The International Journal of

Int J Psychoanal (2010) 91:695716

doi: 10.1111/j.1745-8315.2008.00117.x

How translations of Freuds writings have influenced

French psychoanalytic thinking1
Jean-Michel Quinodoz
53a Chemin des Fourches,
quinodoz.jm@tele2.ch

1223

Cologny,

Geneva,

Switzerland

(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 distortions as regards the ego and the id, the ideal ego and the ego ideal, and splitting.
Lacans return to Freud certainly reawakened interest in Freud s writings; however, by focusing mainly on Freud s early work, Lacans 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 Psychoanalysis, LAnnee Psychanalytique Internationale, uvres Comple`tes 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
Freuds 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 Freuds theories were to some
extent Anglicized as a result of Stracheys 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 Freuds metapsychology and of the relationship between linguistics and psychoanalysis. What is
less well known, however, is the fact that the ups and downs of the translations of Freuds writings have contributed to a considerable extent to
1

Translated by David Alcorn.

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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

J.-M. Quinodoz

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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 Freuds writings in French that
would give uninitiated readers an overall view of how they developed over
time; and, secondly, Lacans obvious preference for Freuds investigation of
the neuroses led French psychoanalysts to pay more heed to that early part
of Freuds work than to anything posterior to his Papers on metapsychology
(Freud, 19151917). The Gallicization of Freuds 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 subjective approach based essentially on my experience of working with psychoanalysts 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 psychoanalysis. 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 highlights not only the linguistic but also the intercultural challenges that confront 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 background the specific nature of minority schools of thought in psychoanalysis
and intensify its dissipation. For these reasons, I think that, in our discussions, we shall have to make more room for questions concerning translations and their implications for communication within psychoanalysis.

FIRST PERIOD: MANY TRANSLATIONS, BUT INACCURATE

ONES (19201956)
The earliest translations of Freuds writings into French
It was in 1920, in Geneva, that the first translation into French of one of
Freuds writings3 was published Five lectures on psycho-analysis (Freud,
1910a [1909]), translated by Yves Le Lay, with a foreword by Edouard Claparde, who was both a medical practitioner and a psychologist. That translation, of course, appeared in print some 25 years after Studies on Hysteria
(Breuer and Freud, 1895d [189395]) 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].

In 1913, an Italian periodical, Scientia, had published a French translation of The claims of psychoanalysis to scientific interest [1913j], which seems to have gone unnoticed at the time (Assoun, 1980).

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liberties with Freuds original text and this is a common feature of these
early translations. From 1922 on, several publishers brought out other translations, carried out by different translators first of all, Payot with S. Janklvitch, 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 Freuds papers, which were published by Gallimard; some of these were carried out with the help of Marie Bonapartes
secretary, Anne Berman. Later still, between 1928 and 1935, several psychoanalysts translated other papers by Freud, which were published in the
Revue Franaise de Psychanalyse.

Freuds ideas met with much resistance

In France, there was a great deal of resistance towards Freuds 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 obstacles 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 franaise. 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 heightening 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, Freuds 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 Freuds ideas over the frontier. To mention a few names:
Raymond de Saussure, who was analysed by Freud in 1920, Henri Flournoy, Charles Odier and John Leuba were among the founder members not
only of the Paris Psychoanalytical Society but also of the Revue Franaise 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 Psychoanalytic 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, lego 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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a initially this was in fact the term chosen, but one year later, after
Freuds 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 Committee 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 Freuds major writings were available to
French-speaking readers before the outbreak of World War II. Eighteen out
of the 22 volumes of Freuds writings had appeared in print, plus approximately 30 articles, published mainly in the Revue Franaise de Psychanalyse.
The inventory drawn up by R. Dufresne (1971) quite clearly shows that the
translations of Freuds writings into French were much more numerous and
went much further back in time than is generally thought. A. and O. Bourguignon 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 Freuds 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 Bermans 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 Freuds 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 Freuds
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,
nevertheless, they were outrageously inexact as Bourguignon et al. (1989,
p. 8) put it. The lack of precision in most of them introduced certain distorInt J Psychoanal (2010) 91

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tions in the transmission of Freuds thinking that even today have an impact
on French psychoanalysis. The different translators of that period took significant liberties with Freuds 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, misunderstandings 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. 12756)

More than 50 years later, many of those incomplete translations were still
in circulation because no more recent translations had been published, leading 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 Freuds writings

