A metapsicologia da defesa (1888-1895): Freud e os impasses da constituição do eu

Abstract

The problem of the constitution of the self assumed from a very early age a central role in Freud's writings on the dynamics of psychic life. In his first formulations, the impasses at the origin of the dissociation of consciousness in hysteria, added to the psychic alterations caused by this phenomenon, present us with the context in which the self is originally conceived as one of the poles of defensive conflict. This not only determines the conditions of emergence of defense neuropsychoses, but also introduces some of the functions of the self relating to the organization of psychic processes. This consists, largely, the vectors of Freud's analysis of the dynamics of representations that would lead to the formation of neuropsychoses. But it is curious to note that even without establishing its origin, Freud already anticipates the functions of the self in this analysis, giving to this instance a central place in the defense game. The impression one gets is that this movement of anticipation, which turns the self into a notion that seems to be enough in itself, integrates the construction of a much larger theoretical work. If we allow ourselves to look at the previous assumption of the existence of the self as an argument that unfolds from a broader conceptual project, a metapsychology, we will find in Freud's ambitions to conceive a scientific-naturalist psychology the continuity of this question about the genesis of the self. The difficulties that accompany the anticipation of the functions of the self in the dynamics of defense operations constitute our research problem, which was developed based on the examination of theoretical and methodological conditions that, from Freud's point of view, admit the possibility that the self be a selfsustaining assumption. At the end of this research, we understand that the defense neuropsychosis argument had the function of introducing the problem of the self into the analysis of neurotic symptoms, while a scientific-naturalistic psychology, which was under construction, would be responsible for responding to the impasses of its origin.