Lacan's contention that "the unconscious is structured like a language" was the epiphany — the light-bulb moment — she needed to begin to untangle the puzzles of symptoms, actions and statements that characterized the abused children she worked with, many of whom were considered too sick or damaged to be helped.
Now, two economists, Joshua Angrist of Harvard and Alan Krueger of Princeton, have hit upon an ingenious way to untangle the puzzle.
There is always a new goal to set and a new puzzle to untangle.
There's a little bit more story and puzzle detail to untangle.
The moment you recognise that the mind is not only a collection of processes, thoughts, feelings, memories and prejudices as well as intentions and perceptions then you can more safely pull apart the puzzle, like a person can untangle a ball of wool.
There is real satisfaction in a story deeply told, a case richly argued, a puzzle meticulously untangled.
But the much bigger puzzle is how the government will untangle Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, with their combustible mix of taxpayer support, public policy goals and for-profit structures.
One of the puzzles of the Democratic primary race, which the West Virginia results did little to untangle, is whether voters are more driven by what and whom they are for or by what they are against and what they simply can't abide.
Tangle, untangle and repeat.
If the essay is an interrogation by design, a reasoning-through of some eternally confounding puzzle, Russell suggests that the solutions are not so much within as beyond; the questions he asks of others help him untangle his own.
Our unlike hands will untangle.