We all know how important it is to have some idea of the chronology of
Freuds writings in order to understand how his thinking developed. However, most of the translations of this early period mention neither the year
in which the original German version was published nor make any bibliographical 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 Freuds 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 (19401952) and or
to the Standard Edition (19531974). 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 language. 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 Freuds writings. Even today, the question of the chronology
of Freuds 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 Freuds major texts especially Payot, Gallimard and, after World War II, the Presses Universitaires de France. Sharing the rights in this way meant that several editions could be published,
thus hindering the chronological editing of Freuds writings as well as delaying for some considerable time any agreement as to the publication of his
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Complete Works. I shall return to that point later. In addition, many of

Freuds 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 Freuds 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 Freuds
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 distribution 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 versions 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 [splitting].

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

Published by Freud in 1923, Das Ich und das Es was translated by Janklvitch 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 a replaced soi, so that nowadays the French title of the book is
much more appropriate: Le moi et le a (Freud, 1923b). But the harm was
done. Translating das Es by le soi not only led to terminological confusion 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 a [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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according to Guttman et al. (1980), can be found some 2975 times in

Freuds writings and that of the self in English-language terminology
(Makari, 2008). Subsequently, the criticism Lacan levelled at Ego Psychology only increased the reservations that French psychoanalysts had with
respect to Freuds 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, superego 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 inevitable 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), Lidal 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 Janklvitchs translation although published almost 50 years earlier, it
is the only one that she mentions in her bibliography. In the 1990s, Chasseguet-Smirgel replied to a question put to her on that point by Danielle Quinodoz, saying that she had no intention of correcting those errors.
In 2004, the book was reissued under a new title: La maladie de lidalit:
Essai psychanalytique sur lidal du moi [The Malady of Ideality: A Psychoanalytic 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 Freuds idea of splitting and of splitting
of the ego in French psychoanalysis. In her French translation of An Outline of Psycho-Analysis in 1949, Anne Berman translated the German
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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 conceptual error contributed to a long-lasting neglect of the idea of splitting
in Freuds 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 Freuds
writings and that the concept was a feature of Kleinian terminology
which, coming from him, implied harsh criticism of Melanie Kleins discoveries! In addition, such inexactitudes explain the fact that some French
psychoanalysts are still of the opinion that splitting is not a defence mechanism, but is simply the passive outcome of a denial of reality, as Canestri
(1990) has noted.

THE SECOND PERIOD: THE ENDLESS WAIT FOR FREUDS

COMPLETE WORKS (19561988)
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. Psychanalyse [Freuds Complete Works: Psychoanalysis], the inaugural volume of a
series that is to number 20 in all. In the period 19201956, a small number
of psychoanalysts produced a great many translations; paradoxically
enough, the dramatic rise in the number of psychoanalysts in France, beginning in the 1950s, saw relatively few new translations of Freuds 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 Freuds Complete Works to be set in motion.
These divisions contributed to an atmosphere of uncertainty, not particularly auspicious for an undertaking such as the translation of all Freuds
writings on psychoanalysis.

Lacans return to Freud: A partial return

The accent is unquestionably on Freuds 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 Freuds
original texts. That step was based also on Lacans 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 Lacans

analyst); according to Lacan, they misrepresented Freuds thinking. In addition, Lacan claimed that his own ideas, based on the relationship between
psychoanalysis and language, were the only true way of returning to
Freuds thinking.
In fact, the return to Freud advocated by Lacan was not a return to
all Freuds writings, as a cursory glance would have us believe, but a
return to Freuds early period (Quinodoz, 2005, p. 53). It is true, of course,
that Lacan was familiar with the whole range of Freuds 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 [189395]), The Interpretation of Dreams (1900a), Jokes and their relation to the unconscious (1905c)
and the papers on metapsychology written in 1915; in Lacans view, in
these latter papers, Freuds 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 symbolic 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 unconscious 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 Lacans 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 Freuds original texts may go some way to explaining that situation. His understanding of what Freud had written was often surprising, giving 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 Freuds writings, Lacans followers 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 Freuds work

