrases, avoidance of difficulty
are all more or less recurrent, depending on the translator. But what could be
expected, given that they were not psychoanalysts and that psychoanalysts, who
themselves had not followed the same intellectual itinerary as Freud, were unable to
grasp all the richness and complexity of his thinking.
(Bourguignon and Bourguignon, 1983, pp. 1275–6)
More than 50 years later, many of those incomplete translations were still
in circulation because no more recent translations had been published, lead-
ing Dufresne to issue the following warning: ‘‘[These translations] run the
risk of creating misunderstandings; they are hardly worth using, except as
an initial reading or a quick re-reading, unless the reader refers constantly
to the original version or to the English translation in the Standard Edition’’
(Dufresne, 1983, p. 1248).

Ignoring the chronology of Freud’s writings

We all know how important it is to have some idea of the chronology of
Freud’s writings in order to understand how his thinking developed. How-
ever, most of the translations of this early period mention neither the year
in which the original German version was published nor make any biblio-
graphical reference to the German original. How were French-speaking
readers to make sense of this? For those who wanted to situate a given text
in the chronological development of Freud’s writings and thereby take into
account the various reworkings that he had brought to his theory, their only
possible recourse was to refer to the Gesammelte Werke (1940–1952) and ⁄ or
to the Standard Edition (1953–1974). Only a small number of psychoanalysts
were sufficiently familiar with German and ⁄ or English to be able to do this,
and in France only a very few did what Colette Chiland and some others
did: learn German with the sole aim of reading Freud in the original lan-
guage. For those who had access only to the French versions, a long and
patient work of personal research was needed if they were to acquire an
overall view of Freud’s writings. Even today, the question of the chronology
of Freud’s papers has still not been resolved, because not all volumes of his
Oeuvres Compltes have appeared in print and their publication does not in
fact follow any chronological order.
I have already mentioned the fact that, from the outset, several publishers
shared the translation rights to Freud’s major texts – especially Payot, Gal-
limard and, after World War II, the Presses Universitaires de France. Shar-
ing the rights in this way meant that several editions could be published,
thus hindering the chronological editing of Freud’s writings as well as delay-
ing for some considerable time any agreement as to the publication of his

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6 J.-M. Quinodoz

Complete Works. I shall return to that point later. In addition, many of

Freud’s other papers were published under various titles in psychoanalytic
and literary reviews, so that readers found it difficult to find their bearings.
Several papers appeared in many different translations – such as Die
Verneinung [Negation], of which there were almost a dozen different
versions! – and, of course, the ‘pirate’ editions and duplications only added
to this sense of fragmentation. The ‘anarchy’ that was a typical feature of
French-language editions of Freud’s writings at that time led, naturally
enough, to gaps in the knowledge that French-speaking readers had of
psychoanalytic theory, as the French-Canadian psychoanalyst, R. Dufresne,
pointed out:
Under such conditions, who among students beginning their training, colleagues in
the provinces or based abroad or even in Paris, psychologists, medical practitioners,
philosophers and the wider readership could possibly have proper access to Freud’s
writings in French? [ ... ] They are thus deprived of any access to Freud. [ ... ]
Translating what he wrote is not enough in itself. It is important that their distribu-
tion lives up to the oeuvre the inheritors of which we claim to be.
(Dufresne, 1983, p. 1252)

Long-term consequences
Generally speaking, the first translation of some important material has a
long-term influence on the minds of its readers, even though improved ver-
sions may follow. The first readers tend to remain faithful to their initial
impression and to the notes that they made at that time. As a result, certain
unfortunate terminological choices made when Das Ich und das Es [The Ego
and the Id] was translated in 1927 still had repercussions decades later. I am
thinking here in particular of the translation of ‘das Es’ by ‘le soi’ [the self],
of the confusion between ‘ego ideal’ and ‘ideal ego’, and of the translation
of Spaltung by ‘morcellement’ [fragmenting] rather than by ‘clivage’ [split-
ting].

Le moi et le soi [The ego and the self]

Published by Freud in 1923, Das Ich und das Es was translated by Janklv-
itch into French under the title Le moi et le soi. It is true that the exact
translation of Es into French can give rise to some hesitation, but the choice
of ‘soi’ could only confuse matters, since ‘soi’ is a reflexive pronoun: self in
English, and selbst in German. The error was corrected 24 years later, when
the word ‘Åa’ replaced ‘soi’, so that nowadays the French title of the book is
much more appropriate: Le moi et le Åa (Freud, 1923b). But the harm was
done. Translating ‘das Es’ by ‘le soi’ not only led to terminological confu-
sion but also made the structural theory that Freud was introducing much
more difficult to understand. That confusion was to the detriment not only
of the notion of the ‘Åa’ [id], but also to that of the ‘soi’ [the self]. This goes
some way to explaining why the idea of ‘le soi’ has never been considered
by French psychoanalysts to be a psychoanalytic concept in the strict sense
of the word (Haynal, 2001), contrary to that of selbst – a term which,

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 Translations of Freud’s writings and French psychoanalytical thinking 7

according to Guttman et al. (1980), can be found some 2975 times in

Freud’s writings – and that of the self in English-language terminology
(Makari, 2008). Subsequently, the criticism Lacan levelled at Ego Psycho-
logy only increased the reservations that French psychoanalysts had with
respect to Freud’s structural theory – which indeed is called in French his
‘second topographical theory’ [‘seconde topique’]. I do not mean to imply,
of course, that French-speaking psychoanalysts discount the importance of
the structural theory – but how many times have I heard colleagues say
that, when he introduced his ‘second topographical theory’, Freud
abandoned all reference to the concept of unconscious, preconscious and
conscious systems, as though he had deliberately replaced the topographical
theory with the structural one, as Green (2006) has argued. In
addition, I think that the emphasis on the idea of ‘je’ [I] rather than on that
of ‘moi’ [ego] pushed into the background the conflicts between ego, super-
ego and id, as well as the part played by unconscious guilt feelings.

