The Case and the Signifier

Abstract

Exploring Freud’s Rat Man case, this piece analyses the chain of signification that emerges in Freud’s articulation of the rat-related signifiers through which his patient’s neurosis is expressed. Two central concerns guide my reflection: (i) to question the divide between the individual and the social by showing how signifiers are one of the ways in which the symbolic inscribes itself onto the subject; (ii) to discuss how the case study as method proposes generalizations based on a singularity.