In Lacans view, Freuds 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 Lacans, 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 depression 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 experience, 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 understandable that, since it was impossible to have access to translations of all
of Freuds writings, only a few psychoanalysts in France were able to contextualize these discussions from a chronological perspective of Freuds
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 Freuds 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 Pleasure 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 Freuds 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 Freuds own work, suggesting solutions in certain areas that Freud himself 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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one hand, although some French psychoanalysts still clearly prefer, from
both a theoretical and a technical point of view, Freuds 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. Bourguignon, 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 Freuds 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
MUzan, 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 Complete 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 purposes 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 prevarication 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 psychoanalysts who had initially trained in philosophy. The volume was the outcome 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 Freuds complete works came
once again to the fore.
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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
[Metapsychology] (1968), translated by Laplanche and Pontalis, La vie sexuelle [Sexuality] (1969) and Nvrose, psychose et perversion [Neurosis, psychosis
and perversion] (1973), all three published under the general editorship of
Laplanche. In 1974, there appeared the bilingual edition of Lhomme aux
rats [The Rat Man], by E. and P. Hawelka, while Pontalis founded a new
series, Connaissance de lInconscient [Knowledge of the Unconscious],
published by Gallimard, which included the main items from Freuds 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
Rsultats, ides et problmes [Results, Ideas, Problems] published by the
Presses Universitaires de France in 1984 and 1985, and the fresh translations
of Freuds New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (1933a[1932]) published 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 Freuds 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 publishing houses came to an agreement, and it was decided that the publication of
Freuds 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 COMPLE`TES DE FREUD.

PSYCHANALYSE OCF.P [THE COMPLETE WORKS OF
FREUD. PSYCHOANALYSIS] (19882008)
Fourteen volumes out of the anticipated twenty have so far
been published
In 1988, the first volume of Freuds complete psychoanalytic works in
French (Oeuvres Compltes de Freud. Psychanalyse OCF.P) was published:
this was Volume XIII, containing Freuds 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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to wait before an overall chronological view of Freuds theory becomes

available to them until the final volumes are published, along with a bibliography and indexes. Freuds 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 Freuds 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 Editors 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 Freuds 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 Volume 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 disconcerted as they read through the text. With the aim of following Freuds original 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 Franaise 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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not speak French, I shall, to the best of my ability, try to make these comments 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 Freuds writings difficult to understand, not only for a
wider readership but also, in some cases, for psychoanalysts themselves. Colette 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 Freuds 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 disconcerted French-speaking readers, for example fantaisie [fancy] in the singular 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 Freuds 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 Freuds terminology; however, all through the text,
they do tend to make too much use of terminological words which in fact
do not exist in Freuds use of German: In that sense, Freud is a bit like
Kafka: a discourse that is linguistically entirely normal, with its kind of oldfashioned 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 passagret [temporariness] for the previous phmre [ephemeral, short-lived]
Vergnglichkeit [transience] in German or refusement [refusing] for dfaillance [failing, default] Versagung [frustration]. Similarly, Gauger pointed
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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].

Ame [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 Freuds 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 animique evokes magic, primitive modes of thought and is in any case a neologism. 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 preliminary work done within the group of translators with the aim of maintaining unity of style, terminology and comprehension. This is how they
describe their project as compared to previous translations of Freuds
writings:
The present edition [ ... ] has as its aim a unitary version, as close as possible to
Freuds 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 Freuds.
(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 scientific language, and of Freuds work. Some of those involved were practising
psychoanalysts. In their foreword, the authors of Traduire Freud insist on
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their total independence with respect to any school or institution: This

project is permanently and absolutely independent of any institutional control, 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 psychoanalysts.

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 psychoanalysts in particular about to lose contact with Freuds 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 distorted 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 participants had been reading Freuds 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 written 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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between themselves and ordinary people. Some believe that the language
adopted in the OCF.P is part of the natural evolution of the French language; 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 argument: 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 psychoanalysis, 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 overseeing the translations into French of Freuds 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 Freuds writings, I think that it is essential for
French publishers to continue to make available to ordinary readers translations 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 Quadrige 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, Freuds writings will no longer be subject to copyright restrictions. J.-B. Pontalis
informed me that he intends to go on publishing new translations of Freuds 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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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 original 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 communication between psychoanalysts. The term work of translation is here used in
its wider meaning, to include the psychoanalysts experience on several levels, 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 communication is successful, argues Scarfone, it can transcend geographical, linguistic, 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 Psychoanalysis. 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; LAnne
Psychanalytique Internationale (20032006, Geneva: Editions Mdecine et Hygine; since 2007 Paris:
InPress); LAnnata 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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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 helpful 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 languages, 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 Nachtrglichkeit. 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 Fellman, personal communication). The example clearly illustrates the importance 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 translate other psychoanalysts.