Confusion between ‘ego ideal’ and ‘ideal ego’

In his translation of the terms Idealich and Ichideal, unfortunate conceptual
errors were made by Janklvitch. He had, it is true, correctly identified the
appropriate terms: ‘moi idal’ [ideal ego] and ‘idal du moi’ [ego ideal];
unfortunately, he often made the mistake of using one of those terms in
places where the other would have been more appropriate. It was thus inevi-
table that any reader who did not have access either to the German original
or to the Standard Edition text would feel confused. For Freud, the ego ideal
(or superego) is the heir of the Oedipus complex, but Janklvitch writes:
‘‘The ideal ego thus represents the heritage of the Oedipus complex...’’ (Le
moi et le soi (Freud [1923b], 1927, p. 26). That terminological error gave rise
to a conceptual one, because it is not narcissism (the ideal ego) that is the
heir of the Oedipus complex but the ego ideal or superego, as Freud actually
wrote. Another example of the long-term effect of the confusion between
ideal ego and ego ideal is the book written by Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel
(1975), L’idal du moi [The Ego Ideal ], in which she describes phenomena
that have to do with the ‘ideal ego’ but attributes them to the ‘ego ideal’.
That error came from the fact that Chasseguet-Smirgel based her study only
on Janklvitch’s translation – although published almost 50 years earlier, it
is the only one that she mentions in her bibliography. In the 1990s, Chasseg-
uet-Smirgel replied to a question put to her on that point by Dani-
elle Quinodoz, saying that she had no intention of correcting those errors.
In 2004, the book was reissued under a new title: ‘La maladie de l’idalit’:
Essai psychanalytique sur l’idal du moi [The ‘Malady of Ideality’: A Psycho-
analytic Essay on the Ego Ideal].

‘Splitting’ and ‘denial’: Two concepts long neglected

The translation of Spaltung [splitting] by ‘morcellement’ [fragmenting] gave
rise to many years of neglect of Freud’s idea of ‘splitting’ and of ‘splitting
of the ego’ in French psychoanalysis. In her French translation of An Out-
line of Psycho-Analysis in 1949, Anne Berman translated the German

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8 J.-M. Quinodoz

words Spaltung and Ichspaltung by ‘fragmenting’ and ‘fragmenting of the

ego’ instead of by ‘splitting’ and ‘splitting of the ego’. It was only in the
seventh edition, published 25 years later, that this was corrected, so that
the French words ‘clivage’ [splitting] and ‘clivage du moi’ [splitting of the
ego] then appeared, thereby introducing these concepts to French readers
(e.g. Freud [1940a[1939]], 1973, pp. 80, 82). That terminological and con-
ceptual error contributed to a long-lasting neglect of the idea of ‘splitting’
in Freud’s theory. I remember a colleague of mine saying in the 1980s that
the word ‘clivage’ that I was using was nowhere to be found in Freud’s
writings and that the concept was a feature of Kleinian terminology –
which, coming from him, implied harsh criticism of Melanie Klein’s discov-
eries! In addition, such inexactitudes explain the fact that some French
psychoanalysts are still of the opinion that splitting is not a defence mech-
anism, but is simply the passive outcome of a denial of reality, as Canestri
(1990) has noted.

THE SECOND PERIOD: THE ENDLESS WAIT FOR FREUD’S

COMPLETE WORKS (1956–1988)

Many psychoanalysts, few translations

The second period began in 1956 with the publication in French of Studies
on Hysteria and lasted more than 30 years – until 1988, in fact, the year in
which was published volume 13 of the Oeuvres Compltes de Freud. Psych-
analyse [Freud’s Complete Works: Psychoanalysis], the inaugural volume of a
series that is to number 20 in all. In the period 1920–1956, a small number
of psychoanalysts produced a great many translations; paradoxically
enough, the dramatic rise in the number of psychoanalysts in France, begin-
ning in the 1950s, saw relatively few new translations of Freud’s writings or
revisions of those that already existed. The lack of editorial productivity
which characterizes those three decades was due mainly to the schisms that
took place in 1953 and in 1963 within the psychoanalytic movement in
France, to the increasing influence of Jacques Lacan, and to the endless wait
for the French version of Freud’s Complete Works to be set in motion.
These divisions contributed to an atmosphere of uncertainty, not particu-
larly auspicious for an undertaking such as the translation of all Freud’s
writings on psychoanalysis.

Lacan’s ‘return to Freud’: A partial return

The accent is unquestionably on Freud’s early period
The increasing influence of Jacques Lacan on French psychoanalysis was a
major event throughout that period. Lacan quite rightly argued that hasty
readings and faulty translations meant that Freud had been misunderstood;
he therefore recommended a ‘return to Freud’, i.e. a return to Freud’s
original texts. That step was based also on Lacan’s criticism of the leaders
of the International Psychoanalytical Association, and in particular of

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H. Hartmann, E. Kris and R. Loewenstein (the latter had been Lacan’s

analyst); according to Lacan, they misrepresented Freud’s thinking. In addi-
tion, Lacan claimed that his own ideas, based on the relationship between
psychoanalysis and language, were the only true way of ‘returning to
Freud’s thinking’.
In fact, the ‘return to Freud’ advocated by Lacan was not a return to
‘all’ Freud’s writings, as a cursory glance would have us believe, but a
return to Freud’s early period (Quinodoz, 2005, p. 53). It is true, of course,
that Lacan was familiar with the whole range of Freud’s writings, and it is
to his credit that he did highlight a certain number of aspects that until
then had been misunderstood or underestimated. Nonetheless, he took as
his basis only the texts that Freud had written between 1895 and 1915,
among which were Studies on Hysteria (1895d [1893–95]), The Interpreta-
tion of Dreams (1900a), Jokes and their relation to the unconscious (1905c)
and the papers on metapsychology written in 1915; in Lacan’s view, in
these latter papers, Freud’s thinking reached its zenith. Basically, all these
texts emphasize the psychic mechanisms that come into play in neurotic
states. For Lacan, the neuroses were the indication par excellence for
psychoanalytic treatment, since neurotic patients are able to grasp the sym-
bolic meaning of language. In short, from a theoretical point of view, the
Lacanian conception of psychoanalysis is based essentially on repression,
the topographical model of the mind (conscious, preconscious and uncon-
scious systems), the first theory of the instinctual drives (the pleasure–
unpleasure principle), the theory of seduction and the positive dimension
of the transference. It takes hardly any notice of conflicts between ego, id
and superego, of splitting, or of certain other aspects that I shall discuss
later in this paper.

