Abstract: Facing psychoanalysis, Beckett’s position among other modernist authors is quite exceptional: not only did he undergo a psychoanalytic treatment for two years while living in London, but also his works are replete with references to psychoanalysis, to the point that a psychoanalyst like Didier Anzieu could say that his texts are a vast continuation of psychoanalysis by the means of writing. After having retraced what we can learn from Beckett’s letters about his cure, I will focus on the impact his psychoanalyst, W. R. Bion, kept having on him. I will also stress how an earlier encounter with Freud (about Descartes) had paved the way for such a deep immersion, and then follow the aftermath of the cure in a few later texts. Finally, it is Beckett’s entire philosophy that can appear as testifying to his struggle with the Freudian Unconscious.

Key words: Samuel Bekett, Psychoanalysis, the Unconscious, fantasy, thinking, truth