Through Klein and Winnicott’s studies of solitude, the author explores their divergences, especially concerning the role of the external object and the death drive. He highlights the extent to which these studies differ in tone. Winnicott conceives of the capacity to be alone as belonging to ecstasy. His rather optimistic conception reflects the joys of shared solitude. Klein, on the other hand, never swerves from a tone of desolation and nostalgia at the very heart of non-resignation and deep authenticity.
Archives de catégorie : ENG – Solitude – Désolation – 2005 T.23 n°1
Myriam Boubli : Adhesive Identity during Adolescence: Reaction to the Second Aesthetic Shock ?
The onset of puberty confronts adolescents with a second aesthetic conflict, and gives a second chance for the elaboration of adhesive identification. This partial or major regression can reactivate autistic cores that, if elaborated, can foster development thanks to the formation of a psychical container for emotional content. If the re-elaboration of adhesive identity and that of the aesthetic conflict cannot be made jointly, the adolescent can tip towards the pathological side : various addictions, schizoid and/or autistic defenses. The passage from two dimensions to three or even four dimensions can not be organized.
Yvon Brès : Solitude: Sulking
The pangs of solitude, traditionally linked with isolation, but which may also be of a depressive kind, are liable to be associated with the childhood and adult attitude of sulking, which consists in pretending a certain kind of of pain in order to blackmail one’s neighbor. Sulking has noxious physiological effects, but also a few secondary benefits (especially apparent in Rousseau’ Rêveries du promeneur solitaire). Finally, it may trigger repressions, resulting in the disappearance of its meaning and turning “ intentional ” behavior into a set of negatively experienced symptoms. The restitution of the original meaning of such behavior may argue in favor of a psychoanalysis emphasizing the dimension of the “ subject ”.
Monique Schneider : Return to the Father and Denial of the Feminine
The biblical text of the “ Prodigal Son ”, dealing with the father-son relation, allows us to situate this relation within several different mythical fields, among them the field of psychoanalysis. Like Christianity and Indo-European culture, the theme of Don Juan in the XVIIth century will produce a rupture and introduce something new into the order of transmission. The “ nuptial home ” emerges with the return of the feminine, in the figure of Abraham, who is both masculine and feminine.
Philippe Gutton : Solitude and Desolation
In this theoretical paper, solitude is defined as an affect which expresses the gap, or the boundary, between external objects and internal objects that is wide enough to enable a subject’s creative activity. This gap is just what is critical in adolescence. Desolation is the internal void of the psyche that finds no pointers for its creativity in its environment. Desolation seems to be the basis of depressive, hallucinatory, and paranoiac psychotic processes.