A histeria diante da emergência de uma nova economia psíquica: uma leitura de Freud e Melman

Abstract

Since the time when Freud began treating hysteria, considerable changes have occurred in dominant discourses circulating globally regarding the illness. This paper outlines these changes, noting that, according to Freud, hysteria resulted from a person’s unconscious struggle between repressive and defensive mechanisms in the psyche. However, Charles Melman questions whether or not the unconscious is involved in the process of developing hysteria, noting that the Freudian unconscious came at a particular moment in the evolution of culture in which freedom of expression dismissed an individual’s psychic repression. The authors of the present paper seek to reflect upon how hysteria can be seen today, what it intends to express, and how it manifests as a social symptom. Thus, we perform a careful, deconstructive reading of Freud and Melman, utilizing the two texts that specifically deal with hysteria: Studies on Hysteria (Freud) and the New Studies on Hysteria (Melman). Methodology: both texts will be analyzed through the lens of arguments draw from the book “L'Homme sans gravité - Jouir à tout prix” (Melman) which states that we witness the emergence of a new psychic economy as a result of cultural change; a different economy from the one explained by Freud, which promoted neurosis. The book also explains that today, individuals are psychically impoverished, lost, without shelter, without any ground, without gravity, unable to distinguish reality from a dream. We understand that in this scenario,hysteria is described as a way to demonstrate that such a situation is unbearable and also causes suffering to individuals, even if not justified by excessive repression. Another interesting aspect concerning our own conjecture is that hysteria seems to emerge as an expression of sensitivity and as an alternative to invigorate the contours of the impossible, restructure disoriented subjects, making the subjective division that in a certain way restores the desire and the dream of integration. Hysteria also functions as a way to continue to reclaim the restoration of the authority of the Father/Master, thus, to return to the position of subjective consistency.