Wittgenstein on Freud Reexamined: Psychoanalytic Treatments as Language Games: 33

Ludwig Wittgenstein and Sigmund Freud put the use of language at the center of their intellectual and professional activities. This study reexamines Freud’s psychoanalytical treatment in relationship to Wittgenstein’s concept of language-games. In Wittgenstein on Freud Reexamined, psychoanalytical therapy is interpreted with the Wittgensteinian term language-game. Both terms are embedded in their different practical horizons of use, rich in content, and share a familiar context of everyday language. This book is an extensive and detailed investigation of the primary sources. An original perspective on psychoanalytical therapy emerges from rereading Freud and Wittgenstein through the primacy of language in their work. The possibility of significantly expanding the use of language-games results from a careful examination of the beginnings of psychoanalysis. Wittgenstein’s ambivalent attitude toward psychoanalysis appears in a new light.