Why so few translations by the Lacanians?

It would have been reasonable to expect that Lacan’s recommended ‘return
to Freud’ could have acted as a stimulus for new translations. Paradoxically
enough, this was not the case. The sometimes excessive liberties that Lacan
took with Freud’s original texts may go some way to explaining that situa-
tion. His understanding of what Freud had written was often surprising, giv-
ing rise to misinterpretations and a peculiar kind of terminology:
We shall say nothing about the fate he reserved for desire, raised to the level of an
omnipotent Desire, even though that one word in French translates more than half
a dozen German words (Begierde, Drang, Gelste, Gier, Lust, Sehnsucht, Verlangen,
Wunsch, Wnschen – als Wnsche haben) – and there are indisputable nuances of
meaning between them. It is even more serious, in our view, when we see the word
drive [drift] each time that Freud writes Triebe [drive; now translated in French as
‘pulsion’]. [ ... ] These misinterpretations are by no means innocent, because they
call into question a major aspect of metapsychology. [ ... ] It is therefore easy to
understand that, disconcerted by this approach to Freud’s writings, Lacan’s follow-
ers hesitated to commit themselves to carrying out any translations – the whole
undertaking became difficult and indeed in certain cases impossible.
(Bourguignon and Bourguignon, 1983, p. 1277)

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Minimizing the second phase of Freud’s work

In Lacan’s view, Freud’s post-1915 writings are above all a reflection of the
therapeutic impasses he found himself in, particularly in the psychoanalytic
treatment of depression, of psychosis and of the perversions. For example,
Lacan felt that Mourning and melancholia (Freud, 1917e[1915]) had no place
in psychoanalytic thinking even though it was in that paper that Freud
described the fundamental intrapsychic conflict that lay at the heart of
depression (the term used at that time was ‘melancholia’). I asked one of
my supervisors, Olivier Flournoy, a pupil of Lacan’s, why that paper was
looked down upon. According to Flournoy, both he and Lacan felt that the
denial of separation from and loss of the object in melancholia or depres-
sion had to do with a real object, and that any conflict having to do with
reality was a matter, not for psychoanalysis, but for psychiatry. On much
the same basis, Lacan criticized Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety (Freud,
1926d[1925]) in his seminar on anxiety, and excluded the idea of separation
anxiety from the field of psychoanalysis: ‘‘In contradiction to common expe-
rience, on several occasions Lacan denies the reality of separation anxiety’’
(Diatkine, 2006, p. 1052).
Lacan took little notice of the idea of the ‘ego’, preferring that of the
‘I’; the ego henceforth belonged to the Imaginary dimension. It is under-
standable that, since it was impossible to have access to translations of all
of Freud’s writings, only a few psychoanalysts in France were able to con-
textualize these discussions from a chronological perspective of Freud’s
theory.

Freud no later than 1915: A specifically French attitude?

From that point of view, there is a marked contrast between the conceptions
prevalent among French psychoanalysts and those found in other countries.
To mention just one example: psychoanalysts belonging to the British school
lay their main emphasis on Freud’s post-1915 developments, without, all the
same, rejecting his earlier contributions. I am thinking here, in particular, of
object relations, of the part played by projection and introjection, of the
vicissitudes of the affects of love and hate (Mourning and melancholia, op.
cit.), and of the conflict between the life and death drives (Beyond the Plea-
sure Principle [1920g]). To these conceptions, we must add the structural
model of the mind (The Ego and the Id [1923b]), the part played by anxiety
about separation from and loss of the object (Inhibitions, Symptoms and
Anxiety [1926d[1925]]) and the concepts of denial and of splitting of the ego
(Fetishism [1927e], An Outline of Psycho-Analysis [1940a[1938]]). The fact
that so little importance was given by our French colleagues to that second
period of Freud’s writings no doubt made it difficult for them to grasp the
fact that what Melanie Klein and her followers were doing was an extension
of Freud’s own work, suggesting solutions in certain areas that Freud him-
self had left open.
Nevertheless, for some time now these two schools of thought – which
everything seemed to separate – have been drawing closer together. On the

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 Translations of Freud’s writings and French psychoanalytical thinking 11

one hand, although some French psychoanalysts still clearly prefer, from
both a theoretical and a technical point of view, Freud’s early period, thus
reserving classic psychoanalytic treatment for neurotic patients, they are
more and more interested in the kind of themes that British psychoanalysts
are working on, particularly as regards patients reputed to be ‘difficult
cases’; and, on the other, British psychoanalysts are paying closer attention
to what their French counterparts have discovered about the neuroses and
psychosomatic disorders.

