Melancholic Psychosis—A Lacanian Approach

DOI

10.1080/10481885.2018.1482154

Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

7-4-2018

Publication Title

Psychoanalytic Dialogues

Volume

28

Issue

4

First Page

466

Last Page

480

ISSN

10481885

Abstract

Drawing on the conceptual resources provided by Lacanian accounts of melancholia and the death drive, and by means of reference to a clinical case summary and the film Into the Wild, this paper hopes to open up new ways of thinking about melancholic psychosis. The paper foregrounds a series of clinical themes that may be grouped under the rubric of “problems in symbolic fixit”: difficulties in receiving gifts, inability to mediate relations of intimacy, yearning for anonymity/disappearance, and the condition of the twilight world. These themes, while not obviously associated with Freud’s account of melancholia, represent areas of diagnostic priority for a Lacanian approach attuned to the role of symbolic processes and the traumatic “real” object.

Open Access

Green Accepted

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