In Freudian psychology, a condensation (german: Verdichtung) is when a single idea (an image, memory, or thought) or dream object stands for several associations and ideas.

In dreams/symptoms/jokes

Freud considered that "dreams are brief, meagre and laconic in comparison with the range and wealth of the dream-thoughts." Images and chains of association have their emotional charges displaced from the originating ideas to the receiving one, where they merge and "condense" together. Thus for example a dream figure may resemble A, wear B's clothes and act like C, but nevertheless we know somehow that they are 'really' D - rather as with the composite photographs of Francis Galton. While condensation could serve the purposes of the dream

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by disguising thoughts, Freud considered condensation as primarily the preferred mode of functioning of the unconscious Id. Freud saw the same mechanism of condensation at work in

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and neurotic symptoms, as well as in parapraxis and jokes: he often cited as an instance Heine's quip about the rich man treating him 'famillionairily'.

In metaphor/metonymy

In the 1950s the concept was used by linguist

Roman Jakobson Roman Osipovich Jakobson (russian: Рома́н О́сипович Якобсо́н; October 11, 1896Kucera, Henry. 1983. "Roman Jakobson." ''Language: Journal of the Linguistic Society of America'' 59(4): 871–883. – July 18,metaphor and metonymy Metaphor (drawing a ''similarity'' between two things) and metonymy (drawing a '' contiguity'' between two things) are two fundamental opposite poles along which a discourse with human language is developed. It has been argued that the two poles o ...

. Comparing the linguistic evidence to Freud's account of the dream-work, Jakobson saw symbolism as relating to metaphor, condensation, and displacement to metonymy. Jakobson's work encouraged Jacques Lacan to say that the

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is structured like a language, though he himself linked condensation to metaphor, not metonymy.J Lacan, ''Ecrits'' (London 1997) p. 60

References

Sources

* Alain de Mijolla (ed.). ''International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis'', 1st vol.: "Condensation", Macmillan Reference Books, Defence mechanisms Psychoanalytic terminology Freudian psychology Rhetorical techniques Narrative techniques Semantics Metonymy Tropes by type {{psychology-stub

In dreams/symptoms/jokes

In metaphor/metonymy

See also

References

Sources