Abstract
The author argues for a quantitative , economic approach to psychoanalysis to actualise Freud’s intuition of the ‘economics of nervous force ’. The concept of ‘totalitarian psychic functioning ’ is used as a metaphor for a state of symbiotic oneness and ‘infantile psychic economy’ that can maintain itself throughout adult life, especially in the case of narcissistic insecurity and states of regression . Referring to the work of Ferenczi, the author questions how the psyche comes to relinquish the boundless pleasure of an omnipotent, totalitarian , undifferentiated state to espouse the frustrations of reality necessary for maturation . The analytical frame is used as a ‘transitional space ’ in which to grow. A clinical vignette illustrates the author’s hypothesis.
I am tormented by two aims: to examine what shape the theory of mental functioning takes if one introduces quantitative considerations, a sort of economics of nerve forces; and second, to peel off from psychopathology a gain for normal psychology . (writes Freud in his letter to Wilhelm Fliess on 25th of May, 1895 (Letter 24)).
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References
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Kelley-Lainé, K. (2017). From Totalitarian to Democratic Functioning: The Psychic Economy of Infantile Processes. In: Auestad, L., Treacher Kabesh, A. (eds) Traces of Violence and Freedom of Thought. Studies in the Psychosocial. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57502-9_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57502-9_6
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