Abstract

SANTA CLARA, Carlos José da Silva. Melancholia: from antiquity to Modernity - a brief historical analysis. Mental [online]. 2009, vol.7, n.13, pp.x-x. ISSN 1679-4427.

This article is a theoretical study which has the objective of making a brief review of the multiple paths traced by the melancholy throughout the history, from a conceptual point of view and from the variety of its modes of expression. The melancholy is a form of singular suffering, a subjective position or organization built around the pain involved in existing. With this literature we seek to survey the most significant theories about the illness: from its birth in the Greece with the theory of humor fluids of Hipocrates, until its dissolution in the “disorders of humor” of the psychiatry manuals and in the contemporary pharmacological speech, passing by Freud’s proposal of the new interpretation of the psychic suffering with the psychoanalytical theory.

Keywords : Melancholia; psychic suffering; history; psychiatry; psychoanalysis.

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