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The [[concept ]] of disorganization is not specifically [[Freudian]]. It is part of a semantic field that constitutes one of the contemporary currents of [[psychoanalysis]], namely the [[psychosomatic ]] [[economy ]] of Pierre Marty. It refers to a set of [[mental ]] transformations, which at each step [[cause ]] the [[psychic ]] [[apparatus ]] to lose its [[structures ]] of [[meaning ]] and reduce its capacity for impulse expression.

We find similar [[concepts ]] in [[Freud]], primarily in his [[work ]] on actual and [[traumatic ]] [[neurosis]]. In 1894, in Manuscript E on [[anxiety ]] (1950a), and in 1895, in his article, "Detaching a Syndrome of Anxiety Neurosis from Neurasthenia" (1895b), he created a new classificatory entity, [[anxiety neurosis]], for which he provided a [[clinical ]] description and formulated a [[psychological ]] hypothesis. His hypothesis involves a breakdown in the connection between somatic [[sexual ]] [[excitation ]] and "[[thing ]] representations" in the [[unconscious]]. The first anxiety [[theory ]] postulates the accumulation of somatic sexual excitation. Among the psychic obstacles to somatopsychic [[communication]], Freud gives [[three ]] possible mechanisms: [[repression]], the [[difference ]] between somatic [[sexuality ]] and psychic sexuality, and degradation (of the [[libido]]). This last [[mechanism ]] can be compared to the concept of disorganization. In 1920, in his essay, Beyond the [[Pleasure ]] [[Principle ]] (1920g), Freud developed his [[economic ]] hypotheses concerning [[traumatic neurosis]]. He states that, faced with the traumatic irruption, "Cathectic [[energy ]] is summoned from all sides to provide sufficiently high [[cathexes ]] of energy in the environs of the breach. An '[[anticathexis]]' on a grand scale is set up, for whose benefit all the [[other ]] [[psychical ]] systems are impoverished, so that the remaining psychical functions are extensively paralysed or reduced" (p. 30).

Since Freud we have come to [[understand ]] actual neurosis as one of the modalities of traumatic neurosis, and its [[psychoanalytic ]] study is a major component of the [[analysis ]] of psychosomatic [[behavior]].

In 1967, in an article titled "Régression et [[instinct ]] de [[mort]]: Hypothèsesà propos de l'observation psychosomatique," Marty systematically described for the first [[time ]] the two major [[processes ]] of somatization: the path of [[regression ]] and the path of progressive disorganization. While the [[process ]] of somatization through regression culminates in reversible "crises," the process of somatization through progressive disorganization leads to progressive illnesses that can result in [[death]]. This last process is supported, according to Marty, by the [[action ]] of the [[death instinct ]] and is generally accompanied by [[depression ]] and an externalized mode of [[existence]].

In Les mouvements individuels de vie et de mort in 1976 and in L'[[ordre ]] psychosomatique in 1980, Marty situated the concept of disorganization within the general framework of his theory of [[individual ]] evolution, which refers to the counter-evolutionary movement caused by the precedence of the death [[drive ]] over the [[life ]] drive. This [[apparent ]] precedence is generated by a traumatic context that has an impact on what is generally the psychic organization of [[character]]. The process of disorganization is generally made possible by the [[lack ]] of points of [[fixation ]] capable of serving as psychic and somatic obstacles. Consequently, the concept of disorganization is distinct from that of regression, with its points of fixation, or attachment.

See also: Disintegration, [[feelings ]] of, ([[anxieties]]); Essential depression; Mentalization; Psychogenesis/organogenesis; Psychosomatic; Regression; Traumatic neurosis.[[Bibliography]]