Tome XVI, no. 2 - 2023 (10)

EDITORIAL / Gabriel Balaci

Abstract: The theme of this issue is anchored in the disorientation and the lack of possibility for a prognosis regarding the evolution of the current socio-political context. The psychoanalytic perspective on reality, as revealed in the articles published in this issue, seeks to explain on-going phenomena and thereby reduce the disorientation felt on a social level. Even though war no longer dominates the majority of news space, even though the information reaching us through all communication channels no longer predominantly concerns the reality of war, it cannot be eliminated from the current context. The influences of war are felt both on a global social level and individually. War cannot be thought of, from a psychoanalytic perspective, outside the realm of the death drive, hatred, conflict, or at least the opposition between life and death. In fact, war closely associates death with life, leading to an increase in the intensity of anxieties, the reactivation of past traumas, or the accumulation of new traumas.Read more

1 - WAR or the Refusal of Conflict / Cléopâtre Athanassiou-Popesco

Abstract: The author aims to link the origin of war within the human psyche to Freud’s discovery in the context of the second theory of drives: it concerns the death drive. While conflict is a part of a peaceful psychic state – to the extent that peace presupposes the democratic coexistence of differentiated elements of the self and objects – war is underpinned by the omnipotence of a part of the psyche that seeks to impose its law on the entire psychic organization and, for this purpose, eradicates any claim to the existence of various other parts of the self, objects and the bonds that unite them. The death drive then attempts to impose its law on the life drive. The author found it appropriate to delve into the complexity of the après-coup mechanism to explore this subject and to provide clinical examples to support her hypotheses. Read moreKeywords: après-coup, connection, narcissistic self, reality-self, death drive, life drive

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2 - PSYCHOANALYSIS AS CRITICAL THEORY AND DIAGNOSIS OF THE BAD PRESENT (part II) / Giuseppe Civitarese

Abstract: Psychoanalysis is not only a theory of the mind, a method of studying mental processes and a form of psychotherapy. It can be said to have founded critical theory and to still be an authoritative voice of it. On the one hand, it can be argued that there are no essential differences between individual and social psychology; on the other hand, after Freud, psychoanalysis has made great progress in the study of groups, for example with Bion. The thesis that I propose in this article, with a view to 'updating' Freud's diagnosis of the malaise of civilization, is that both individual and social suffering arise from mechanisms of splitting that are used to cope with distress. The spiritual needs of individuals and groups are sacrificed to the need for security and the satisfaction of material needs. Just as an internal critical agency is formed in the individual, so in society it can take the form of a power that no longer obeys ethical principles and becomes self-referential. What makes this kind of power particularly dangerous is that it uses advances in technology to exercise increasingly invasive and alienating forms of control. What psychoanalysis can do is to remain viable as a critical theory and thus contribute to the diagnosis of the 'bad present'. In this way, it can certainly represent a point of resistance to the degradation of our humanity. Read moreKeywords: splitting, technology, recognition, fear, arrogance, doxa

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3 - WHEN TIME DISAPPEARS / Savca Victor

Abstract: Time, especially the various temporal dimensions in the psychoanalytic process, serves as a crucial reference point for psychoanalysts. Whether it involves accompanying the patient in the inscription of subjective time within historicity, the rhythms of interaction between analyst and patient, or the inherent differences found in the consulting room between the patient’s time and the analyst’s time – whether synchronized or unsynchronized – both patient and analyst traverse a sequence of time together, leaving an imprint on the psychic reality of both. This phenomenon is not exclusive to the analytic relationship, but is also found in everyday interactions. One of the most intriguing forms of these alignments occurs when this process happens through the sharing of dreams. However, when those who share their dreams find themselves in a reality that takes on nightmarish dimensions, such as war and its horrors, not only are dreams marked by this violent intrusion of psychic reality, but so is their sharing. This work focuses on how subjective time is altered in a concentrationary universe, using some of the dreams recounted by Charlotte Beradt in her unsettling work “The Third Reich of Dreams” (Das Dritte Reich des Traums). Read moreKeywords: dream, trauma processing, mourning, time, deadlock, dream work

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4 - BODIES, ANXIETIES AND PHANTASIES IN THE SPACE OF THE HOSPITAL / Savca Victor

