Abstract

RUTSATZ, Patricia  and  MACEDO, Mônica Medeiros Kother. The place of drug addiction in the economy of psychic pain. Psicol. clin. [online]. 2015, vol.27, n.2, pp. 229-247. ISSN 0103-5665.

The issue of legal and illicit substance abuse is assuming alarming proportions. Brazil faces profound difficulties relating to the promotion and implementation of effective solutions regarding the challenge of drug addiction. From a psychoanalytic perspective, the use of toxic substances can be understood as a possible human means of relieving psychic pain. The contemporary scenario shows repetitive compulsive use of intoxication as a poor way to tackle the problem. The compulsion for drugs, coupled with this reading that discusses the psychic pain nowadays, explains the fragile resources from the self to process the pain in the intrapsychic field. This narrative review, from theoretical contributions, seeks to address the relationship between drug abuse and forms of psychic economy prevalent in contemporary society. As such, the Freudian concepts of "satisfaction experience" and "pain experience" as constitutive human experiences are revisited. They explore the traumatic intensity given these experiences of predominantly destructive character in the structuring of self and its’ psychic investment.

Keywords : substance abuse; psychic pain; traumatic excess; I conditions.

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