# exfoliation of x



## psikolog

hi everyone
can you help me translated this sentence into turkish? in particular, i need help for "exfoliation of "
Beyond the mere attribution of agency, motive, intention, experiences that the patient disclaims, there is an extraordinary exfoliation of forces, energies, dynamics, economics, processess, structures to explain the unconscious

thanks a lot


----------



## misi2991

kuvvetlerin derinine inilmesi?


----------



## kalamazoo

I can't even understand the sentence in English!  Where does this sentence come from?


----------



## spiraxo

kalamazoo said:


> I can't even understand the sentence in English!  Where does this sentence come from?


*Self and Others: Selected Works of R D Laing Vol 2*
R D Laing


----------



## kalamazoo

I think this is a botanical metaphor.  Wikipedia describes botanical exfoliation thus "*Exfoliation* (from the term "foliate", meaning “related to leaves”) means the removal or loss of leaves from a plant. It is used both to describe the loss of a leaves as a natural part of a plant's life cycle (such as in the case of deciduous trees which lose their leaves in the autumn) or because of some trauma or outside cause (such as dehydration, an infestation of caterpillars or hurricane-force winds).

In arboriculture, the term “exfoliating bark” describes the natural process and condition of the bark peeling-away from a tree trunk, typically in large pieces that remain partially attached to the trunk until such time as they are completely detached by the elements or the eventual and subsequent exfoliation of additional layers of bark. Examples of trees with exfoliating bark are the paperbark maple and various species of Plane (Sycamore) and birch."

The picture that I get is that the psychiatric profession generates a lot of unjustifiable "explanations' that get shredded or cast off all the time, like a tree losing its leaves or with its bark peeling.  But I don't really understand clearly what this is supposed to mean.

This may be a weird suggestion, but you might try to find a translation into some other language, like Spanish or German, and then translate whatever word the other translation uses into Turkish.


----------



## Torontal




----------



## kalamazoo

I think the difficulty here is not what is the meaning of exfoliation in general, but rather what does the word mean in this context, which is hard to understand.


----------



## misi2991

I don't think the Turkish word for "exfoliation" would mean anything here. I'm probably wrong, but I understand "exfoliation" as used in this context to mean examining something thoroughly to find out the truth.

Here is my attempt at a translation:
Bilinçdışı olanı açıklamak için alelade atfedilen ve hastanın reddettiği etken, güdü, niyet ve tecrübelerin ötesinde, kuvvetlerin, enerjilerin, dinamiklerin, iktisadi yönlerin, süreçlerin ve yapıların titizlikle irdelenmesi vardır/söz konusudur. (???)


----------



## kalamazoo

It is hard to understand what it really means here, but to me the context suggests the idea that people are generating a lot of suggestions that are not based on science at all but rather on unsupported assumptions.  I don't see anything that suggests this is intended to find out the truth.  The word "chimerical" suggests that these ideas are based on illusions.


----------



## elroy

This is indeed quite an opaque metaphor.  My best guess, after reading the sentence several times and doing a bit of research, is that the metaphor is based on the aggressive and painful scrubbing through which physical exfoliation is done: in a purported attempt to probe the patient's experience, the presumptuous psychoanalyst "scrubs away" at the patient with an inundation of _forces, energies, dynamics, economics, processes, structures to explain the 'unconscious'_, leaving the patient emotionally raw and vulnerable, much like exfoliating your skin leaves it tender and susceptible to pain. 

In any event, this doesn't seem to be an established term in psychology, so unless you need to produce a translation, @psikolog, I don't think it's crucially important that you understand precisely what was meant by this particular word choice.  The overall message is a critique of psychoanalysis (or at least certain psychoanalytic approaches), whereby, as stated here, the psychoanalyst "has no direct access to the patient’s experience other than what the patient tells him [...] [y]et [...] is not content with the limitations of the situation that is imposed on him and *prefers to engage in fanciful speculations and inferences* as to what he “supposes” is going on in the patient’s mind, the content of which the patient is presumed to be unawares" (emphasis mine).  The "exfoliation" is part of that irresponsible fanciful process.


----------

