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Unbridled! Thoughts on times of self-begetting and violence

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis volume 81, pages 301–325 (2021)Cite this article

Abstract

Mind is multi-levelled displaying an eons-long prehistory, while as Freud well knew civilization is new and frail: in biological evolution Thanatos long antecedes Eros. Complex intraspecies interchanges in higher animals proceeding by analogic communication give a firm place to Freudian Dingvorstellungen. Self-recognition and reflective thought come exceedingly late, in apes, requiring affectionate baby-mother mirroring. Deriving from inquiry on ego-dystonic neuroses, psychoanalysis must in the Age of Media deal with ego-syntonic pathologies sporting a demise of self-observation and self-reflection: borderline, autistic and autistoid disturbances. The ‘epidemy of autism’ offers fertile ground for very early psychoanalytic intervention, here briefly illustrated clinically. But on the other side, adolescent and post-adolescent disturbances cover a range going from autistoid retraction to more and more defiant if not violent protagonistic self-begettings, often propelled by overriding feelings of victimhood: filio-parental violence is the offshoot. Postmodernist ideologies accompany and fuel such trends.

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Acknowledgements

My thanks to Prof. Dr. Roberto Doria Medina for his kind suggestions.

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  1. Av. Gral. Las Heras, 3898 3º H, 1425ATP, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Jorge L. Ahumada

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Jorge L. Ahumada, M.D., Distinguished Fellow, British Psychoanalytical Society, Supervising and Training Analyst, Argentine Psychoanalytic Association. Author and psychoanalyst in private practice, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Address correspondence to: Jorge L. Ahumada, M.D., Av. Gral. Las Heras 3898 3º H, 1425ATP Buenos Aires, Argentina. Email: ahumada.jorge@gmail.com

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Ahumada, J.L. Unbridled! Thoughts on times of self-begetting and violence. Am J Psychoanal 81, 301–325 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s11231-021-09298-8

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Keywords

  • Ethology of mind
  • Media culture
  • Dingworstellungen (thing-presentations)
  • Reversal of realities
  • Postmodernism
  • Autism
  • Primal dialogue
  • Filio-parental violence