A transição do princípio do prazer ao de realidade segundo Ferenczi e Spielrein

O psicanalista húngaro Sándor Ferenczi elaborou uma teoria sobre a transição do princípio do prazer ao princípio de realidade, que permite complementar e aprofundar as hipóteses freudianas sobre esses princípios. De acordo com a sua teoria, esse processo envolve uma série de estágios, ao longo dos quais, gradualmente, a diferenciação entre o eu e o mundo externo é estabelecida e o sentimento de onipotência é abandonado. Freud e Ferenczi, contudo, não focaram a questão da maneira como o desenvolvimento da linguagem verbal acompanha esse processo de transição entre os dois princípios, questão essa abordada pela psicanalista russa Sabina Spielrein. Esta autora complementa as teorias de Freud e Ferenczi, ao abordar o fenômeno em questão a partir de uma perspectiva diferente, ou seja, daquela do desenvolvimento da linguagem. Apesar da originalidade e da importância da contribuição de suas teorias para a compreensão do funcionamento mental, Ferenczi e, sobretudo, Spielrein são autores ainda pouco estudados, que merecem maior atenção e reconhecimento, o que justifica o resgate de suas teorias. Nesse artigo, abordamos algumas das hipóteses dos dois autores que permitem uma melhor compreensão do processo de diferenciação entre o eu e o mundo externo e de transição do princípio de prazer ao princípio de realidade. Nos baseamos na análise do texto de Ferenczi O Desenvolvimento do Sentido de Realidade e seus Estágios, de 1913, e nos textos de Spielrein O surgimento e o desenvolvimento da fala articulada e A origem das palavras infantis papai e mamãe, publicados, respectivamente, em 1920 e 1922.

Psychoanalysis: From Degeneration to Regeneration

This article explores the relationship of decadence and psychoanalysis in the work of four major figures: Max Nordau, Sabina Spielrein, Georg Groddeck, and Italo Svevo. Sigmund Freud and Nordau agreed on the need to launch a scientific psychology but disagreed on the relative function of disease and health in culture, the latter famously explored in Nordau’s Entartung (Degeneration; 1892–1893). Spielrein’s “Destruction as the Cause of Becoming” (1912) influenced Freud’s concept of the “death drive” while also examining the “decadent” interaction between Wagner and Nietzsche. Spielrein’s thinking, along with Otto Gross’s, influenced Georg Groddeck, from whom Freud derived the concept of the id. Groddeck’s psychoanalytical novel Der Seelensucher (The soulseeker; 1921) anticipates Svevo’s Zeno’s Conscience (1923) and Regeneration (1928), a comic play that meditates on health and disease and gives a final twist to a psychoanalytically inflected rethinking of the uses and abuses of the concept of decadence.

Rediscovering Sabina

Terror arises on the one hand from the fear of death and on the other the passion for life. In working with terror as it manifests in the transference, a challenge for the practitioner is to maintain homeostasis in its physical, intellectual, emotional and relational aspects, as terror is a strong force for tipping the balance of emotional regulation with consequences mentally and physically. This paper will explore this challenge, starting by going back to the roots of psychoanalysis and a paper written by Sabina Spielrein in 1912: “Destruction as the Cause of Coming into Being.” Building on Spielrein’s work, it will attempt to deepen understanding of her theory linking terror to the primitive sexual transference. Of particular interest is the recognition of dissociation in both patient and practitioner and working with it in the therapeutic relationship. The presence of terror and dissociation in the wider community, both currently and historically, is touched on.

Schopenhauer and the Unconscious

This chapter explores the gradual emergence of the notion of the unconscious as it pertains to the tradition that runs from Arthur Schopenhauer via Eduard von Hartmann and Philipp Mainländer to Sabina Spielrein, C. G. Jung, and Sigmund Freud. A particular focus is put on the popularization of the term “unconscious” by von Hartmann and on the history of the death drive, which has Schopenhauer’s essay “Transcendent Speculation on the Apparent Deliberateness in the Fate of the Individual” as one of its precursors. In this essay, Schopenhauer develops speculatively the notion of a universal, intelligent, supraindividual unconscious—an unconscious with a purpose related to death. But the death drive also owes its origins to Schopenhauer’s “relative nothingness,” which Mainländer adopts into his philosophy as “absolute nothingness” resulting from the “will to death.” His philosophy emphasizes death as the goal of the world and its inhabitants. This central idea had a distinctive influence on the formation of the idea of the death drive, which features in Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle.