Research on the psychological root and transmission mechanism of rumours in major epidemics based on the perspective of psychoanalysis

Since the Covid-19 epidemic, many rumours have been generated under the main theme of a whole people fighting the epidemic together. From the standpoint of depth psychology, a psychoanalytic perspective has its own advantages and unique research value on the psychological roots of rumours in major epidemics and their mechanisms of transmission, which this article discusses, along with the anxiety and fear created by the life instinct, the elements of attack and projection under the death instinct, and conjectures how the role of Lacan’s postulation that the unconscious is constituted like language all play a role as main causes of a current epidemic of rumours. The transmission mechanisms of epidemic rumours are the following: the spreading of panic caused by the interruption of emotional connection, aggressive spreading of rumours caused by hostility in processes of identification, and problems in mechanisms of projective identification, and the combined effect of audiovisual media. Furthermore, the authors make specific suggestions on how to deal with rumours in major epidemics, so as to improve understanding and response to these in cases of major epidemics.

PORNOGRAFIA, SUBJETIVIDADE E VIOLÊNCIA DE GÊNERO

Resumo: Propondo uma crítica ao discurso da pornografia como forma de libertação sexual, o presente estudo busca evidenciar, a partir de uma perspectiva psicanalítica, o papel da pornografia mainstream na construção de desejos, discursos e subjetividades. Para tanto, buscou-se analisar, por meio de revisão de literatura, o sexismo, a dominação masculina nessa indústria pornográfica e a consequente produção de estereótipos de gênero e padrões de comportamentos opressores. Visando entender também a relação de causalidade entre esse tipo de pornografia e violência de gênero, foram observadas pesquisas estatísticas que correlacionam o consumo de pornografia e comportamentos sexuais violentos. O presente artigo expõe os impactos subjetivos da pornografia mainstream por meio de seus discursos implícitos e, portanto, compreende-a como mais uma das formas de violência física e simbólica contra a mulher.Palavras-chave: Pornografia. Sexualidade. Subjetividade. Violência de gênero.Abstract: Proposing to criticize the pornographic speech as a form of sexual liberation, the present study aims to highlight, from a psychoanalytic perspective, the role of mainstream pornography in the construction of desires, discourses and subjectivities. To this end, we sought to analyze, through literature review, the sexism, the male domination in this pornographic industry and the consequent production of gender stereotypes and patterns of oppressive behaviors. In order to also understand the causality between this kind of pornography and gender-based violence, data and statistical research correlating the consumption of pornography and violent sexual behavior were investigated. This article exposes the subjective impacts of mainstream pornography through its implicit discourses and, therefore, understands pornography as a form of physical and symbolic violence against women.Keywords: Pornography. Sexuality. Subjectivity. Gender Violence.

The Conceptual Foundations of Vojin Matić's Paleopsychology in the Context of Serbian Ethnology

Vojin Matić was a leading figure in Serbian post-war psychoanalysis, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s. Paleopsychology, looked upon extremely favorably, even in a revolutionary way, by the Serbian psychoanalysts of the time, was the last and indisputably most problematic part of his oeuvre. The absence of necessary anthropological methodology, the uncritical adoption of discredited and rejected concepts (such as matriarchy), the promotion of 19th-century unilineal evolutionism viewing prehistory as the childhood of mankind – these are just some of the problems of Matić's paleopsychological oeuvre. Nevertheless, this did not prevent him from leaving an indelible imprint on the thinking of numerous generations which would go on to position Serbian psychoanalysis on the international stage. Although untenable by contemporary anthropological standards, Matić's paleopsychology is interwoven with the Serbian psychoanalysis of the 1970s and 1980s, exerting a decisive influence on its application in the humanities, from Vladeta Jerotić's psychoanalytical culturology to Zoran Gluščević's literary criticism. Matić, in turn, actively adopted some outdated positions from the Serbian ethnology of the time. By providing this broader theoretical, historical and academic context, the paper seeks to shed light not only on the occurrence of this scientifically questionable theory, but also on its (surprisingy "uncritical") acceptance outside the anthropological community. The paper therefore presents, in turn: 1) the tenets of Matić's paleopsychology, with emphasis on the features it shared with contemporary anthropology; 2) the biographical and disciplinary/historical background of paleopsycholgy in the works of world psychoanalysts and anthropologists, and in the practices of Serbian ethnology; it is pointed out that Matić's paleopsychology merely provided a psychoanalytic perspective to conventional Serbian ethnology; 3) a reading of Matić's paleopsychological system as a "strong" paranoid theory, that is to say, a theory which, through specific mechanisms os associativity and anticipation, absorbs every ethnographic, anthropological and archaeological fact, thus metastasizing into a self-contained and hermetic system (something that Matić himself noted as a possible structure of his own thinking).

The Ravages of Enforced Disappearance: A Psychoanalytic Perspective of Traumatic Events and Encrypted Mourning

In the context of violence and enforced disappearance in Mexico, the concept of mourning is recontextualized from a psychoanalytic perspective. Two themes of the psychoanalytic theory of mourning are considered: 1) the impossibility to confirm the death of the missing person and 2) the availability and purpose of symbolic resources (rites, community activities). The private and public aspects of mourning are reviewed in relation to the afflictions of the relatives of the missing. Without a body to mourn, the rites that are performed around the disappeared have a different function than funeral rites. Nuanced by repetition, these rites attempt to work through the traumatic loss. The role of search groups in working through the pain of loss is also explored. The notions of intrapsychic crypt and endocryptic identification are reviewed, to better understand the encrypted mourning -the particular state of prolonged grief- endured by the relatives of the disappeared.

Father Time

This chapter focuses on Maya Deren, once judged to be the mother of American avant-garde cinema. Three of her films—Meshes of the Afternoon, At Land, and Ritual in Transfigured Time—are studied in light of the autobiographical circumstances that motivated them. Deren’s father died shortly before she became a filmmaker; the chapter argues that the films reflect her conflicted relationship with him and her struggles to overcome them. At Land, in particular, reveals her efforts to come to terms, in the form of a quest, with her dead father. The chapter closely examines the framing, composition, and disjunctive editing of her films, and suggests, from a psychoanalytic perspective, how these formal aspects of Deren’s work can be understood to mirror her internal conflicts.