Paranoia
From No Subject
| French: paranoïa |
[edit] Psychosis
Paranoia is a form of psychosis characterized principally by delusions.
[edit] Sigmund Freud
Freud's experience of treating paranoiacs was limited.
[edit] Shreber Case
Freud's most extensive work on paranoia is an analysis of the written memoirs of a paranoiac -- a judge named Daniel Paul Schreber.[1]
[edit] Homosexuality
It is in this work that Freud puts forward his theory that paranoia is a defence against homosexuality, arguing that the different forms of paranoiac delusion are based on different ways of negating the phrase "I (a man) love him."
[edit] Jacques Lacan
Lacan's interest in paranoia predates his interest in psychoanalysis.
[edit] Case of Aimée
It is the subject of his first major work, his doctoral dissertation.[2]
In this work, Lacan discusses a psychotic woman whom he calls "Aimée", whom he diagnoses as suffering from "self-punishment paranoia" (paranoïa d'autopunition) - a new clinical structure proposed by Lacan himself.
[edit] Seminar III
Lacan returns to the subject of paranoia in his seminar of 1955-6, The Psychoses which he devotes to a sustained commentary on the Schreber case. Lacan finds Freud's theory about the homosexual roots of paranoia inadequate and proposes instead his own theory of foreclosure the specific mechanism of psychosis.
[edit] Paranoiac Structure
Like all clinical structures, paranoia reveals in a particularly vivid way certain basic features of the psyche.
[edit] Paranoiac Alienation
The ego has a paranoiac structure[3]
because it is the site of a paranoiac alienation.[4]
[edit] Paranoiac Knowledge
Knowledge (connaissance) itself is paranoiac.[5]
[edit] Analytic Treatment
The process of psychoanalytic treatment induces controlled paranoia into the human subject.[6]
[edit] See Also
[edit] References
- ↑ Freud, Sigmund. "Psycho-Analytic Notes on an Autobiogrpahical Account of a Case of Paranoia (Dementia Paranoides)", 1911. SE XII: 3.
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. De la psychose paranoiaque dans ses rapports avec la personalité, Paris: Navarin, 1975. [1932].
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p. 20
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p. 5
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p. 2, 3, 17
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p. 15
