Citation

Ahumada JL. Am. J. Psychoanal. 2021; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis, Publisher Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1057/s11231-021-09298-8

PMID

unavailable

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.

Language: en

Keywords

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