Abstract: Freud and Lacan had two opposing points of view concerning the linguistic
means of expressing the new discipline of psycho-analysis. The former was of a classical
disposition, preferring forms in actual use, though quite revolutionary in the way they could
be conceptualized, whereas the latter made a break with the patterns of the past and created
so many neologisms that a specific publication was devoted to this issue. This opposition is
the starting point for the analysis of the translation into Spanish of these original neologisms
and the problems posed by the secondary term formation involved in the process, not simply
for the central concepts of psychoanalysis but also all the force and the style of the linguistic
expression chosen to convey the novelty.
