ELAINE HOFFMAN BARUCH
121
the borderline might be understood, for this has to do with serious
deficiencies at the level of narcissism.
And then another direction that we might take to understand
these patients is to pay attention to discourse - and it's here that
the contribution of Lacan is important. He taught us to listen to
what he calls , following linguistics , the signifier. So , one would
have to try to follow these patients at the level of their speech, with
all the unconscious implications that their speaking may have–
implications inscribed in their speech at the level of the signifier.
That is rather difficult, because the discourse of the borderline is
fragmentary, difficult to follow, full of gaps , without logical order.
It
would be necessary for the analyst to implicate himself much
more profoundly than in the case of neurotics, in order to be able
to associate on behalf of the patient.
ERB:
When did you decide to become an analyst?
JK:
I was working on language, in particular situations where it does
not yet exist - that is to say, in children, and where it no longer
exists, that is, in psychotics. And as I worked in these linguistic
situations, I realized that I found myself or put myself in a rela–
tion of transference to the people I was observing, and I wanted
to experience these transferences more personally. I came to
realize that there is no such thing as a neutral meaning, and that a
signification is a signification one gives to someone else.
It
was
therefore necessary to contest the whole of positivist linguistics,
and I wanted to put positivist linguistics on trial by starting from a
precise experience of the transference.
ERB:
In an interview that you had done once for
Psych et Pol,
which
was translated in a new anthology edited by Elaine Marks called
New French Fem in isms,
you said, "There can be no socio-political
transformation without a transformation of subjects, in other
words, in our relation to social constraints, to pleasure, and, more
deeply, to language." Elsewhere you have spoken about the im–
portance of language for structuring experience, and so have
other French theorists. American feminists speak about the im–
portance of language also , but I think they are talking about
something quite different. How can we change women's relation
to social constraints, to pleasure , and, especially, to language?
JK:
I don't know what American feminists have in mind when they
speak of the important role of language; I must admit that I don't
know much about American work in this area . When I spoke the
