Theories of Resistance in Sigmund Freud and Paul de Man


Freud and de Man both outline theories of resistance in interpretation- the former in his work The Interpretations of Dreams and the latter in his essay "The Resistance to Theory". By extension Freud's definition of the "dream" can be thought of as the literary text, and the retelling of this dream or literary text, as the "reading" of the text. It is through the relationship of the patient's retelling/reading and the psychoanalyst that the interpretation of this text/dream comes into being. There are many parallels and incongruities within the resistance theories named by Freud and de Man such as: the basic problem of retelling and reading of the dream/text, the influence of censorship on the interpretation, the pressures of resistance to interpretation and the notion of the "obvious" meaning. De Man and Freud attempt to illuminate the problems of interpretations in different modes. De Mann moves for a shift from hermeneutics to semiotics, and calls for a restructuring of the trivium where emphasis is placed on reading the structure of the text, while Freud looks to restructure the mechanisms of the unconscious through psychoanalysis, that impede interpretation.

One major parallel between De Man and Freud's theories of resistance is the reading/ retelling of the dream and the text. According to de Mann, the current problem with textual analysis lies in the reading. The classical linguistic model of the trivium scientifically categorizes language into three parts according to "grammar", "rhetoric" and "logic". These three parts function interdependently with one another and are in conflict and it is the rhetorical side which has won out- for now. Grammar and logic are related to the empirical aspect of language, that which is both measurable and tangible. De Man privileges this empirical aspect and calls for...