The Thinking Fetus: Descartes at the Brink of Psychoanalysis

Descartes’s philosophy of the passions is central for an understanding of seventeenth-century ideas of affects and emotions and for the history of emotions overall. But does it have bearing today? In this article, I argue that Descartes raises the question of how the infantile relation to the maternal body influences the emotional life of the adult, a question that is still relevant for psychoanalysis and neuropsychology. In the philosophical scholarship on Descartes, the passages which pertain to the infant, or the fetus, and its alleged ‘confused thought’, are often quoted to demonstrate the challenges to dualism that are inherent in his own writings. However, I argue that these discussions point also to the complexity of the development of affects and emotions. In my reading, I show that Descartes’s ideas of the passions can be seen as precursory to psychoanalytic theories of object relations. This opens the way for a new trajectory of research involving fantasy, instincts and repression in the Cartesian analysis of emotions and affects.

The Psychological Makeup of Scottie’s Character in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo

This paper aims at studying the psychological makeup of Scottie’s character in Vertigo (1958), a film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and usually considered one of his masterpieces. The paper emphasizes the importance of analyzing Scottie’s character from a psychoanalytic point of view, especially the images, dreams, and schizophrenic duality of his personality. The significance of the study lies in its attempt to resolve the argument about Scottie’s story. Some critics consider this story a fictional dream that resulted from the conflict that Scottie suffered from in the past in intense psychological trauma. On the other hand, the story is a complex murder story planned by an evil character called “Gavin.” To resolve this conflict of opinion, this paper tries to explain the complexity of Scottie’s surface and analyze it according to some psychoanalytic theories and concepts such as Freud’s theory of the Unconscious, and the idea of fantasy, and the dream work. The researchers conclude that considering Vertigo a dream is one of the ways that help to resolve the conflict about Scottie’s character and the film as a whole.

The Psychological Makeup of Scottie’s Character in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo

This paper aims at studying the psychological makeup of Scottie’s character in Vertigo (1958), a film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and usually considered one of his masterpieces. The paper emphasizes the importance of analyzing Scottie’s character from a psychoanalytic point of view, especially the images, dreams, and schizophrenic duality of his personality. The significance of the study lies in its attempt to resolve the argument about Scottie’s story. Some critics consider this story a fictional dream that resulted from the conflict that Scottie suffered from in the past in intense psychological trauma. On the other hand, the story is a complex murder story planned by an evil character called “Gavin.” To resolve this conflict of opinion, this paper tries to explain the complexity of Scottie’s surface and analyze it according to some psychoanalytic theories and concepts such as Freud’s theory of the Unconscious, and the idea of fantasy, and the dream work. The researchers conclude that considering Vertigo a dream is one of the ways that help to resolve the conflict about Scottie’s character and the film as a whole.

If I Could But Choose Again, I Would Choose Wisely: A Psychoanalytic Approach To Mark Twain’s The Five Boons of Life

There are myriads of wants, wishes, and desires in the minds of human beings. However, the fulfillment of these needs is not always possible, for there are some internal and external factors governing the satisfaction of each desire. Before gratifying any needs and deciding whether or not to fulfill any request, it is crucial to examine the nature of this specific demand and consider the consequences that might eventually be brought about. The paper aims to represent the theme of repentance in The Five Boons of Life, which emerges from making wrong choices in life and the bitter consequences that follow. Further, it claims that Freud’s psychoanalytic theories can be applied to Mark Twain’s short story, The Five Boons of Life. The study is important as it may give some insights about where the regret comes from and how the human psyche works.

CONTRIBUIÇÕES PSICANALÍTICAS ACERCA DO LUTO E DA MELANCOLIA

A temática do luto e melancolia é demasiadamente importante no estudo psicanalítico e tem sido estudada desde o criador da psicanálise, Sigmund Freud, até autores contemporâneos que acrescentaram e revisaram as ideias iniciais. A perda do objeto de amor propicia ao indivíduo a experiência do luto, enquanto, na melancolia, o estado de sofrimento psíquico se dá a partir da perda ou danificação dos objetos internos sem, necessariamente, a perda de um objeto real. Os estados de luto e melancolia desencadeiam sofrimento psíquico, podendo inclusive levar o indivíduo ao patológico. O presente estudo tem como objetivo elucidar elementos presentes no luto e na melancolia e o processo de elaboração psíquica, utilizando como recurso artístico o filme Melancolia (2011) do diretor dinamarquês Lars Von Trier, articulando as teorias psicanalíticas acerca do tema, seus desdobramentos e consequências psíquicas. Para isso, utilizou-se como metodologia a revisão bibliográfica. A análise dos mecanismos encontrados na personagem Justine da obra de Lars Von Trier e suas vivências subjetivas dos processos ligados à melancolia permite avaliar importantes aspectos sobre a identificação melancólica e a temática da perda de objeto e investimentos afetivos com o mundo externo. Conclui-se que a melancolia, apesar de apresentar aspectos patológicos e prejuízos no campo afetivo e social, pode possibilitar potencialidades e saídas criativas em situações de desamparo diante da possibilidade de finitude humana, enquanto no processo de elaboração do luto envolve a escolha de um objeto substituto. PSYCHOANALYTICAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO MOURNING AND MELANCHOLY ABSTRACT The mourning and the melancholy issues are profoundly important for psychoanalytic study, and it has been studied from the creator of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud to contemporary authors who added and revised the first concepts. Losing beloved ones results in the mourning experience to the individual, whereas in melancholy the suffering mental feeling comes from losing or damaging internal objects, without necessarily losing a real object. Mourning and melancholy conditions trigger mental suffering and may even lead the individual to a pathological condition. The present study aims at elucidating mourning and melancholy elements, and the psychic elaboration process, using the film Melancolia (2011) by the Danish director Lars Von Trier as an artistic resource, articulating the psychoanalytic theories about the issue, outcomes, and psychic consequences. In this regard, the literature review was used as a methodology. The analysis of the mechanisms found in the character Justine of Lars Von Trier's artwork, and his subjective experiences of the processes related to melancholy, allows us to evaluate important aspects as concerns melancholy identification and the loss of object issue and affective investments with the external world. It is concluded that melancholy, despite presenting pathologic aspects and damages for affective and social areas, may provide potentialities and creative results for abandon situations when facing the possibility of human finitude, whereas in the natural mourning stage involves the displacement mechanism. Descriptors: Mourning. Melancholy. Movie theater. Psychoanalysis.

