A concepção freudiana de melancolia - Faculdades FIO

ABSTRACTTEIXEIRA, M. A. R. Freudian’s conception of melancholy: elements for ametapsychology of melancholic mental states. Dissertation (master). Faculdade deCiências e Letras de Assis. UNESP, 2007, 186 f.Abstract: Nowadays depression is a much discussed issue. The occurrence of depression isso widespread that we may think it as rare to find a person who has not undergone throughdepression periods or has not had any direct or indirect contact with this phenomenon. Ourresearch interest has been motivated by questions related to depression states and thepsychoanalysis theoretical referential framework. It is well known that Freud inaugurated thestudies about depression states by his statements on melancholy presented in his articleMourning and melancholia (Trauer und melancolie 1917[1915]). This work has become thebasic reference for any scholar who intends a comprehension of the depression states within apsychoanalysis framework. We started our study with a through examination of Freud’sarticle and elected the melancholic elements (the articulation of narcissistic organization andambivalence) as the main object of our investigation aiming at apprehending Freud’sconceptions on melancholy. We have maintained the field of Freudian metapsychology as ourmain reference frame. We realize that a study about melancholy in terms of metapsychologyhas turned out to be a study about the constitution and functioning of the psychic life as awhole. Consequently we also noted that the depression states have become the originatingparadigm of psychoanalysis and that the idea of separation or loss of the mother’s breast hasbecome the model accepted as a whole by psychoanalysis to comprehend ego birth momentby some and its integration by others. What is common is that the moment of discriminationbetween the ego and the external world is brought about by loss and depressiveness, leadingto a mutation which extends from the pleasure principle to the reality principle, or better yetform narcissism to object investment. The depression states then should not be always takenas pathological, a common procedure in medicine science, but should be seen as constituentsof the human mind assuming a determined function in it. In addition to this we formulate theexistence of a melancholic mental state in non pathological functioning, characterized byactions of psychic process pertaining to melancholia – narcissistic vinculum, loss (trauma)narcissistic identification and attractive ambivalence. The work presented here also includes anarrative and an analysis of the history of melancholy since Classical Age and also adiscussion about the terms “depression” and “melancholia” in Freud and in contemporarypsychoanalysis.key-words: melancholia, mental depression, mourning, Freudian psychoanalysis,metapsychology, narcissism9