Abstract: This paper offers some clinical illustrations which show the way the specialist with a psychoanalytical approach, works with the patients suffering by different somatic pathology, trying to manage their anxieties, during the entire period of hospitalization. In a general hospital- not a psychiatric one- the body is the most exposed to a lot of maneuvers and investigations and it represents the main point of interest from the medical staff. Of course, there is not only the body. The physical sufferance of the patients goes together with a psychological one, many fears, conflicts and anxieties, which are quite handful, sometimes. The confrontation with the limits of body, with ‘the biological bedrock’ as Freud called, arouses in every of us a strong loss anxiety and in the background, the dead anxiety. This anxiety is present for the majority of patients, especially those with the severe and chronic affections. The clinical illustrations presented by the author, show us the way in which the managing of the loss and dead anxieties helps the patients to do and continue the process of mourning, a process so important for the healing, or the diminishing of sufferance, physical and psychological, too. Read moreKeywords: body, psycho-somatic, the biological bedrock, the dead anxiety, loss, the process of mourning

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5 - FROM ONE “FRACTURED SOUL” TO ANOTHER. TRAUMA, MOURNING AND INTERGENERATIONAL DYNAMICS / Savca Victor

Abstract: Based on the novel “Fractured Soul” by Akira Mizubayashi (2019) which relates the loss of a father for a young child and the destruction of this father’s violin, the author reflects on the question of mourning and trauma from the perspective of symbolic repair of lost origins and unconscious transgenerational mandates. The child became a violin maker and spent his entire life trying to restore his father’s broken violin. From one fractured soul to another, from the soul of the violin to the soul of the child... a dialectic that is both painful and deeply moving. Read moreKeywords: soul; grief; intergenerational; unconscious transgenerational mandate; origins; trauma

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6 - THE SILICON CURTAIN / Andreas Hamburger

Abstract: The shock of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine and the helplessness and disorientation we feel as contemporaries reminds us of Sigmund Freud's commentary on the outbreak of the First World War in Zeitgemäßes über Krieg und Tod (2015), which underlines the experience of disillusionment. But our perplexity is different now, as are our illusions, the collapse of which we must contend with today. We lived in an Automat Empire, behind a Silicon Curtain, and now have to realise that the military aggression against Ukraine has thrown us off the dream of a quasi-automatic civilisational progress. It is brute force that once again wants to rule our social, and increasingly our inner, lives. It is good that we have woken up from this dream. Because if psychoanalysis is right about one thing, it is that we should face reality. The reality that the process of humanisation cannot be ordered at the click of a button but must be done every day. Read moreKeywords: war, civilization, algorithms, digitalization, illusion, disillusionment

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7 - “POOR YOUNG MAN WITH A BOOK IN HIS HAND...” THE POOR BEING GOVERNED BY DRIVES... HAMLET / Brîndușa Orășanu

Abstract: The article follows the destiny of the fusion of drives and de-fusion of drives within the Shakespearean character Hamlet. Drawing from Benno Rosenberg’s theory about the mediating object, André Green’s hypothesis about Hamlet’s fraternity with Ophelia, and Catherine Chabert’s perspective on war as an expression of fraternal rivalry, the role of Ophelia is outlined as an object of drive intertwining. Read moreKeywords: death drive, mediating object, fusion of drives, fraternal rivalry, war, Ophelia

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8 - COMMENT ON THE SILICON CURTAIN. TRAUMATIC LEGACIES AND A BREAK INTO REALITY IN A BRAVE DIGITAL WORLD BY ANDREAS HAMBURGER / Brîndușa Orășanu

Abstract: In order to illustrate the repetition compulsion, “this eternal return of the same”, Freud evoked Torquato Tasso’s poem, La Gerusalemme liberata19, and the fact that Tancred kills Clorinda, at war, unaware that under the enemy’s armor right in front of him was the woman he loved. After her burial, Tancred enters a magic forest, he slashes with his sword a tall tree; but blood streams from the cut and the voice of Clorinda, whose soul was imprisoned in the tree, is heard complaining that he has wounded his beloved once again (Freud, 1920, p. 21; Tasso, 1581, canto XIII). Read more

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9 - SUBMISSION. IDEOLOGY AND DEFENSES / Alice Popescu

Abstract: The article tries to analyse the reactions of some of the characters in Michel Houellebecq’s "Submission" to the installation of an imaginary Islamic dictatorship in today’s France. The approach draws on defense (AE) mechanisms, as described in Jerome Blackman’s book "101 Defenses. How the Mind Shields Itself". Houellebecq’s novel is emblematic of the insidious ways in which ideological discourse is instilled in people’s minds to become part of their personal beliefs. Read moreKeywords: defense mechanisms, Michel Houellebecq, Submission, ideology, political unconscious, dystopia

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