Abstract

MEDEIROS, Alberto Antunes  and  CALAZANS, Roberto. Depression in Freud: an analysis of the concept from the Freudian theory of libido. Tempo psicanal. [online]. 2021, vol.53, n.1, pp. 108-125. ISSN 0101-4838.

The article proposes an analysis of the concept of depression in the light of the Freudian theory of libido. For this endeavor, we first performed an immersion in the Freudian texts in order to trace the use of the concept. This direction shows us a precise association between depression and inhibition as the subject's response to distress. Subsequently, the libidinal device appears as the tool that allows to operate a differential diagnosis between a depression that can be defined as neurotic, presenting in the form of inhibition and a melancholic depression, which presents from a deletion of the subject as a function of an identification with a lost object. Finally, it is possible to observe that psychoanalysis presents itself as an alternative to think about the depressive states that present themselves in the clinic insofar as it considers them from the notion of desire. In this context, depression assumes the perspective of a response of the subject, and can be thought beyond neurobiological disorders and drug treatments.

Keywords : Depression; psychoanalysis; mourning; melancholia; libido.

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