The Narrative Structure of Transcripts and the Psychoanalytic Self

Abstract

Psychoanalytic publications often contain the patient’s discourse in the form of transcripts in the context of a clinical vignette. These transcripts are productions that result from a set of operations and technologies put at play by the psychoanalytic author, in the process of transmission and dissemination of the psychoanalytic discipline. The focus of our study was to investigate these transcripts and to determine first, if their narrative structure was affected by four factors (diagnosis, psychoanalytic school, gender and source of the transcript), and second, to articulate what type of self was promoted by such narratives. For this purpose, 93 clinical vignettes with transcripts, published in a recognized psychoanalytic journal, were analyzed and the effects of those factors upon the narrative structure of these transcripts, studied. Anova´s results showed that the produced transcripts were affected in their narrative structure by the studied factors. At the same time, the studied factors tended to promote certain forms of selfhood over others through the transcripts.