Thirty years of prevarication, waiting for the Complete Works

The failure of several attempts
There were many attempts at launching this ambitious project; the idea of
such an undertaking was already germinating since as early as the
mid-1950s. Several groups of translators had begun working on the project,
particularly under the direction of J. Laplanche, J-B. Pontalis and A. Bour-
guignon, assisted by the Germanist P. Cotet. They soon came up against
the fact that they required the assent of all three publishers who held rights
to the French translations of Freud’s writings. In 1966, after many years of
negotiations, the publishers came to an agreement. At that point, however,
it became clear that there were two contradictory views of what such a
translation should be. One view was held by M. Robert and M. de
M’Uzan, both members of the Paris Psychoanalytical Society, while
D. Lagache, J. Laplanche and J-B. Pontalis, all members of the French
Psychoanalytical Association, had a completely different concept. In 1967,
thanks to the mediation of the International Psychoanalytical Association,
Laplanche and Pontalis were entrusted with the task of editing the Com-
plete Works; they agreed to work with both the Paris Society and the
French Association in doing so. Further difficulties emerged, however, as
regards the actual translations, because the undertaking soon proved to be
much greater and more complex than initially thought: almost every one of
the existing translations had to be reviewed – and to all intents and pur-
poses that amounted to re-translating all of them – editors’ notes had to
be drafted, the bibliography researched, indexes drawn up, etc. By the
beginning of the 1980s, after some 15 years, none of the translations, on
which much work had been done, had appeared in print. The endless pre-
varication in the negotiations demotivated most of those concerned. ‘When
will Freud be translated in France?’ exclaimed Serge Moscovici (1981) in
Le Monde newspaper in 1981. A decisive impetus had been given in 1967,
with the publication of the Vocabulaire de la Psychanalyse [The Language
of Psychoanalysis] by Laplanche and Pontalis (1967), both of them psycho-
analysts who had initially trained in philosophy. The volume was the out-
come of a university thesis that had taken them eight years to write, under
the leadership of D. Lagache; ever since, it has been an essential instrument
for this kind of work. When the Vocabulaire de la Psychanalyse appeared
in print, the whole question of translating Freud’s complete works came
once again to the fore.

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12 J.-M. Quinodoz

Translations and revisions in everyday French

Unable to publish the results of their efforts in the Complete Works series
that was finding it difficult to get off the ground, Laplanche, Pontalis and
the members of the Bourguignon and Cotet group were authorized, by all
three publishing houses – Gallimard, Payot and the Presses Universitaires
de France – to publish their translations and revisions. This meant that
the following material could see the light of day: Mtapsychologie [Metapsy-
chology] (1968), translated by Laplanche and Pontalis, La vie sexuelle [Sexu-
ality] (1969) and Nvrose, psychose et perversion [Neurosis, psychosis and
perversion] (1973), all three published under the general editorship of Lap-
lanche. In 1974, there appeared the bilingual edition of L’homme aux rats
[The ‘Rat Man’], by E. and P. Hawelka, while Pontalis founded a new series,
‘Connaissance de l’Inconscient’ [‘Knowledge of the Unconscious’], published
by Gallimard, which included the main items from Freud’s Correspondence.
In the years that followed, other translations and revisions filled a certain
number of gaps. I am thinking here particularly of the two volumes Rsul-
tats, ides et problmes [Results, Ideas, Problems] published by the Presses
Universitaires de France in 1984 and 1985, and the fresh translations of
Freud’s New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (1933a[1932]) pub-
lished by Gallimard in 1984, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality
(1905d) (Gallimard, 1987) and Jokes and their relation to the unconscious
(1905c) (Gallimard, 1988), to mention but a few. Personally speaking, I still
appreciate the way in which the translators of that period managed to
remain faithful to Freud’s original texts while adopting a style of writing
that is close to everyday French – those translations enable me to dream
and to associate freely. Finally, in the mid-1980s, the three French publish-
ing houses came to an agreement, and it was decided that the publication of
Freud’s Complete Works would be undertaken by the Presses Universitaires
de France. The editorial board had still to be decided upon. Given that it
was impossible to find in France the equivalent of a James Strachey who
had performed the amazing feat of single-handedly translating the Standard
Edition, a staff of translators was set up under the general leadership of
A. Bourguignon and P. Cotet and the scientific editorship of J. Laplanche.

THIRD PERIOD: THE OEUVRES COMPLÈTES DE FREUD.

PSYCHANALYSE – OCF.P [THE COMPLETE WORKS OF
FREUD. PSYCHOANALYSIS] (1988–2008)

Fourteen volumes out of the anticipated twenty have so far

been published
In 1988, the first volume of Freud’s complete psychoanalytic works in
French (Oeuvres Compltes de Freud. Psychanalyse – OCF.P) was published:
this was Volume XIII, containing Freud’s papers on metapsychology and
other writings. So far, fourteen volumes out of the planned 20 have appeared
in print; these volumes have not been published in chronological order but
in a somewhat disorganized manner. French-speaking readers will still have

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 Translations of Freud’s writings and French psychoanalytical thinking 13

to wait before an overall chronological view of Freud’s theory becomes

available to them – until the final volumes are published, along with a bibli-
ography and indexes. Freud’s neurological papers will be issued separately,
but no date for their publication has as yet been fixed.

Scientific exactness
The first volume was welcomed with some relief, since it meant that a highly
precise French translation of Freud’s psychoanalytic writings was – at last –
available. Following the model of the Standard Edition, the introduction to
each paper carries the publication dates of the main German editions as well
as those of the English and French translations. An Editor’s Note precedes
the main body of the text, the layout of which is such that the page numbers
of the Gesammelte Werke edition can be found in the margins. That said,
the accepted chronology of several of Freud’s writings has been changed:
instead of being classified according to the date of publication, as is the
usual practice in the international community, the criterion adopted is the
date of their actual writing (insofar as this is known), a modification that
cannot but create confusion. For example, the translation of the ‘Wolf Man’
paper (Freud, 1918b[1914]) is dated ‘1914’ and appears in Volume XIII,
whereas one would have expected it to be dated 1918 and published in Vol-
ume XV.

The start of a lengthy controversy

Although people were justifiably delighted when the first volume of the
OCF.P appeared in print, many found themselves more and more discon-
certed as they read through the text. With the aim of following Freud’s ori-
ginal text as closely as possible, the translators felt it necessary to invent a
certain number of neologisms and make use of a style of writing that
sounded quite unfamiliar, one that evoked no affective response in French.
A fierce controversy sprang up in several psychoanalytic journals and in the
press. As the literary critic John E. Jackson wrote in the Journal de Genve
(Jackson, 1988, 21 May, p. 2):
Freud re-translated – what a catastrophe! I invite the translators to remember that
the language spoken by the readers to whom they are addressing themselves is
French, that that language has its own rules and above all means of expression
which ought not to be exactly modelled on those of the German language on the
pretext, as false as it is ridiculous, of remaining faithful to the original.
The Revue FranÅaise de Psychanalyse began a column entitled ‘Chronicles
of the Oeuvres Compltes translation’ in which many psychoanalysts
expressed their disagreement with the editorial policy of the OCF.P.

The French language manhandled

Let me begin this section by apologizing to those readers who may not be
familiar with the French language: I am now about to discuss issues that
are difficult to communicate from one language to another, issues that have
to do with certain specific aspects of the French language. For those who do

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14 J.-M. Quinodoz

not speak French, I shall, to the best of my ability, try to make these com-
ments comprehensible.
Most commentators acknowledged the conscientiousness of the OCF.P
translators in dealing with the enormous task they had set themselves; their
criticisms were for the most part levelled at the fact that the language
employed makes Freud’s writings difficult to understand, not only for a
wider readership but also, in some cases, for psychoanalysts themselves. Col-
ette Chiland (1988), for example, acknowledged that the OCF.P, as a critical
edition, is an ‘exemplary’ instrument and reference document. She was
nonetheless saddened by the fact that many passages were incomprehensible:
‘‘[ ... ] Some passages are not written in French: they are said to be in
‘Freudian French’, but they are in fact written in ‘Laplanchian’’’ (p. 997).
I. Barande (1988, p. 972) described the translation as ‘‘uncosmetic surgery’’,
saying that it amounted to an attack on Freud’s style of writing in German,
the letter of which has become unrecognizable and the spirit of which has
lost all vitality. M. Pollak-Cornillot deplored several choices which only dis-
concerted French-speaking readers, for example ‘fantaisie’ [fancy] in the sin-
gular as a substitute for ‘imagination’ [Phantasie], and ‘fantaisies’ [fantasies]
in the plural as a substitute for ‘fantasmes’ [Phantasien]. She argued that by
substituting ‘fantaisie’ for ‘imagination’, the latter word, which is highly
evocative, would no longer play the essential role that it had fulfilled until
then whenever Freud’s writings were read: ‘‘Fantaisie will never have, in the
mind of French readers, the same impact, the same evocative power’’
(Pollak-Cornillot, 1994, p. 247).

Excessive use of ‘terminological words’

H.-M. Gauger, an expert in Romance languages, gave a well-balanced
account of the characteristic features of the first volumes of the OCF.P. The
translations were done in a very conscientious manner and are the fruit of a
vast amount of work and devotion to the task. His basic criticism has to do
with the fact that the text of the French translation is too far removed from
the language employed by Freud, which was essentially that of the classic
everyday German of a well-educated person: ‘‘[The translation] undoubtedly
keeps to the text; the problem is that it keeps too closely to the text, so that
it does not keep closely enough to the target language, to the linguistic
awareness of the French-speaking reader’’ (Gauger, 1994, p. 553).
The OCF.P translations, unlike those of the first period, deserve credit for
dealing seriously with Freud’s terminology; however, all through the text,
they do tend to make too much use of ‘terminological words’ which in fact
do not exist in Freud’s use of German: ‘‘In that sense, Freud is a bit like
Kafka: a discourse that is linguistically entirely normal, with its kind of old-
fashioned academic charm and quite extraordinary content’’ (Gauger, op.
cit., p. 552). Gauger remarked on the syntactic and lexical ponderousness
brought about by the introduction of so many neologisms such as ‘passag-
ret’ [temporariness] for the previous ‘phmre’ [ephemeral, short-lived] –
Vergnglichkeit [transience] in German – or ‘refusement’ [refusing] for ‘dfail-
lance’ [failing, default] – Versagung [frustration]. Similarly, Gauger pointed

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 Translations of Freud’s writings and French psychoanalytical thinking 15

out some ‘excessive’ translations and misunderstandings: ‘‘Dsaide [loss of

help] for ‘dtresse’ [distress – the original translation of helplessness] is one
example, because Hilflosigkeit and hilflos do not mean, curiously enough,
that somebody is lacking in help; they mean that the person is unable to
help him- or herself ’’ [op. cit., p. 555].

‘Âme’ [soul] for ‘psychisme’ [mind], ‘animique’ [animistic] for

‘psychique’ [psychic, psychical]
Personally, I am disconcerted by the editorial policy of replacing ‘psychisme’
[Seele ⁄ mind] and ‘psychique’ [seelig ⁄ psychical or mental] by ‘me’ [soul]
and ‘animique’ [animistic] throughout the OCF.P. By substituting for the
noun psychisme and the adjective psychique the words me and animique, the
translators have introduced a fundamental distortion into our understanding
in French of Freud’s thinking. In the first place, the word me in ordinary
French has an essentially spiritual connotation, and does not possess the
double meaning of the German word Seele; in addition, the adjective animi-
que evokes magic, primitive modes of thought and is in any case a neolo-
gism. The English-speaking reader can imagine the effect produced if terms
with spiritual and magical connotations were used throughout the Standard
Edition to describe the mind and its functions. Criticisms on other points
continued to be voiced as subsequent volumes of the OCF.P appeared over
the years (Quinodoz, 1992), but had no effect on editorial policy; the
translators have continued to work with the approach that they adopted
originally.

The OCF.P translators explain

In 1989, one year after the first volume appeared in print, the editorial
board of the OCF.P gave some detailed explanations of the options that
they had chosen in Traduire Freud [Translating Freud], a book which
includes a ‘glossary’ and a ‘structured terminology’ in which the authors
give details of their principal terminological and conceptual choices
(Bourguignon et al., 1989). The book testifies to the importance of the preli-
minary work done within the group of translators with the aim of maintain-
ing unity of style, terminology and comprehension. This is how they
describe their project as compared to previous translations of Freud’s
writings:
The present edition [ ... ] has as its aim a unitary version, as close as possible to
Freud’s terminology and expression. In that, it is different from all previous and
contemporary translations into French, which, as a whole, constitute nothing but a
patchwork in which each translator gave pre-eminence to his or her own style rather
than to Freud’s.
(Bourguignon et al., 1989, p. 69)
The work was carried out by several teams which brought together three
sorts of essential skills: knowledge of German, of French literary and scien-
tific language, and of Freud’s work. Some of those involved were practising
psychoanalysts. In their foreword, the authors of Traduire Freud insist on

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16 J.-M. Quinodoz

their total independence with respect to any ‘school’ or institution: ‘‘This

project is permanently and absolutely independent of any institutional con-
trol, manifest or hidden. No society, no group of analysts has any right
whatsoever to audit our work [ ... ]’’ (op. cit., p. 7). Among the various
options open to them, the translators adopted an approach that led them to
follow as closely as possible the wording of the original text so as to be able
to express as faithfully as possible its inflections and its stylistic, semantic
and conceptual particularities. ‘‘That, in a nutshell, is the justification for
this project: to translate Freud by inventing, by shaping for him, not some
kind of ‘Germanic’ French, but a ‘Freudian French’ that calls upon all the
resources of the French language in the same way as Freud used those of
German’’ (op. cit., p. 14). In their desire to be as faithful as possible to
Freud, the translators made a point of always treating as an imperative the
following guideline: ‘‘The text, the whole text, nothing but the text’’ (ibid.).
It was an immense task, it must be said, and we should pay tribute to the
dedication that the translators showed in their attempt to make the OCF.P
the work of reference that until then had been unavailable to French psycho-
analysts.

Fears for the future of psychoanalysis

As early as 1988, some were expressing their concern over the long-term
consequences of the OCF.P translators’ decision to abandon everyday
French: with these new translations, was the wider readership – and psycho-
analysts in particular – about to lose contact with Freud’s thinking? As
soon as the first volume appeared, I. Barande voiced her concern: ‘‘For the
reader, naive because not a polyglot, what will be the destiny of such a dis-
torted message?’’ (1998, p. 972). Describing the translations as epitomizing a
‘‘forcing of the French language’’, M. Pollak-Cornillot went on to express
her alarm:
Today, one feels somewhat uneasy at having to denounce so vigorously not only
mistakes in translation but also the very conception in which this translation is
being carried out; but it has to be done, so that French readers will not once and
for all classify Freud as an obscure writer and attribute that obscurantism to
psychoanalysis itself’
(Pollak-Cornillot, 1994, p. 20)
I have myself had a similar experience in a seminar in which the partici-
pants had been reading Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents (Freud,
1930a[1929]) in the new OCF.P translation. Puzzled by this version and
unable to compare it with other French translations or with the original
German text, the seminar participants were surprised by the disconcerting
style of the writing – which they attributed to Freud himself.
Twenty years have gone by since Colette Chiland, in an amusing pastiche
of OCF.P terminology, wrote in 1988 of her fear that resorting to that writ-
ten language might end up contaminating its oral counterpart. Nowadays,
indeed, that form of language is evidenced in the way in which a certain
number of French psychoanalysts express themselves orally, not only in their
writing, without their realizing just how great a distance they are putting

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 Translations of Freud’s writings and French psychoanalytical thinking 17

between themselves and ordinary people. Some believe that the language
adopted in the OCF.P is part of the natural evolution of the French lan-
guage; others argue that it is quite legitimate for French psychoanalysis to
invent its own vocabulary and style, just as any other scientific discipline
does. G-A. Goldschmidt has recently raised objections to that kind of argu-
ment: ‘‘In France, and in particular in psychoanalytic circles, people seem to
want to keep the language for themselves as a kind of initiatory rite on the
way to true knowledge’’ (2007, p. 80).
In concluding this section, I would simply remind readers of what Freud
himself said about his choice of ordinary German words for das Ich and
das Es:
You will probably protest at our having chosen simple pronouns to describe our
two agencies or provinces instead of giving them orotund Greek names. In psycho-
analysis, however, we like to keep in contact with the popular mode of thinking and
prefer to make its concepts scientifically serviceable rather than to reject them.
There is no merit in this; we are obliged to take this line; for our theories must be
understood by our patients, who are often very intelligent, but not always learned.
(Freud, 1926e, p. 195)

Conclusion
The ideas that I have developed in this paper lead me to make two practical
suggestions. The first of these is mainly intended for those who are oversee-
ing the translations into French of Freud’s writings, while the other is
addressed to the international psychoanalytic community as a whole, for
I would argue in favour of devoting more time to matters of translation
in our discussions together.

A plea in favour of translations accessible to ordinary readers of

French
As regards translations of Freud’s writings, I think that it is essential for
French publishers to continue to make available to ordinary readers transla-
tions in everyday French such as those published by Gallimard under the
general editorship of J.-B. Pontalis, while the Presses Universitaires de
France continue with their project and publish the remaining volumes in the
OCF.P series.4 It would not, to my mind, be desirable were the OCF.P
translations simply to replace, as time goes by, the existing translations in
everyday French, as is already the case with the publication in the ‘Quadri-
ge’ series of extracts from the OCF.P translations. If the OCF.P translations
were gradually to replace most of those that exist already in ‘natural
French’, the danger would undoubtedly be that the general public, under

4
As of 1 January 2010, Freud’s writings will no longer be subject to copyright restrictions. J.-B. Pontalis
informed me that he intends to go on publishing new translations of Freud’s papers after that date
(letter, 28 April 2008). In the same vein, M. Prigent, the head of the Presses Universitaires de France,
replied to a similar question that I had asked of him: ‘‘We are at present envisaging various editorial
hypotheses, without in any way jeopardizing the intellectual option of translating the Oeuvres Compltes’’
(letter, 23 April 2008).

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18 J.-M. Quinodoz

the impression that Freud himself wrote in erudite terms, would become less
and less interested in his work. To my mind, the general readership must be
given the opportunity of choosing between a translation where the emphasis
is on scientific rigour and one in which the characteristic feature is ‘ordinary
language’. That kind of choice makes for complementarity, not competition,
given that the two sets of translations target a different readership. I would
add that, in my opinion, it would be useful to continue publishing bilingual
editions, as Gallimard has done, so that the reader can refer also to the ori-
ginal versions of the texts.

Devoting more space to translation issues in psychoanalysis

Faced with the increasing danger of a ‘Babelization’ of contemporary
psychoanalysis, there are calls for psychoanalysts to devote more time to
translation issues in our international discussions. In his comments on a
clinical discussion between three psychoanalysts from different linguistic and
cultural backgrounds, D. Scarfone asks what ingredients make for fruitful
discussion in our discipline. He argues that it is the ‘work of translation’
that each protagonist carries out which makes for productive communica-
tion between psychoanalysts. The term ‘work of translation’ is here used in
its wider meaning, to include the psychoanalyst’s experience on several lev-
els, and is not reducible simply to working with words. More precisely, the
aim is to communicate an emotional potential at a deeper level together
with the meanings that it encompasses. When psychoanalytic communi-
cation is successful, argues Scarfone, ‘‘it can transcend geographical, lin-
guistic, cultural and theoretical barriers and concentrate on the major
issues in psychoanalytic work in the strict sense of the term’’ (Scarfone,
2008, p. 259).

Psychoanalysts translating other psychoanalysts

The task of translating psychoanalytic texts is an enormous one and the
problems it poses are highly complex. Although the work is already under
way, a great deal remains to be done. In the space of one short paper, it is
impossible to mention all those who are working towards that end. I would
all the same like to say a word about the impressive work at present being
done by several groups of psychoanalysts who translate on a regular basis
articles that have appeared in English in the International Journal of Psycho-
analysis. The selected articles are translated into several languages; for more
than 20 years now, they have been published in Portuguese and in Spanish
in Latin America, and more recently, in Europe, in French, Italian, German
and Russian.5 Carried out with the aim of producing accurate translations

5
The titles of these annual volumes are as follows: Livro Anual de Psicanlise and Libro Anual de
Psicoanlisis, in Portuguese and Spanish respectively, published in Sao Paulo since 1985; L’Anne
Psychanalytique Internationale (2003–2006, Geneva: Editions Mdecine et Hygine; since 2007 Paris:
InPress); L’Annata Psicoanalitica Internazionale (since 2004, Rome: Edizione Borla); Verkehrte Liebe and
Schweigen (2006 and 2007, Tbingen: Edition diskord). The Russian edition is due to appear for the first
time in 2008 (Moscow: New Literary Observer Publishing House). [See www.annualsofpsychoanalysis.
com]

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 Translations of Freud’s writings and French psychoanalytical thinking 19

that are not ‘‘word by word’’ but ‘‘from world to world’’ as Umberto Eco
(2003) very appositely put it, it is hoped that these translations will be help-
ful for the many readers whose knowledge of English is not adequate
enough to enable them to take full advantage of psychoanalytic papers that
have been published in an international review that remains the reference in
its field. It should also be pointed out that these various publications are of
interest to other psychoanalysts who, although familiar with several lan-
guages, are glad to be able to read articles in their mother tongue and to get
in touch with feelings, impressions and images that go beyond the words
employed.
With the passing of time, the translators of these annual publications – all
of them psychoanalysts – have acquired considerable experience in this field.
They have as a result been able to raise fundamental questions about
psychoanalysis that go beyond strictly terminological and technical issues,
questions indeed that would be well worth discussing in greater depth. One
example would be the internal debate that took place last year in a group of
German-speaking psychoanalysts about an article on the idea of aprs-coup
[deferred action ⁄ afterwardsness] published in English (Faimberg, 2005a, b;
Sodr, 2005); they were working on translating it into German. Even though
the words Nachtrglich and Nachtrglichkeit, originally from German, are
translated into French as ‘aprs-coup’, the translators realized that it was no
longer possible simply to back-translate aprs-coup as Nachtrglich or Nac-
htrglichkeit. ‘Aprs-coup’ had become a psychoanalytic concept in its own
right and, to avoid any confusion between a word in everyday language and
a psychoanalytic concept that we owe specifically to French psychoanalysis,
our German colleagues decided to keep the term aprs-coup (in French) in
their German translation. That is an example of the paradoxical destiny of
a term that has no reversibility from one language to another (Mark Fell-
man, personal communication). The example clearly illustrates the impor-
tance of the issues involved in translation in the wider sense of the term; it
would no doubt be beneficial if the international psychoanalytic community
could listen more attentively to the experience of psychoanalysts who trans-
late other psychoanalysts.

Translations of summary
Wie Übersetzungen von Freuds Schriften das französische psychoanalytische Denken beein-
flusst haben. bersetzungen der Freudschen Schriften haben das psychoanalytische Denken in Frank-
reich nachhaltig beeinflusst. Sie haben gleichzeitig, was das Ich und das Es, das Ideal-Ich und das
Ich-Ideal und die Spaltung anlangt, zu Begriffsverzerrungen gefhrt. Lacans ,,Rckkehr zu Freud’’ hat
das Interesse an Freuds Schriften zweifellos wiederbelebt; durch die vorrangige Konzentration auf Freuds
frhes Werk aber hat Lacans persçnliche Lesart die Bedeutung der Texte, die Freud nach seinen metapsy-
chologischen Beitrgen des Jahres 1915 verfasste, heruntergespielt. Dass es keine franzçsische Edition
smtlicher Schriften Freuds gibt, macht es fr franzçsische Psychoanalytiker schwierig, die verfgbaren
Werke in den entsprechenden Gesamtkontext seiner Entwicklungen einzuordnen. Gut mçglich, dass sich
die Oeuvres Compltes als quivalent der Standard Edition erweisen werden, doch bislang sind sie alles
andere als vollstndig – und weil das verwendete Vokabular mit der Alltagssprache wenig zu tun hat,
sind die bereits gedruckt vorliegenden Bnde kaum dazu angetan, die allgemeine ffentlichkeit zur
Freud-Lektre zu veranlassen. In diesem Beitrag stellt der Verfasser bestimmte Fragen, die ber das fran-
zçsische Beispiel hinausgehen und zum Beispiel den Einfluss betreffen, den bersetzungen in anderen
psychoanalytischen Kontexten ausben. Nachdem im Grunde das Englische zur Lingua franca der Kom-
munikation zwischen Psychoanalytikern geworden ist, stehen wir vor neuen Herausforderungen, wenn

