Beyond representation? Some metapsychological remarks: A comment on Howard Levine’s paper

Journal title PSICOTERAPIA E SCIENZE UMANE
Author/s Davide Cavagna
Publishing Year 2021 Issue 2021/4
Language Italian Pages 11 P. 594-604 File size 329 KB
DOI 10.3280/PU2021-004003
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After an epistemological reflection on the necessity of a metapsychology for psychoanalysis, it is pointed out that Howard B. Levine’s (2021) representational hypothesis on the problem of trauma leads to rethinking its economic dimension in particular; this is especially true in the light of Freud’s last theoretical developments around the concept of trauma and of the technical difficulties of a treatment based only on historical reconstruction. To the extent that trauma is linked to processes of psychic unbinding, it is important to develop a technique apt to repair and reconstruct the symbolic capacities of the patient’s ego because of the severity of its structural impairment. Such a reflection implies fundamental questions on the validity of those approaches which, whether they emphasize the representational component or the affective one, are limited to pursuing only hermeneutic or cathartic purposes.

Keywords: Trauma; Metapsychology; Economic point of view in Freudian metapsychology; Psychoanalytic technique; Psychic binding/unbinding

  • L'irrappresentabile ombelico del trauma. Sul dibattito scaturito dall'articolo di Howard B. Levine Francesco Giglio, in PSICOTERAPIA E SCIENZE UMANE 1/2022 pp.131
    DOI: 10.3280/PU2022-001015

Davide Cavagna, Al di là della rappresentazione? Alcune osservazioni metapsicologiche: commento all’articolo di Howard Levine in "PSICOTERAPIA E SCIENZE UMANE" 4/2021, pp 594-604, DOI: 10.3280/PU2021-004003