Melancholik jako kanibal i samobójca. Freuda psychoanaliza melancholii

Abstract

The melancholic as cannibal and as suicidal. Freud’s psychoanalysis of melancholia: Sigmund Freud proposed a new view of melancholy differing fundamentally previous approaches to this phenomenon in the tradition of European philosophy and science from antiquity to modern times. In my presentation, I demonstrate the revolutionary character of this view, the outlines of which already appeared in his early publications with the formulation of the Oedipus complex hypothesis. I point out that according to him the genealogy of melancholy already begins in the oral stage, in which the primary identification of the individual with the object (the mother’s breast) takes place, connected with the aspiration to destroy (“devour”) this object, which results in the appearance of guilt in the individual. This aspiration is counte-red by the tendency to place “cathexis” (interest, Besetzung)on objects (others), direct libidinal fixation on them and their behaviour. If this aspiration proves dominant in the psyche of the individual, the prospect of working through the guilt and breaking out of the vicious circle of melancholy opens up. Otherwise, there is a regression of the individual to the level of primary identification. Then a depressive attitude and the drive for self-destruction intensify. In his view of melancholy, Freud therefore rejects all the metaphysical “mist” that has been built up in European discourse around this phenomenon. According to him, melancholy is first and foremost a profound drama in the individual’s attitude towards himself and others, having its roots in Tanatos. It is a situation in which an individual’s sense of guilt sets in motion powerful forces of self-destruction and death.