Mentalizing in development

In their 2003 book, Psychoanalytic Theories, Fonagy and Target observed critically that it is quite characteristic of psychological theories to have a primary concept or two with a host of meanings. This concept then serves in part as a symbol of collective endeavour. Over the past decade, they have acknowledged that this has been the case with the concept of ‘mentalizing’. To seek to understand the meanings of the concept, this chapter traces the emergence of the theory of mentalizing, the problems it was introduced to address, the theoretical perspective it encapsulated, and the clinical implications that stemmed from this perspective. It will then examine the development of the reflective functioning scale. The chapter will close with an analysis of some related ambiguities in the use of the concept of disorganized attachment by Fonagy and colleagues.

“Castration or Decapitation?” A Feminist Reading of Two Stories by Angela Carter

This article examines two stories by Angela Carter, “The Bloody Chamber” (1979) and “The Executioner’s Beautiful Daughter” (1974) to account for Carter’s unique and ambivalent dismantling of patriarchal myths. Carter conflates two patriarchal tropes, castration and decapitation, to figure the oppression of women while allowing for an avenue of resistance. Using the French version of feminism, the work of Hélène Cixous in particular, the psychoanalytic theories of Freud and Lacan, and the postmodern critique of Linda Hutcheon, the article contends that Carter uses the trope of decapitation to link beheading to loss of agency and thus to serve her project of exposing violent patriarchal and sexual structures. She utilizes decapitation to interrogate female inferiority and project its castrating impact on those women who are threatened with this punishment. Decapitation, however, becomes a means of undermining patriarchal logic from within since Carter reverses its targets and logic just as she does with castration. Carter’s act of conflating castration and decapitation and unsettling their connotations revises power structures and challenges attributing castration to men and decapitation to women, offering a postmodern critique of patriarchal fixities, oppressive boundaries, and negative gender constructions imposed on women.

Dutch Post-war Fiction Film through a Lens of Psychoanalysis

Dutch Post-war Fiction Film through a Lens of Psychoanalysis is a sequel to Humour and Irony in Dutch Post-war Fiction Film (AUP, 2016), but the two studies can be read separately. Because of the sheer variety of Fons Rademakers's oeuvre, which spans 'art' cinema and cult, genre film and historical epics, each chapter will start with one of his titles to introduce a key concept from psychoanalysis. It is an oft-voiced claim that Dutch cinema strongly adheres to realism, but psychoanalytic theories on desire and fantasy are employed to put this idea into perspective. In the vein of cinephilia, this study brings together canonical titles (ALS TWEE DRUPPELS WATER; SOLDAAT VAN ORANJE) and little gems (MONSIEUR HAWARDEN; KRACHT). It juxtaposes among others GLUCKAUF and DE VLIEGENDE HOLLANDER (on father figures); FLANAGAN and SPOORLOOS (on rabbles and heroes); DE AANSLAG and LEEDVERMAAK (on historical traumas); ANTONIA and BLUEBIRD (on aphanisis).

Introduction

The introduction provides an overarching view of the book’s questions, texts, and theoretical concerns. It moves from a concrete detailing of the physical extent of geographical space the Roman empire added in the late Republic and in the Augustan age to a consideration of the effects that such an expansive increase in territory might have on a people’s worldview, relying on theories of cartography and the psychoanalytic theories of Jacques Lacan in conjunction with questions about how Romans conceptualized their world and what light the (no-longer-extant) late first-century BCE or early first-century CE map of Agrippa can shed on it. The emphasis of the inquiry is on the subject in Latin elegy (including Catullus) in poems that turn out to be chock full of geographical references. The book traces the different ways in which, and the varying consequences with which, the elegiac subject encounters the space of empire depending on gender in the works of Catullus, Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid.

ТHE CONCEPT AND DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNAL AUTHORITY

The problems of relations of authority and power, authority and violence, authority and security in today's world point to the need to continually write about and discuss the authority. The paper proceeds from the ontological understanding of authority as a voluntary activity that is done because the actor believes the other person will watch their activity with approval. After that the results of research on the relationship of authority and obedience are problematized, and the question is raised about reasons for rejecting obedience. The difference of internal and external authorities is introduced and then analysed the emergence and development of the internal authority according to psychoanalytic theories. It turns out that the internal authority is attached to the inner true being of man and is based on caring for other people. Development of internal authority can set us free of coercion of outside authorities and help in coping and fight against human destructiveness.