Narrative and temporality: about the concepts of Nachträglichkeit and Unheimliche in Freud’s clinical theory

Abstract

This article discusses two important Freudian concepts that are mobilized for the explanation of the symptom: the uncanny (Unheimliche) and the afterwardsness (Nachträglichkeit). These notions appear together because of the composite formation of symptom that occurs between unconscious elements and aftermost experiences that allow the return of the repressed. This composition helps us in our goal to treat Freudian clinical theory in a temporal bias, since the formation of the symptom occurs in discontinuous steps along the path of subjective life. So our article discusses the passage of this discontinuity – when the symptom is felt as a uncanny repetition – for the establishment of a narrative of life based on creative instinctual destinations, in which what is showed strange is assumed as own and familiar.