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20 J.-M. Quinodoz
wir ein doppeltes Risiko vermeiden wollen: die Gefahr einer bloßen Standardisierung sowie die einer
,,Babylonisierung’’ der Psychoanalyse.
Cómo las traducciones de los escritos de Freud han influido en el pensamiento psicoanalı́tico
francés. Las traducciones de los escritos de Freud han tenido una influencia duradera en el pensamiento
psicoanal tico en Francia. Sin embargo han originado algunas distorsiones conceptuales en lo que se
refiere al yo y al ello, al yo ideal y al ideal del yo, y a la escisi
n. El ‘‘retorno a Freud’’ de Lacan cierta-
mente volvi
a despertar inters en los escritos de Freud; pero al estar centrado sobre todo en sus pri-
meros trabajos, la lectura personal de Lacan minimiz
la importancia de los textos que Freud escribi

luego de sus trabajos metapsicol

gicos de 1915. La ausencia de una edici
n francesa de las obras com-
pletas de Freud hace dif cil que los psicoanalistas franceses las ubiquen en el contexto apropiado con
respecto a sus desarrollos como un todo. La edici
n de las Oeuvres compltes [Obras completas] bien
puede convertirse en el equivalente de la Standard Edition, pero affln est lejos de ser completa, y al
emplear un vocabulario bastante lejano del lenguaje cotidiano, aquellos volfflmenes en circulaci
n tienden
a hacer menos probable que el pfflblico general lea a Freud. En este art culo el autor suscita ciertas preg-
untas que van ms all del ejemplo francs, tal como el impacto que tiene la traducci
n dentro de otros
contextos psicoanal ticos. Hoy que el ingls se ha vuelto ms o menos la lingua franca para la comunica-
ci
n entre psicoanalistas, tenemos que enfrentar nuevos desaf os si queremos evitar un doble riesgo: tanto
la mera estandarizaci
n, como la ‘‘babelizaci
n’’ del psicoanlisis.
L’influence des traductions de Freud sure la pensée psychanalytique française. Les traductions
de Freud ont exerc une influence durable sur le courant psychanalytique franÅais. En particulier elles
ont introduit certaines distorsions conceptuelles dans les notions de moi et de Åa, de moi idal et d’idal
du moi, ainsi que de clivage. Par ailleurs, le « retour Freud » de J. Lacan a revivifi l’intrÞt pour les
textes freudiens. Mais, en privilgiant la premire priode de Freud, la lecture personnelle de Lacan a
minimis les travaux freudiens postrieurs la Mtapsychologie (1915). L’absence d’une dition franÅaise
des œuvres compltes de Freud rend difficile pour les psychanalystes franÅais de situer les textes freudiens
par rapport l’ensemble de son volution. Encore inacheves, les Œuvres Compltes pourraient devenir
l’quivalent de la Standard Edition, mais en utilisant un franÅais trs diffrent de la langue quotidienne
elles loignent Freud du grand public. Au-del de l’exemple franÅais, cet article peut susciter des interro-
gations sur l’influence des traductions dans diffrentes langues au sein d’autres courants psychanaly-
tiques. A l’heure o l’anglais devient une langue de communication courante entre psychanalystes, de
nouveaux dfis se prsentent nous si nous voulons viter un double danger : aussi bien le risque d’une
uniformisation, que le risque d’une « bablisation » de la psychanalyse.
L’influenza delle traduzioni di Freud sul pensiero psicoanalitico francese. Le traduzioni di Freud
hanno esercitato una continua influenza sull’attuale psicoanalisi francese. In particolare, hanno dato ori-
gine ad alcune distorsioni concettuali nelle nozioni di Io, Id, di Io Ideale e Ideale dell’Io e nel concetto
di scissione. D’altra parte, il ‘ritorno a Freud’ di J. Lacan ha sicuramente riacceso l’interesse per i testi
freudiani. Tuttavia, la lettura personale di Lacan, privilegiando i primi lavori di Freud, ha minimizzato
l’importanza dell’opera freudiana successiva alla pubblicazione della Metapsicologia (1915). Il fatto poi
che manchi un’edizione francese dell’opera completa di Freud rende difficile per gli psicoanalisti francesi
contestualizzare i testi freudiani in modo appropriato e metterli in rapporto all’evoluzione dell’opera nel
suo insieme. Ancora incompiuta, l’ edizione francese potrebbe divenire l’equivalente della Standard Edi-
tion. Tuttavia, poich  stata resa in un francese molto diverso dalla lingua quotidiana, potrebbe anche
allontanare Freud da un pubblico piffl ampio. Questo articolo propone potenziali interrogativi che vanno
oltre l’esempio del francese, come quello dell’influenza che le varie traduzioni esercitano all’interno di
altri contesti psicoanalitici. All’epoca in cui l’inglese costituisce la lingua franca degli psicoanalisti, ci tro-
viamo di fronte a nuove sfide se vogliamo evitare un duplice rischio: da una parte quello di una mera
standardizzazione della psicoanalisi e dall’altra quello di una ‘babelizzazione’ della psicoanalisi.

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