Sussure and the Unconscious

Sussure talks about the arbitrary nature of a signifier's relationship to a signified. In order for cat to mean a fuzzy four-legged thing, it has to exist in a differential relation to all these other terms. The unconscious is very much like this as well. You repress one signifier from one traumatic event and then you repress another signifier from another traumatic event. And down there in the deep hot molten core of yourself, these motherfuckers link up. They are still connected to each other, but connected by difference. It's part of the reason why there's an ambiguous relationship between psychosis and the unconscious.