24,656
edits
Changes
no edit summary
|| [[German]]: ''[[Psychose{{Bottom}}
[[Psychosis]] is a nosological category distinct from [[neurosis]] and [[perversion]]. It is brought about by the [[foreclosure]] of a primordial [[signifier]], the [[Name-of-the-Father]].
In his seminar of 1955-56 ([[Seminar III|Seminar III, ''The Psychoses'']]), Lacan argues that there is a [[defense mechanism]] specific to [[psychosis]] on the grounds that the peculiarly invasive and devastating nature of psychotics' delusional systems and hallucinations indicates major structural differences between [[psychosis]] and [[neurosis]].
<!--
The term [[psychosis]] is used in many ways, but in general refers to people suffering from so-called [[schizophrenia]], with [[hallucination]]s and [[delusion]]s; manic depression; various [[paranoia|paranoid states]]; and severe hypochondrial, [[obsessional neurosis|obsessional]], or [[narcissism|narcissistic states]]. The term "[[psychosis]]" is used in [[psychoanalysis]] to describe a ''severe mental disorder'', more serious than [[neurosis]], characterized by disorganized thought processes, disorientation in [[time]] and [[space]], [[hallucination]]s, and [[delusion]]s. Types of [[psychosis]] include [[paranoia]], [[manic depression]], [[megalomania]], and [[schizophrenia]]. [[Psychosis]] has many different forms: [[paranoia]], [[schizophrenia]], and [[manic-depression]]. Common features are difficult to define exactly, but psychoanalytically speaking one can see three broad features in psychotic patients:
# A special relation of the subject to his speech;
# A particular structure of the subject
-->
==Sigmund Freud==
It is true that Freud had found that the discourse of the psychotic and the apparently bizarre and meaningless phenomena of psychosis could be deciphered and understood, just as dreams can. Freud's analysis of the psychotic Schreber's memoirs thus broke with contemporary approaches to psychosis, which regarded psychotics as beyond the limits of understanding (Freud, 1951).
However, as Lacan points out, the fact that the psychotic's discourse is just as interpretable as that of the neurotic leaves the two disorders at the same level and fails to account for the major differences between them, thus the distinction between the two remains to be explained. It is around this issue of the different mechanisms in psychosis and neurosis that Lacan's major contribution to the study of psychosis revolves.
Freud claims that in both neurosis and psychosis there is a withdrawal of investment, or object-cathexis, from objects in the world. In the case of neurosis the object-cathexis is retained, but is invested in fantasized objects in the neurotic's internal world. In the case of psychosis the withdrawn cathexis is invested in the ego at the expense of all object-cathexes, even in fantasy. This turning of libido upon the ego accounts for symptoms such as hypochondria and megalomania. The delusional system, the most striking feature of psychosis, arises in a second stage. Freud characterizes the construction of a delusional system as an attempt at recovery in which the psychotic re-establishes a new, often very intense, relation with the people and things in the world by way of a delusional formation.
==Jacques Lacan==
===History===
[[Lacan]] discussed [[psychosis]] throughout his [[Jacques Lacan:Bibliography|work]]. His interest in [[psychosis]] predates his interest in [[psychoanalysis]]. [[Jacques Lacan]] studied [[psychosis]] for his doctoral research about a [[woman]] he calls "[[Aimee]]."<ref>{{1932}}</ref> Indeed it was his doctoral research, which concerned a [[psychotic]] [[woman]] whom [[Lacan]] calls [[Aimée]] that first led [[Lacan]] to [[psychoanalytic theory]].<ref>{{1932}}</ref> It is common to comapre compare [[Lacan]]'s totured tortured and at times almost incomprehensible style of writing and speaking to the discourse of [[psychotic]] [[patient]]s. [[Lacan]]'s discussions of [[psychosis]] are among the most signiifncant significant and original aspects of his work. [[Lacan]]'s most detailed discussion of [[psychosis]] appears in his [[seminar]] of 1955-6, entitled simply ''[[Seminar III|The Psychoses]]''. It is here that he exponds expounds what come to be the main tenets of the [[Lacan]]ian approach to [[madness]].
===Clinical Structure===
