Paranoia

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French: paranoïa
Psychosis

Paranoia is a form of psychosis characterized principally by delusions.

Sigmund Freud

Freud's experience of treating paranoiacs was limited.

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]

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."

Jacques Lacan

Lacan's interest in paranoia predates his interest in psychoanalysis.

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.

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.

Paranoiac Structure

Like all clinical structures, paranoia reveals in a particularly vivid way certain basic features of the psyche.

Paranoiac Alienation

The ego has a paranoiac structure[3] because it is the site of a paranoiac alienation.[4]

Paranoiac Knowledge

Knowledge (connaissance) itself is paranoiac.[5]

Analytic Treatment

The process of psychoanalytic treatment induces controlled paranoia into the human subject.[6]

See Also

References

  1. Freud, Sigmund. "Psycho-Analytic Notes on an Autobiogrpahical Account of a Case of Paranoia (Dementia Paranoides)", 1911. SE XII: 3.
  2. Lacan, Jacques. De la psychose paranoiaque dans ses rapports avec la personalité, Paris: Navarin, 1975. [1932].
  3. Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p. 20
  4. Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p. 5
  5. Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p. 2, 3, 17
  6. Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p. 15