Translations of summary
bersetzungen von Freuds Schriften das franzosische psychoanalytische Denken beeinWie U
flusst haben. bersetzungen der Freudschen Schriften haben das psychoanalytische Denken in Frankreich 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 persnliche Lesart die Bedeutung der Texte, die Freud nach seinen metapsychologischen Beitrgen des Jahres 1915 verfasste, heruntergespielt. Dass es keine franzsische Edition
smtlicher Schriften Freuds gibt, macht es fr franzsische Psychoanalytiker schwierig, die verfgbaren
Werke in den entsprechenden Gesamtkontext seiner Entwicklungen einzuordnen. Gut mglich, 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 franzsische Beispiel hinausgehen und zum Beispiel den Einfluss betreffen, den bersetzungen in anderen
psychoanalytischen Kontexten ausben. Nachdem im Grunde das Englische zur Lingua franca der Kommunikation zwischen Psychoanalytikern geworden ist, stehen wir vor neuen Herausforderungen, wenn
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J.-M. Quinodoz

wir ein doppeltes Risiko vermeiden wollen: die Gefahr einer bloen Standardisierung sowie die einer
,,Babylonisierung der Psychoanalyse.
Como las traducciones de los escritos de Freud han influido en el pensamiento psicoanaltico
frances. 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 ciertamente volvi
a despertar inters en los escritos de Freud; pero al estar centrado sobre todo en sus primeros 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 completas 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 an est lejos de ser completa, y al
emplear un vocabulario bastante lejano del lenguaje cotidiano, aquellos volmenes en circulaci
n tienden
a hacer menos probable que el pblico general lea a Freud. En este art culo el autor suscita ciertas preguntas 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 comunicaci
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.
Linfluence des traductions de Freud sure la pensee psychanalytique francaise. Les traductions
de Freud ont exerc une influence durable sur le courant psychanalytique franais. En particulier elles
ont introduit certaines distorsions conceptuelles dans les notions de moi et de a, de moi idal et didal
du moi, ainsi que de clivage. Par ailleurs, le retour Freud de J. Lacan a revivifi lintrt 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). Labsence dune dition franaise
des uvres compltes de Freud rend difficile pour les psychanalystes franais de situer les textes freudiens
par rapport lensemble de son volution. Encore inacheves, les uvres Compltes pourraient devenir
lquivalent de la Standard Edition, mais en utilisant un franais trs diffrent de la langue quotidienne
elles loignent Freud du grand public. Au-del de lexemple franais, cet article peut susciter des interrogations sur linfluence des traductions dans diffrentes langues au sein dautres courants psychanalytiques. A lheure o langlais 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 dune
uniformisation, que le risque dune bablisation de la psychanalyse.
Linfluenza delle traduzioni di Freud sul pensiero psicoanalitico francese. Le traduzioni di Freud
hanno esercitato una continua influenza sullattuale psicoanalisi francese. In particolare, hanno dato origine ad alcune distorsioni concettuali nelle nozioni di Io, Id, di Io Ideale e Ideale dellIo e nel concetto
di scissione. Daltra parte, il ritorno a Freud di J. Lacan ha sicuramente riacceso linteresse per i testi
freudiani. Tuttavia, la lettura personale di Lacan, privilegiando i primi lavori di Freud, ha minimizzato
limportanza dellopera freudiana successiva alla pubblicazione della Metapsicologia (1915). Il fatto poi
che manchi unedizione francese dellopera completa di Freud rende difficile per gli psicoanalisti francesi
contestualizzare i testi freudiani in modo appropriato e metterli in rapporto allevoluzione dellopera nel
suo insieme. Ancora incompiuta, l edizione francese potrebbe divenire lequivalente della Standard Edition. Tuttavia, poich  stata resa in un francese molto diverso dalla lingua quotidiana, potrebbe anche
allontanare Freud da un pubblico pi ampio. Questo articolo propone potenziali interrogativi che vanno
oltre lesempio del francese, come quello dellinfluenza che le varie traduzioni esercitano allinterno di
altri contesti psicoanalitici. Allepoca in cui linglese costituisce la lingua franca degli psicoanalisti, ci troviamo di fronte a nuove sfide se vogliamo evitare un duplice rischio: da una parte quello di una mera
standardizzazione della psicoanalisi e dallaltra quello di una babelizzazione della psicoanalisi.

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