Abstract

SILVA, Magali Milene. Freud and Civilization and its discontents at present time. Analytica [online]. 2012, vol.1, n.1, pp. 45-72. ISSN 2316-5197.

Today, the clinical manifestations of psychological distress are quite different from the paralysis and neuralgia encountered by Freud in the treatment of hysterical patients. The most common complaints of patients include clinical symptoms such as eating disorders (anorexia and bulimia), drug and alcohol addiction, psychosomatic manifestations, excessive consumption of medications, among others. This contrast leads us to ask whether these changes in the expression of psychological distress suggest that psychoanalysis, as Freud proposed, is outdated and thus inadequate to address current clinical issues. In fact, this study aims to develop the opposite idea. The purpose of this paper is to specifically defend the relevance of the Freudian proposal presented in the book "Civilization and its discontents", from 1929-1930, aiming to situate the discontent inherent in culture in its different periods, although with different forms of expression. Zygmunt Bauman, author dedicated to studying the contemporary world, considering it a new era - postmodernity, develops in one of his books a dialogue with Freud's text, placing the current society as quite different from that of Freud's time. In the book, "Postmodernity and its discontents", Bauman talks about an imperative drive for consumption and demand for satisfaction as an implicit order in our contemporary society and proposes to discuss the effects of this imperative drive in postmodern man; contrasting with the imperative of self-denial and restraint, social theme of modernity. What is observed, however, is that the discontent persists. The discussion raised by the paper points out the radical character and timelessness of the discontent reported by Freud as inherent in culture, supporting the hypothesis that the specificities of the contemporary context that sometimes appear under the name of postmodernity express our culture's responses to the discontent, and not changes in its configuration - the inadequacy of man in the world persists, as described by Freud.

Keywords : Present time; discontent; helplessness; psychoanalysis; Freud.

        · abstract in Portuguese | French | Spanish     · text in Portuguese     · Portuguese ( pdf )